2019 Fall Summit Session List

Every day, in a variety of contexts, you encounter situations in which attitudes, beliefs, and feelings are challenged, reinforced, and sublimated - particularly around race, gender, class, sexual orientation, ability, religion, and so on. The characteristics which inwardly and outwardly define and categorize us in the eyes of others have a direct impact on the way in which we treat other people and, in turn, the way other people treat us.  Where do your attitudes, beliefs, and feelings come from? How are they formed? Media have a profound impact on the way you see the world, for better or worse. It is not a question of conservative or liberal, black or brown or white, gay or straight, Christian or Jewish or Muslim, male or female. It is a question of representation: who put those attitudes in your head, what societal processes and structures are reinforced in doing so, and how savvy are you in determining what it is the media around you trying to get you to think about?

Didn't get a chance to read Sabrina & Corina? Come listen and experience the One Read as campus faculty, staff and students read passages aloud.

You are student-centered and equity-minded, yet higher education is increasingly data-driven and compliance-oriented. We know that "what gets measured, gets done," so how do we ensure that our assessment work is as inclusive as our teaching, mentoring, research, and service? Join us for a seriously playful workshop on inclusive assessment practices that help us measure what we value.

Engage in staff based hiring scenarios to determine approaches for reducing unconscious bias in the search process and identify strategies for enhancing inclusive excellence when hiring. Appropriate for all audiences (even those new to the hiring process) and particularly those who have hiring responsibilities. Participants will be able to leave with tools/resources provided and begin integrating practices and strategies within their search processes in order to work toward reducing bias and developing practices for making excellence inclusive within the hiring/search process.

This highly interactive session will explore CU Boulder education abroad programs and the impact travel can have on a person’s understanding of social identities in cross-cultural contexts. In this session, we will unpack our own social identities and gain tools for engaging the CU community in this conversation. Students who are curious about traveling abroad and those who have already committed to an experience may appreciate this session. 

Do you know the four pillars of cultural intelligence? Attendees will learn the importance of cultural intelligence in facilitating positive connections and collaborations across cultures.

Would you like to be connected to something greater than yourself? Come learn how to create and build community. This interactive workshop will empower you in harnessing your innate strengths to foster an inclusive campus environment.  We'll explore the impact of everyone's contirbution in building the "Web of Mutality" to exemplify a culture of care and civic engagement in action. Participants will discuss, reflect, and strategize ideas for deepening community at CU Boulder over lunch.

Join us for small group facilitated book discussions of the Diversity Summit One Read, Sabrina & Corina: Stories, by Colorado author Kali Fajardo-Anstine. Set across Colorado, these stories explore gender, race, class and language. We'll discuss the intersectionality in the stories using the author’s Reader's Guide and relate these themes to the conference theme, 'Intent and Impact: What Now?' Readers will consider how societal systems and individual actions impact characters in the stories and make connections with our own lives and impact.

Join members of the new CTL to discuss the role of faculty, staff, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in driving the Center’s mission to be a leader in Inclusive Excellence on the our campus. With participants input, we will address existing resources as well as new workshops, courses, how we can make our classrooms more accessible and inclusive as well as the high impact practices each of us can engage with inside and outside the classroom.

The Eco-Social Justice team at the Environmental Center is a team of students working to raise awareness on issues of environmental, climate, and social justice on campus. This session will serve as an introduction to eco-social justice as part of environmental justice and make sense of the connections between sustainability and social justice—locally and globally. We can't have one without the other, so how do we widen our lenses and work together across seemingly different movements?

How do your students know that they are on track to meet the learning goals for your course? In this session we will discuss why it is important to give students feedback during the learning process, when to time this feedback for the most student impact, and how to give effective feedback while attending to possible issues of equity and inclusion. This work session is targeted for anyone who gives feedback to students, or who wants to learn and practice research-validated strategies for giving feedback within the workplace.

This session will feature of panel of leaders who will speak to the intent and impact of the campus’s ongoing strategic initiatives in concrete ways. In September the campus announced four overarching priority themes and projects, under the banner of Academic Futures, for the campus to focus this year: making excellence inclusive; creating a common student-centered approach to teaching and learning; teaching and technology, online and distance education; and interdisciplinary teaching, research and creative works. This session will guide discussions on how to personalize the theme of making excellence inclusive, generate individual goals related to inclusion, and identify engagement opportunities with the other strategic initiatives and priority themes.

We're exploring what is thought to be “normal” and who or what that “normal” leaves out within an organizational context. Our interactive session allows attendees to consider diversity, equity and inclusion by identifying how norms shape their personal experiences and viewpoints, understanding how norms operate in spaces like department offices and classrooms, and deviating from norms in order to build inclusive spaces and belonging.

Using performance as a tool to author a new story towards positive social change, student-created and facilitated workshops will be offered. Through engaged performances, students, staff and faculty will explore several campus-related issues from the view of intent vis-a-vis impact.

Do you know the importance of your behavior on the rest of your team? It's been proven that weak team behavior can lead to project failure, increased project cost and sometimes the lives and careers of the people involved. However, cross-cultural awareness can help prevent these risks. During this workshop you'll learn how to leverage project team diversity. Presenters will explore SuperProjects, a cross-cultural awareness method that can transform knowledge capital in cost, time, quality, risk and communication to achieve excellent project results in any discipline.

Learn more about faculty search committee hiring processes that you can practice and use in your department. Engage in situation-based scenarios and get answers about your faculty search process! Bring your diversity-specific recruiting questions and documents. You will get tools, resources and information and will be able to integrate practices and strategies into your own search process in order to work toward reducing bias and develop practices for making excellence inclusive in your hiring process.

Is dialogue important in the 21st century? In a divisive time when people struggle to build community, dialogue can be a powerful tool for facilitating connection. During this session participants will engage in a simulation called BARNGA, a dialogue-based debrief intended to unmask hidden assumptions and embedded power dynamics. Later, faculty and staff from Colorado State University, University of Colorado Denver and CU Boulder will join an interactive panel discussions focused on dialogue in the context of residential life; academic and curricular integration; and an intersectional center serving underrepresented students.

Building on the resiliency work in Brené Brown’s Rising Strong, participants in this workshop will have the opportunity to develop skills to keep doing our best and triumph over our fears. We'll learn about how holding brave space requires us to embrace vulnerability knowing we have no control over how others will react. We need to address our anxieties of saying the wrong thing or offending others in order to fully commit to the work of changing the world for the better. Danger is real, but fear is a choice. Everyone falls. What is important is how we pick ourselves up again. Choose courage.

Co-facilitated by CISC staff and the peer education team, this interactive 90-minute training is designed for staff, faculty, and students on the CU Boulder campus. Working from the “4 I’s of Oppression” framework to look at both intent as well as impact, participants will engage in small and large group discussions to help identify examples of racism in their lives or in an institution they participate in. They will also work through scenarios to customize personal strategies for interrupting racism. 

Hear about the outline for the city of Boulder's first Racial Equity Plan. Let us know YOUR thoughts on what’s on the right track, what’s missing, and how YOU may support advancing racial equity in our community.

Nearly 3,000 students at CU Boulder are registered with Disability Services. Disability Services works to ensure access for all of these students in an academic setting. But how can we continue to educate and spread awareness of our student population? Open to faculty, staff and students, this session will help our campus community learn about best practices and how to carry out these practices when working with students with disabilities.

Through an experiential learning activity, attendees will learn how cultural patterns and conventions may create barriers for success in college. Applying transparency and structure in the educational context will increase the chances of individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds to achieve the expected outcomes.

Faculty want to help students do well in their courses, but sometimes the help we provide isn’t matched with success. This workshop will present current research happening at CU and introduce metacognitive strategies that help students become aware of their learning processes. Students have been taught that putting in time and effort yields high grades rather than mastery of the material. So, how can faculty give help that has a greater impact on students’ performance?

Building trust, dismantling bias. Facilitated conversations among leadership, student, staff and faculty.

Didn't get a chance to read Sabrina & Corina? Come and listen. The One Read book Sabrina & Corina will be read aloud by various faculty, staff and students during the Summit.

Learn about the state and federal laws designed to protect pregnant worker. Learn how CU Boulder's procudures and practices ensure that the university hires and retains pregnant employees

UDL seeks to remedy the limitations of learning environments, rather than addressing the limitations of individuals. Participants in this session will examine how traditional accommodations can unintentionally create barriers and marginalize students. We'll then discuss how UDL implementation can promote inclusivity and support diverse learners, including -- but not limited to -- those with documented disabilities. You'll leave with a plan for implementing a few simple strategies into your teaching or training activities. Appropriate for instructional faculty, graduate students, and staff. Three basic UDL principles guide and encourage the design of instruction that offers flexibility and options for: how information is represented; how learners demonstrate their knowledge and skills; and how learners are engaged and motivated.

What does the future look like for undocumented students in the United States? This November the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, creating uncertainty for 800,000 DACA recipients nationwide. Join us as our law professors discuss the topic with campus administration, sharing insight into what might happen to DACA students should the program end.

Come learn more about a collaborative dialogue between CU Boulder and the city of Boulder, in which participants identified twenty-four "enduring issues" that make productive conversation challenging. Hear the learnings from the past discussions, and help activate the community in order to bring the vision of "Building Bridges" to life.

Join us for small group facilitated book discussions of the Diversity Summit One Read, Sabrina & Corina: Stories, by Colorado author Kali Fajardo-Anstine. Set across Colorado, these stories explore gender, race, class and language. We'll discuss the intersectionality in the stories using the author’s Reader's Guide and relate these themes to the conference theme, 'Intent and Impact: What Now?' Readers will consider how societal systems and individual actions impact characters in the stories and make connections with our own lives and impact.

Grad student parents, come vent about your woes and enjoy some free snacks for your time and energy contributed. How can the University better accommodate you? What are some resources that would enhance your experience as a graduate student who has a family to care for? In which ways can CU Boulder step up to show that they value you as a graduate student and also respect your needs as a parent? This session is meant for you to have your voices heard!

Learn how faculty and instructors at CU Boulder can provide alternate formats for students with print-related disabilities. Come gain this important skill and make CU Boulder a more inclusive place to learn.

Participants in this session will learn about the growing problem of white supremacy in the United States and abroad, in terms of hate groups, hate crimes and the online space. The session will also discuss hate group recruiting on campuses and how it is one of the main techniques these groups are employing today to grow their ranks. Participants will also learn what they can do to help fight this growing problem and the domestic terrorism and violence the movement brings with it.

A new generation of students (Generation Z) means a new set of changing needs. The latest research indicates that our students are experiencing higher rates of anxiety, depression and other mental health concerns compared to previous generations. What's in it for you? In this session, we will learn more about Generation Z as well as how the university is changing to meet the needs related to emotional wellness and overall, health and well-being. Particularly useful for students and student-facing faculty and staff.

In March of 2019, the City of Boulder experienced an incident between a police officer and an African American student from Naropa who was picking up trash in his yard. City council listened to community outcry asking for more police oversight. Intending to ensure the oversight would be in line with community desires, they established the first Police Oversight Task Force charged with making recommendations for the city's first community oversight board. Come learn how the task force was structured, how they made sure their voices were heard, and the challenges they had to overcome in their pursuit of justice.

The gap between our intent and impact can often be significant for students. We have worked for the past two years to develop a student employment model that closes the gap between intent and impact. Our session will introduce the student employment model and discuss the planning, mapping, application, and continuous improvement needed to support meaningful growth and skill development. Learn about narrowing the distance between what you hope to accomplish and the results of your actions. Gaps between one's intentions and impacts can sometimes present obstacles. Participants will leave with tools to connect intent and impact among their student employees.

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) often manifest as "invisible disabilities" and therefore don't receive the attention and consideration they deserve. Learn facts, figures, findings and feelings about this disability and how it may impact individuals.

PTSD effects roughly 13 million+ Americans.  In a society that is still struggling to learn and accept information about mental health, it can be easy to dismiss someone as irritable or weird. In this landscape, good intentions can often have negative impact. In this session, learn how to be an ally whose positive intentions lead to positive impact for those coping with PTSD and other mental health issues. Learn lesser discussed coping tools for your own trauma. Open conversation helps to facilitate change and strip away stigmas and misconceptions. Lets talk about mental health.

Let's have an informed, intellectual discussion about why diversity is a need—not a want. In this session, we will learn about current studies in science and engineering education, and effective mentoring strategies to support diverse students.

The CU Boulder Veteran and Military Affairs (VMA) is a one-stop shop for all programs, policies, pay, information and support for prospective and current student veterans and veteran dependents.  VMA understands that veterans and military members living, working, and receiving their education at CU Boulder are a valued and vital component of our campus community. We recognize and honor their sacrifices and value their life experiences as they broaden the diversity of our staff, faculty and student body.  We also recognize their special circumstances and the need for our campus to assist them in making the successful transition into our campus environment.

Interested in issues surrounding cultural appropriation, interactions relating to power and privilege, and transgender student success dynamics? During this session participants will analyze intent vs. impact in relation to case studies from the book Case Studies in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education: An Intersectional Perspective. Our goal is for all participants to understand intent and impact of these issues within a variety of institutional contexts.

Curious to learn more about your own gender identity? After providing brief psychoeducation on gender diversity, the CU TransCare Team will invite the audience to examine their own gender identities, gender expressions, and more. Our presentation will be guided mainly toward individuals who identify as cisgender. We will provide an opportunity for reflection and (optional) sharing. We plan to ask insight-oriented questions to spark thinking around how our own gender identities interface with others, explore areas they felt stuck or uncomfortable, and examine other intersectional perspectives.

The term, ‘medicalization,’ refers to distress being understood a disease or disorder that occurs within an individual. Thus, a medical model situates problems within a person, rather than within a sociopolitical context. This presentation will explore the intention behind using a medical model as well as the impacts of medicalization on individuals from marginalized populations, both good and bad. A case example of distress in the aftermath of gender-based violence will be provided.

In this panel discussion, international students will share their experiences as members of the CU Boulder community. Attendees will learn about challenges students have faced because of their international status. We will hear from students about the unintentional impact that certain policies and practices have on international students.

Forget breaking down barriers – what does it look like to co-design community programming without barriers in the first place? Join community members and staff from the city of Boulder to explore our Community Connector model and how the City Text Boulder program is co-designed and co-implemented with stakeholders. Hear directly from a Community Connector as they share their experience, learn techniques for meeting underrepresented communities where they are, and witness how this model transformed neighborhood feedback into on-the-ground programming.

Motus Theater’s UndocuAmerica ambassadors offer a human face to the issue of immigration so that the people on the frontlines of dehumanizing rhetoric against immigrants have an opportunity to interrupt these false narratives. Through sharing stories about their lives and families they are de-intensifying the controversial divide on immigration by activating within the audience the old proverb that says, “An enemy is someone whose story you haven't heard.” Five autobiographical monologues artfully crafted to tell the story of the undocumented writer/performer. Between performance of the individual autobiographical monologues, acclaimed acapella artist Teresita Lozano will sing music thematically related to each story. The autobiographical monologues are told from the stage, but the singer wanders around the audience - serenading them personally so they are restored by beauty even as they open to a story of injustice.
The 70-minute performance is followed by a 20-minute Talkback with the audience to answer questions related to the autobiographical monologues performed and immigration issues in general.

Asian Americans are considered the most successful minority and thus labeled as the “Model Minority.” However, model minority is a Myth.  The Myth itself is a stereotype that causes miscommunications among the general population and potentially harms Asian Americans.  In this workshop, we will provide an interactive lecture and discussion to dismantle the Model Minority Myth and further breakdown the miscommunication caused by the Myth.  Participants of this session will develop skills to avoid stereotyping and comprehend the impact of stereotypes.

This session will feature a film clip of the film Blackklannsman followed by dialogue and spoken word. Attendees will engage in an intimate and complex conversation about accountability and address systemic barriers faced by Black folks while acknowledging the beauty in the other facets of Black lives as they navigate their tenacious environments with poise and passion.

Enter the world of Anne Frank as told by her stepsister and childhood friend. Listen to the first hand account of the life of Anne Frank and the discovery and printing of her famed diary.