Land acknowledgement: Pending approval by the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania

Colonization and Penn State Abington

The purpose of the session "Colonization and Penn State Abington" is to consider how colonization is often normalized across institutional spaces. The panel is part of Delilah Jabbour's honors thesis. As such, some of the presentation was redacted to adhere to IRB protocol. Jabbour's work examined the The Ogontz Archive Room, which was located at Penn State University, Abington College's library as of 2023. These archives detailed the curriculum, pedagogy, and everyday norms of The Ogontz School for Young Ladies, which was a prominent force in female private education at the time. Penn State Abington, formerly known as "Penn State Ogontz," did not publicly take into account histories of colonization as they were related to the title "Ogontz," or similar relationships with the School for Young Ladies. This panel serves as an important reminder of historical norms and values, the way such histories become the unquestioned tapestry of contemporary society, and how each generation might lend their critical interpretation of such histories in service of questions of inclusion, equity, and belonging. 

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