Wednesday, October 25, 2023 | 9:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Presenters (CSU Fort Collins):
Dr. Lumina S. Albert
Dr. Tianyang Wang
Dr. Hong Miao
Ali Raza
Colorado State University (CSU) faces significant challenges that hinder recruiting, retaining, and promoting faculty and staff of color. Despite expanded diversity and training programs, several faculty and staff of color at CSU have indicated experiencing significant challenges that hinder career advancement. These experiences often lead to their seeking opportunities elsewhere and eventually exiting CSU. Moreover, faculty and staff of color continue to experience discrimination, marginalization, racial bias, and micro-aggressions, which go unaddressed and unresolved. The current proposal highlights ‘interpersonal advocacy’ as an essential and strategic institutional and collective priority to help community members support faculty and staff of color when they experience discrimination, loss of career opportunities and marginalization. We show how advocacy has effectively retained and promoted faculty and staff of color by providing anecdotal evidence and discussing our personal life stories, events, and experiences. In this session, we will use discussions, role-playing, and reflection exercises to guide community members to become better advocates.
Presenter (CSU Fort Collins):
Lillian Nugent
Transportation and commuting should not be why we fail to recruit and retain the best employees or students at Colorado State University. We all commute (or telecommute) to CSU daily, yet transportation is often disregarded as an inflexible, sunk cost. Transportation is the ultimate measurement of how welcome a student, employee, or visitor perceives CSU. A brief presentation will share current efforts to engage students and employees when they are recruited and matriculate at CSU.
A panel discussion will be held to explore the following learning objectives:
- How CSU supports employee and student commuters today
- Understanding transportation barriers to equitable access and mobility
- The importance of evaluating personal housing and transportation expenses together
- Inclusive physical design features to support commuters at CSU
- Actions to improve transportation safety and circulation
Presenters (CSU Pueblo):
Molly Becker
Shelby Bitz
Pursuing higher education challenges students by engaging them in rigorous academic exploration and courageous personal development. This environment is uniquely impactful on students belonging to STEM disciplines. The Mentoring Access Platforms in STEM (MAPS) Grant is a Title III, Part F Department of Education HSI STEM program at Colorado State University Pueblo. Our impassioned task is to support low-income, first-generation, Latinx, and historically underrepresented minority student populations in high-impact programming to increase their academic success. This work includes supporting undergraduate students through paid research opportunities, internship programs, professional development, tutoring support, and other programs and resources. This work also includes holistic student support. As such, The MAPS Center for STEM Support was proudly created to directly address STEM students’ mental health/wellness concerns and advance justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) efforts in the STEM College.
Through an engaging lecture-style presentation, The Center for STEM Support (CSS) staff will provide detailed information on the development of the CSS, the students we serve, inclusive programming efforts, etc.
11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
REGISTER TO ATTEND AT CSU FORT COLLINS, LORY STUDENT CENTER Theatre (Limited Spaces Available)
11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Light Refreshments 11:00 a.m.
Program Begins at 11:30 p.m.
Join us at the SWANA presentation as we proudly present a captivating session focused on the work done recently in the community. For years, work has been trying to be done to champion the rights and representation of this underrepresented community, bringing forth meaningful change and fostering inclusivity on campus. This presentation will shed light on the remarkable work accomplished so far, highlighting its transformative impact on the lives of CSU and Fort Collins individuals.
Service is highlighted as one of the Colorado State University Principles of Community, naming that, “We are responsible, individually and collectively, to give of our time, talents and resources to promote the well-being of each other and the development of our local, regional and global communities.” Further, CSU is an emerging Hispanic SERVING Institution (HSI). As we grow, our leadership styles, too, must grow. For us to truly become an HSI our leaders will need to center servingness, particularly community servingness. As an intersectional feminiist approach, comadre leadership does just that, by prioritizing our connection, our shared needs, our collective responsibility, and service to one another. Through story and pragmatic guidance, this presentation will encourage us to dream of leadership that centers our humanity and our community.
Dr. Shannon Archibeque-Engle, Colorado State University Associate Vice President for Inclusive Excellence, is committed to fostering an equitable learning environment for students, faculty, and staff through education and evidence-based practices.
Molly will share examples of inclusive practices in statistical and research methods courses, emphasizing the motivation and need to change traditional ways of teaching in these classrooms.
Dr. Molly Gutilla (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Public Health at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. She attended The Ohio State University earning BS and MS degrees and completed a DrPH at the University of Colorado. Molly is an epidemiologist specifically interested in health justice, health in rural areas, methods of community health assessment, and research ethics.
Dr. Hufbauer will talk about the role of faculty success in the academy and what we in the Faculty Success program are doing to improve the recruitment and retention of a diverse and thriving faculty at CSU.
Dr. Hufbauer is a professor who studies the evolutionary ecology of invasive plants and insects and the conservation of populations at risk. She also serves as the Director of the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. As the Lead PI of the NSF ADVANCE grant that is the foundation of the Faculty Success program, she works campus-wide to help implement evidence-based approaches to equity and inclusion on the faculty, informed by CSU-specific data.
The presentation will be about my research and practice using design as a tool to transform and create social impact.
Roberto is a Brazilian Graphic Designer with significant accomplishments in graphic design, branding, art direction, and design management. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design from PUC-Rio, and a Master’s in Design Management from The University of Kansas., and has more than 20 years of experience working in different design areas, from small design studios to big communication groups.
A new effort at CSU, the Multifaith and Believe Initiatives, promotes religious, spiritual, and secular identity exploration, development, well-being, and cooperative engagement across differences. The initiatives are aimed to transform our campus into a proactive civic space that prioritizes religious and belief-diversity and fosters productive engagement through dialogue, relationships, programs, and policy. Benefits to the university community include making good on our inclusive mission, recruiting and retaining a diverse student, faculty, and staff community, and advancing health and well-being efforts by expanding opportunities for exploring beliefs, values, meaning, and purpose. Regardless of discipline or career path, governments, employers and communities need citizens who can initiate, facilitate, and skillfully guide difficult yet transformative conversations across contentious social issues. To do this counter-cultural work, the Multifaith and Belief Initiatives are tooling up the CSU community to be bridge builders with knowledge, practices, and skills that help them engage across deep divides. The talk will briefly examine how CSU student, faculty and staff bridge builders are developing skills to listen, understand, seek common ground, and work with others across deep differences.
Elizabeth Sink is a Master Teaching Instructor in Communication Studies passionate about facilitating healthy engagement across diverse identities. Her current scholarship and curriculum development advances inclusive communication and constructive engagement between people who orient around religious and non-religious beliefs differently. Additionally, she is currently working with a talented task force across the university to build CSU’s Multifaith and Belief Initiatives, aimed at focusing greater attention on diverse spiritual, religious and secular (non-religious) belief identities by educating, programming, celebrating, providing spiritual well-being resources and promoting constructive engagement across belief differences.
Presenter (CSU Fort Collins:
Maggie Hendrickson
This session is designed as an affinity space for LGBTQIA+ faculty, staff, and graduate students to openly discuss our experiences as queer and trans employees at CSU, with the purpose of building relationships across campus and identifying priorities for current and future advocacy work through the CSU LGBTQIA+ Employee Network.
Presenter (CSU Pueblo):
Claire Schad
Providing mutual aid and approaching community resiliency with an equity-first approach are cornerstones within social work. Utilizing music as a community connector strengthens relationships between individuals who represent unique forms of intersectionality through their own lived experiences. This presentation will review the process of creating a community-based music therapy program informed by conceptual frameworks learned through a Master of Social Work curriculum to bridge gaps in the community of Pueblo, CO. There will be a combination of a lecture and experiential element with interwoven discussion prompts. The lecture will primarily focus on the development of the program, how it was implemented, and its status at the time of the presentation. The experiential element will provide an example of a music therapy intervention utilized in the program setting. The facilitator will illustrate how music therapy theory (Resource Oriented Music Therapy) and social work theory (Solution-focused Approach and Systems Theory) are applied within the community. Prompts to encourage discussion and time for closing reflection will be included to encourage conversation within the group.
Presenters (CSU Fort Collins):
Ember Bradbury
The systems of harm that inflict violence on the land through industrial agriculture, fossil fuel extraction, and the colonial perception of human dominance over other beings are the same systems that create and perpetuate gender-based violence. As an ecologist and survivor advocate, I see that not only is the source of harm the same in both ecosystem degradation and gender-based violence, but that healing needs to happen concurrently. In this workshop, I will articulate the root of these harms and offer strategies for healing from them simultaneously. I will demonstrate that to be in a healthy relationship with the land, we have to be in a healthy relationship with each other and will guide participants through ways to offer verbal, resource-based, and embodied support, particularly to survivors of gender-based violence. I will offer epistemological and methodological healing contexts and guide participants through grounding exercises for ecological embodiment.
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Presenters (CSU Fort Collins):
Penny Gonzales-Soto
Amy Cailene
John Henderson
To effectively support CSU students who are undocumented requires awareness of the many contributions they make to the campus and their unique and powerful stories. It also requires knowledge of the challenges they face (and their families) in the broader socio/political context, that is ever-changing and ultimately, located on a foundation of oppression, discrimination, white supremacy, and the list of systemic obstacles and challenges goes on. Our students who are undocumented have also been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and its continued impacts and the limited availability of resources to support them while at CSU and when considering their transition to career opportunities. In this interactive session that includes discussion prompts and encourages questions, learn about research and ever-changing legal developments (that are in constant flux and highly politized) that will impact these students and hear directly from students who are undocumented to determine how you can be supportive.
Alexis Gomez, M.S (she/her/ella) is a Career Education Manager for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiatives in the Career Center at Colorado State University. Alexis identifies as Chicana and first generation. She is the eldest daughter of immigrants and comes from a mixed-status family. In her role, she oversees the Ontiveros Inclusive Fellowship Program, which predominately serves students who are undocumented. Dr. Susana M. Muñoz is Associate Professor in the Higher Education Leadership (HEL) Program, in the School of Education at Colorado State University (CSU). Her scholarly interests center on the experiences of minoritized populations in higher education. Specifically, she focuses her research on issues of equity, identity, and campus climate for undocumented Latinx students while employing perspectives such as legal violence, racist nativism, Chicana feminist epistemology to identify and dismantle power, oppression, and inequities experienced by these populations.
Presenter (CSU Fort Collins):
Rachel Wada
Racial and ethnic demographic data collection is commonplace in higher education spaces, but many who encounter these questions repeatedly ask themselves “which box(es) should I check?” Folx struggle to answer this question because the boxes and options that currently exist do not and cannot capture the intricacies of their identities and lived experiences. In this session, we will explore how higher education institutions are required to report ethnic and racial data (IPEDS) and why more expansive racial and ethnic data collection is important. The presenter will also share how CSU’s Asian Pacific American Cultural Center approaches racial and ethnic demographic data collection and how they use the data they collect. This session will also have space for small group conversations and brainstorming around more inclusive demographic data collection.
Presenter (CSU Fort Collins):
Elizabeth Sink
In this engaging workshop, participants will first be guided in self-reflection how one’s own intersectional identities provide capacity and motivation to build bridges across differences of belief. The latter part of this session will be an invitation for small group sharing about stories, motivations, hesitations and competencies for bridge building. This session draws on the “Bridging the Gap” program from Interfaith America, designed to reduce the polarization in our country by giving students, faculty, and administrators the skills they need to find common ground across deep divides while solving problems on their campuses and in their communities.
3:45 - 5:00 p.m.
Presenter (CSU Fort Collins):
Drew White-Jacobson
As we strive for a more equitable world through our thoughts and actions, I would argue that the disability community is being left behind. Federal mandates have created many inclusive norms; however, we do not make conscious decisions to elevate the status quo. Neurodiversity: natural differences in human brain function and cognition, is prevalent in our personal and professional lives, yet many of us are unaware of this term. In 2020, my son was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This diagnosis required me to become well-versed in ASD, disability education, laws, and advocacy and led me to the neurodiverse community. This research shifted my paradigms around learning disability education and accommodations while catalyzing acceptance of my own disability. My transformative experience has empowered me to form the Autism Advocacy Organization, a grassroots movement that aims to promote education and support services for the neurodiverse community. By sharing my journey, introducing neurodiversity, and having a dialogue about our perceptions, I hope to shed light on this topic, explore what we can do in our daily lives to be more inclusive to the neurodiverse community, and perhaps identify ourselves within it.
Presenters:
Trenten Robinson
Meetings are the bane of many employees’ work days. However, what if there are strategies you can use to promote better participation and inclusivity in meetings while also bolstering your meeting facilitation skills? Join this session to learn about and practice inclusive meeting facilitation techniques applicable to your work, school, and home environments.
Using interactive presentation materials, I will host a workshop discussing strategies for meeting facilitation that promote participation from diverse meeting participants. These skills are universally useful for anyone who has to run meetings for their work.
Proposed Schedule
- 15 Minutes – Basics of Inclusive Facilitation (presentation and group discussion of basic meeting skills while reflecting on inclusivity topics)
- 25 Minutes – Making Facilitation Inclusive (presentation and group discussion on making traditional meeting tools and strategies inclusive)
- 20 Minutes – Practice Inclusive Facilitation (Participants are grouped and provided instructions to practice applying inclusive facilitation techniques with my support)
- 30 Minutes – Q&A, Examples from Meetings
5:00 - 6:30 P.M. | LSC Theater & Online
“Politics, Transgender Rights, and Democratic Health”
A hallmark of authoritarian politics is the curtailment of the rights and freedoms of minority populations. Historically, people whose gender identity and/or sexual orientation challenge cultural norms have been targeted politically. Recently, legislation has been increasing that infringes on the medical, civil, and political rights and well-being of transgender people in states nationwide. In response, other states are passing laws to protect LGBTQ+ people. This panel will discuss transgender politics and democratic health with two trans experts. Erin Reed is an independent journalist and author of the Anti-Trans Legislative Risk Assessment Map, which tracks legislation impacting trans people in state legislatures. Representative Zooey Zephyr is the state Representative for Montana’s 100th House District and the first trans woman to hold public office in Montana. In 2023, Representative Zephyr made national news when the state’s Republican supermajority banned her from the House floor due to her advocacy for trans people and her constituents. Panelists will discuss why reactionary politicians frequently target LGBTQ+ people and how attacks on trans people’s civil rights undermine democratic health. They will also share how they cultivate queer joy during extreme political precarity.
Please note: Tickets are required for this event. Please allow extra time when arriving for security screening.
Just added! Colorado Representative Brianna Titone, the state’s first transgender lawmaker.
Please note tickets are required for this event. Here is additional event information:
* Doors open at 4pm
* NO BAG POLICY
* There will be metal detectors
