9:00am – 9:30am Mindfulness Workshop 1 (for all attendees)
9:30am – 10:45am Welcome and Keynote
11am – 12:15pm Morning Workshops
12:15pm – 1pm Lunch
1:15pm – 2:30pm Afternoon Workshops 1
2:45pm – 3:15pm Mindfulness Workshop 2 (for all attendees)
3:30pm – 4:45pm Afternoon Workshops 2
4:45pm – 5pm Closing
Morning (11-12:15)
Get Made: Celebrating Women Innovators
Uchenna Anene, PhD Student Chemical Engineering & LCIZ Maker Fellow
Carly Wanner-Hyde
Kianjai Huggan
This workshop seeks to highlight the successes and challenges of women in the maker movement and entrepreneurship. We will discuss inclusivity, gender biases and the history of women in making. We will identify barriers to entry and discuss best practices to navigate these barriers through a hands-on skill-building workshop. Participants will be able to identify barriers and best practices to overcome these barriers, as well as celebrate the success of women makers and entrepreneurs while learning a new hands-on skill.
Forging New Paths through Conflict: Communicating with Clarity, Confidence and Compassion
Donna Douglass Williams, Ombudsperson, UCHC
Communicating in the midst of conflict can be difficult, particularly when we believe people are behaving inappropriately or unjustly, and/or our values and strongly held beliefs are being challenged. This interactive workshop introduces participants to nonviolent communication (“NVC”), a process grounded in compassion, empathy and authentic self-expression. The session is designed to teach communication techniques that de-escalate emotionally charged conversations, provide opportunities for more meaningful human connections, and a pathway to constructive resolution of conflict. Participants will gain an understanding of the NVC communication process, and learn to frame conversations using the components of NVC to express oneself with clarity and confidence, as well as understanding how to listen empathically to others. There will be opportunities to self-reflect and explore one’s own judgments, emotions, and needs, and values, in order to more meaningfully identify the feelings and needs of others, particularly in the midst of conflict and emotionally charged conversations.
Leaning Into the Mess: How Vulnerability Connects Us
Sarah Scheidel, Assistant Director of First Year Programs & Learning Communities
Helena DeBald, Program Coordinator, Learning Communities
Through this reflective and dialogue-based workshop, participants will explore everyday personal and professional realities which challenge us. Using multiple concepts around working with difficulties, we will converse about “getting messy” in our lives. We will also explore the importance of connection and relationships to find practical strategies participants can use. Participants will engage in critical reflection by being vulnerable about personal and professional barriers to forging new paths, and gain a deeper understanding of how connection with oneself and the various communities around us can assist in challenging the circumstances which keep us from manifesting justice.
Afternoon Session 1 (1:15-2:30pm)
Navigating Racialized Conflict
Tina Huey Adjunct Faculty, English Department and Associate Director of Faculty Development, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Khalilah Arrington Pre-Professional Advising and Rowe Scholars
In this interactive session we emphasize ways to build and sustain a community in an ongoing group such as a class, team, or in work spaces, in order to build a foundation for courageous conversations on race. We will review examples of racial microaggressions, as well as suggested interventions to facilitate a discussion of how such interactions impact functioning in a group and in a broader social context. Additionally, we will offer ideas for navigating racialized conflict with the goal of building confidence and awareness to create space for dialogue and ultimately collective liberation.
Brainstorming Pathways To Equality And Justice In Our World
Valerie Puffet-Michel, Associate Director for Software Development and Engagement Services
You are invited to an Open Space Technology event to identify and discuss issues that matter to justice and equality in the work place and in our world. This session is designed to elicit maximum involvement and creativity from all participants. The agenda and the content will be entirely determined by you. Our discussions will be fueled by each person taking responsibility to make it happen. Come prepared with your brilliant ideas, issues and experience and let’s explore together. Be ready to be surprised! This will be an interactive session when you will be able to contribute and choose what you care about. Come with your issues, puzzles and brilliant ideas!
It’s Not Just You: Shifting from Self-Care to Collective Action
Ashley N. Robinson, PhD Student, Leadership and Education Policy; Vice President, GEU-UAW Local 6950
Insidious messages about burnout as being an individual-level phenomenon pervade academic life. In this workshop, we will reframe our experiences as academic workers within the intersecting oppressive systems of higher education organizations, beginning to name the multiple factors that contribute to burnout and building solidarity as educators and academic workers. Participants will identify system-level causes of common workplace challenges for academic workers and strategies to move from individualistic self-care and advocacy to collective action and organizing.
Afternoon 2 (3:30-4:45pm)
Creating Inclusive Spaces for Students with Disabilities in Higher Education
Sherli Koshy Chenthittayil, Postdoctoral Scholar
Nikeetha Farfan D’Souza, Postdoctoral Fellow
Monica Morales Hernandez, Lecturer
Current policies in higher education for SWDs, like accommodation on request, are often exclusionary despite the opposite intent because these policies do not prioritize students. This workshop is about our framework based on critical theories and the experiences of SWDs that could act as a guide to cultivate inclusive practices. Participant will define and understand the need for a proactive approach to help create inclusive spaces for students with disability in post-secondary life, and explore examples of proactive strategies including the role of universal design in the lesson plans and the role of assistive technologies.
The Role Of Identity In Our Encounters And Interactions
Khalilah Arrington Pre-Professional Advising and Rowe Scholars
Tina Huey Adjunct Faculty, English Department and Associate Director of Faculty Development, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
This interactive session is designed as a space for exploring identity concepts that may offer conceptual building blocks for antiracism, grounded in self-reflection. Through writing and somatic practices we will reflect on how our identities show up in our work. Topics that may come up include:
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- academic authority
- intersectionality
- imposter syndrome
- invisibility
- hypervisibility
- whiteness
- stereotype threat
- UConn demographic and climate survey data
NOTE: Participants will be asked to complete a social identities pie chart activity adapted from one designed by the Office for Diversity and Inclusion ahead of the workshop.
Impostor Syndrome: Tales from Successful “Frauds” (Panel)
Arielle Hill-Moses, Assistant to the Dean, School of Fine Arts
Join a diverse panel of successful women from across UConn at different stages of their careers as they reveal their experiences with “impostor syndrome” and share strategies for silencing that voice in your head that tells you that you aren’t good enough. Spoiler alert: they were, and you are, too! Participants will develop a sense of community and understanding of how many people struggle with this problem, both from seeing examples of people who ARE successful and nonetheless doubted themselves, and realizing/gaining strategies to silence their own self-doubt.
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- Luann Liang, UConn alumna ’18 and current UConn Law student
- Jennifer Pascal, Associate Professor in Residence, Associate Department Head & Director of Undergraduate Studies
- Sophie Shao, Assistant Professor of Cello, Instructor of String Techniques
- Trisha Hawthorne-Noble, Coordinator, SSW Office of Student and Academic Services
- Sherry Pagoto, Professor, Director, UConn Center for mHealth & Social Media