LINCS Scholars Program

The LINCS Scholars Program Presents: Play the Game

The LINCS Scholars Program invites the Spelman College community to an engaging public lecture with Dr. Robert Livingston, a renowned race scholar and faculty member at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Livingston is the acclaimed author of The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth About Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations and his new book, Play the Game, Change the Game, Leave the Game: Pathways to Black Empowerment, Prosperity, and Joy.

The lecture will take place on Tuesday, September 30, 2025, at 11 a.m. in NASA Auditorium (SCI 134) at Spelman College, located in the Albro-Falconer-Manley Science Center. This event is free and open to the public.

Robert Livingston is a race scholar who serves on the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is the author of The Conversation, selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2021 and nominated for a 2022 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Achievement. His research has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, and Harvard Business Review. For over two decades, he has been a diversity consultant to more than a hundred Fortune 500 companies, public-sector agencies, and non-profit organizations.

In this thought-provoking talk, Dr. Livingston will share insights from his latest work, which challenges traditional approaches to racial equity and instead centers pathways for Black empowerment, purpose, and prosperity. Drawing from social science research, personal experience, and interviews with trailblazing leaders such as Angela Davis, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Colin Kaepernick, Dr. Livingston outlines three strategies, play the game, change the game, or leave the game, as ways to navigate and transcend systems shaped by White supremacy.

LINCS Scholars Program Activities

The LINCS Scholars Program actively engages our scholars in mission-driven activities throughout the academic year. Some of these activities include:

• Strategic Career Advancement Planning
• Scholarly Papers and Reading Clubs (Sisters in Science, Presumed Incompetent, Algorithms of Oppression)
• Campus-wide STEM Events (Hidden Figures, Food Justice, Research Day)
• Mentoring Moments and Monthly Meetings with Directors
• Vlog Submissions
• Bonding Activities/trips (Seattle, WA, MIT Quantitative Biology Workshop)