To have your diversity, equity and inclusion-related event featured on this page, contact diversitymatters@umich.edu.
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Feb 19
Pan-African Pulp: A Commission by Meleko Mokgosi
11:00am, Museum of Art
In Pan-African Pulp, Botswana-born artist Meleko Mokgosi explores the history of Pan-Africanism, the global movement to unite ethnic groups of sub-Saharan African descent. His Vertical Gallery installation, which inaugurates a new biennial commission program at UMMA, features large-scale panels inspired by African photo novels of the 1960s and ’70s, a mural examining the complexity of blackness, posters from Pan-African movements from around the world, including those founded in Detroit and Africa in the 1960s, and stories from Setswana literature. Pan-African Pulp vividly connects to Detroit’s deep history of activism, where organizations such as Black Nation of Islam, The Republic of New Afrika, Shrine of the Black Madonna (Black Christian Nationalism), Pan-African Congress, and United Negro Improvement Association were founded. The renewed urgency for diversity and civil rights in Detroit, and the country as a whole, heightens the relevance of Mokgosi’s project and reveals the deep connections between these historical movements and those developing today. Lead support is provided by Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan African Studies Center and the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies.
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Feb 19
Settler Colonial Choreography and the Divided Body: Performing Masculinities Through the Switch Dance at a Native American Prison Powwow
4:00pm, Haven Hall
The Native American Studies Program welcomes Dr. Tria Blu Wakpa, a rising scholar whose innovative work combines Native American Studies and Dance Studies. Wakpa is a scholar and practitioner of Indigenous contemporary dance, North American Hand Talk (Indigenous sign language), martial arts, and yoga. Her research combines community-based, Indigenous and feminist methodologies with critical race theories to examine the politics and practices of dance and embodiment historically and contemporarily in educational and carceral institutions for Indigenous peoples. Her work has been published in The American Indian Culture and Research Journal and Dance Research Journal. Dr. Wakpa is also the co-founder and co-editor of the academic journal Race & Yoga and a former UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow. We invite you to partner with us in supporting this rising scholar and connecting students and the university publics to learn about her current work.
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Feb 20
BLI Speaker Series: Compassionate Leadership: Creating a Just, Inclusive, and Mindful Society
5:00pm, Michigan Union
Globally, nationally, locally—it is not hard to see that the world needs more compassionate leadership. But how do we do it? We are all leaders, and can learn to be more compassionate! Leading with compassion requires us to be aware of both the unique contributions of each person as well as what we all share as humans. Compassion goes beyond empathy to move us to relieve and prevent the suffering of others. Compassionate leaders inspire and energize others, attract collaboration and creativity, increase trust, make wiser choices. They cultivate the awareness, justice, inclusivity, and kindness we need to guide our actions as a society. This evening will address the meaning and importance of compassionate leadership in the year 2020 and lead short but effective practices in developing these capacities. Mirabai Bush is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and served as Executive Director until 2008. Under her direction, The Center introduced contemplative practices into higher education, law, business, environmental leadership, the military, and social justice activism. She co-founded the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education. She has been teaching workshops and courses on contemplative practice in life and work for 45 years, integrating her experience in organizational management, teaching, and consulting. She co-developed the curriculum for Search Inside Yourself for Google, the first program in mindfulness-based emotional intelligence; it has been attended by thousands of Google employees. She is on the board of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. A founding board member of the Seva Foundation, an international public health organization, she directed the Seva Guatemala Project, supporting sustainable agriculture and integrated community development. She is co-author with Ram Dass of Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying and Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service; co-author with Daniel Barbezat of Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning; and editor of Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live. Co-sponsored by CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund RSVP: https://sessions.studentlife.umich.edu/track/event/session/22399
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Feb 21
Social Justice and the Power of Oppression
2:00pm, Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
In this workshop, participants will be prompted in high levels of thinking about their own identities, communicating across identities, understanding power and oppression, and how they engage in these topics with others. Participants will also discuss how their unconscious biases play into perpetuating systems of oppression and what tools we can use to disrupt this thinking. This workshop is designed for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Space is limited. For faculty and staff, please contact RackhamEvents@umich.edu to see if we can accommodate your attendance. Registration is required at https://myumi.ch/QAM0r. We want to ensure full and equitable participation in our events. If an accommodation would promote your full participation in this event, please follow the registration link to indicate your accommodation requirements. Please let us know as soon as possible in order to have adequate time (one week preferred) to arrange for your requested accommodation(s) or an effective alternative.
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Feb 24
So We’re Biased. Now What?: Personalizing and Mitigating Unconscious Bias
12:00pm, Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Many of us are committed to DEI, and accept the extensive evidence from scholarly studies in psychology and neuroscience demonstrating that we all have unconscious biases that affect our interactions with others. The goals of this workshop are for participants to: 1) gain knowledge of societal biases and self-awareness of their unconscious biases, and 2) develop strategies to advocate for inclusion in light of unconscious bias. This workshop is designed for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Space is limited. For faculty and staff, please contact RackhamEvents@umich.edu to see if we can accommodate your attendance. Registration is required at https://myumi.ch/r8ANe. We want to ensure full and equitable participation in our events. If an accommodation would promote your full participation in this event, please follow the registration link to indicate your accommodation requirements. Please let us know as soon as possible in order to have adequate time (one week preferred) to arrange for your requested accommodation(s) or an effective alternative.
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Feb 24
Public-Facing Scholarship on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: Multimedia and Digital Approaches
4:00pm, Modern Languages Building
This lecture and Q&A session will offer an overview LSA Alum Rachel Willis' public-facing humanities project, a multi-media DAAS Gallery exhibit entitled *Il faut se souvenir*, we must not forget: memorializing slavery in Detroit and Martinique. Combining archival research with digital technology, this project allows us to generate new ways of thinking about story-telling and visualizing historical movement to reach audiences outside of the academy. This presentation is part of the RLL DEI Committee Beyond the Academy Initiative, in conjunction with the Rackham Faculty Diversity Allies program.
