8:30 – 9:45 LIB 030 (Multipurpose Room)
Understanding and Responding to Unconscious Bias
Jesse Bernal (VP for Inclusion and Equity)

Social science research tells us that we all use hypotheses to interpret social events. Unconscious or implicit bias shapes our automatic and quick processing capabilities, including our associations with race, gender, and other identities. The research on implicit bias indicates that these schemas affect our behavior, judgment, and decision-making, including our practices in evaluation in hiring and the classroom. How do we acknowledge and interrupt our unconscious associations, particularly when they are at odds with our conscious goals of ensuring inclusive and fair processes in hiring and teaching?

8:30 – 9:45 KC 2204 (Pere Marquette Room)
Title IX and Gender-Based Violence
Theresa Rowland (staff) and Dr. Mary DeYoung (faculty)

This session will educate GVSU students, faculty, and staff about Title IX and gender-based violence by providing a comprehensive look at the law and the role the university plays in instances of sexual misconduct. We will focus on GVSU’s duty to ensure that everyone has equal access to educational opportunities by examining the basics of the law and the guidelines set forth by the Department of Education as it relates to gender-based violence. Participants will gain an understanding of their rights under Title IX and GVSU’s role in cases of sexual misconduct. Engaged Pedagogy.

8:30 – 9:45 KC 2263
Using Appreciative Advising to Create a Sense of Belonging for Students of Color at Predominantly White Institutions
V’Lecca Hunter, Kayla Jones, and Gabriel Pena (graduate students)

Academic advisors at Predominantly White Institutions often struggle in building trusting relationships with students of color. Due to the lack of trusting relationships built, students tend to perceive campus as “alienating, hostile, unjust and less supportive to their needs” (Clark & Kalionzes, 2008, p.204). However, using the new found advising approach—Appreciative Advising—could be the solution in creating a more welcoming environment. Appreciative Advising is a collaborative practice of asking positive, open-ended questions that help students optimize their educational experience and achieve their dreams, goals and potentials (Appreciative Advising, n.d.). The Appreciative Advising approach is an effective technique—supported by research—that enhances the advising of first-generation, students of color and other historically underrepresented college students by encompassing the six phases of this approach. This session is intended for faculty and staff, advisors and graduate students. During this session, participants will be introduced to Appreciative Advising as an approach to improve advising students of color. Participants will also listen to experiences shared by students of color from Predominantly White Institutions. These students will share the negative and positive advising experiences and ways in which the Appreciative Advising approach was implemented—intentionally and unintentionally. Engaging presentation.

8:30 – 9:45 Loosemore Auditorium
Stepping into our Discomfort: Social Transformation Across Difference
Brittany Dernberger and Katie Gordon (staff) with Amina Mohamed (student)

This workshop will begin with an identity exercise to allow for self-reflection of participant’s individual identities, religious or philosophical traditions, and values. We will then explore several models for social change to provide a framework for participants to consider opportunities to step outside of one’s comfort zone and build coalition with those who have diverse lived experiences. This discussion-oriented workshop will include collective brainstorming and conversation to generate intersectional ideas and solutions. How do we come together with those who are different from us to work towards social justice while being authentic to our own values and beliefs? An interfaith dialogue framework, which recognizes the unique traditions but shared values of religious and secular worldviews, can be used to honor our distinct identities while encouraging us to engage with those from diverse backgrounds and build coalitions for social change. Interfaith dialogue and service learning are strategies for social change that require us to cross boundaries and borders. As we step outside of our comfort zones, recognize our privilege, and seek to learn from those with different lived experiences, transformational moments occur and we build both community and intersectional coalitions for social change. Workshop.

10:00 -11:15 LIB 030 (Multipurpose Room)
Militarism Versus Social Justice
David Alvarez (faculty) with Mackenzie Frederic and Dominic Bartnick (students)

We wish to engage our campus community in a mutually educational session that will explore the third of what in his 1967 speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" Martin Luther King, Jr. called "the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism." While our institutions rightly honor King's struggle against the first of these triplets, they largely leave unheeded his denunciation of the second and third of the three. Yet all over the world, the United States is regarded as a militarist-corporatist power that uses its global network of bases and camps to wage wars that chiefly benefit what President Eisenhower called "the military-industrial complex," and that uses its diplomacy to support anti-democratic regimes that help to buttress its political hegemony. In addition to the enormous human toll that our wars have taken on Iraqi and other civilians as well as on our own veterans, America's military involvement in the Middle East is generating a groundswell of Islamophobia and of anti-Arab racism within the US, expressed most dramatically by the recent Islamophobic murder of three Muslim students in North Carolina. Thus, we want to draw upon the anti-Vietnam War tradition of the teach-in to explore the connections between our pursuit of militarism and hegemony abroad and racism and repression at home. By so doing we will be honoring King's assertion shortly before his assassination that "a true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: 'This way of settling differences is not just.'" Engaged pedagogy/ interactive discussion.

10:00 -11:15 KC 2204 (Pere Marquette Room)
Critical Pedagogies: The Classroom as a Site of Struggle and Transformation
Azfar Hussain and Rachel Peterson (faculty) with Brittany Clark, Brangy Haan and Benjamin Heyn (students)

The faculty will frame, contextualize, and facilitate a discussion centered on the dynamics of privilege, power and oppression in the classroom, especially in courses that identify and critically examine unequal relations among different subjects, sites, and scenes. Former students will share their perspectives as participants and witnesses to these often-difficult discussions. Foregrounding the classroom as a space not divorced from society and the world at large; a space where hostility, conflicts, and transformation are all equally likely; we will consider, from both pedagogical and student perspectives, the factors that elicit strong reactions from students themselves, as we struggle to educate ourselves about issues such as racism, capitalism, sexism, and homophobia among other forms and forces of oppression in the interest of growth and change. Engaged pedagogy workshop.

10:00 – 11:15 KC 2263
Depression, Anxiety and You
Christy Buck (faculty) and Terrell Couch (student)

In this session, you will learn The be Nice Model. Discover how you can notice, invite, challenge, and empower yourself and peers to raise awareness and decrease the stigma surrounding mental illness (www.beniceonline.com). Learn the signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and mental illness o Find out what steps to take for yourself or a peer when faced with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and self-harm Suicide ranks nationally as the 2nd leading cause of death among college students. To understand suicide, you must be aware of the risk factors, warning signs, and protective factors associated with mental illness such as depression, anxiety, and self-harm syndrome. This session will address the risk factors for depression and anxiety, and will provide practical resources and tools for attendees. People sometimes joke, "You’re crazy," or "this makes me want to kill myself." However, few recognize students and individuals live in these thoughts daily; without any humor. In this workshop lead by the Mental Health Foundation of West Michigan in collaboration with Phi Gamma Delta, you will understand that through awareness, education, and intervention, dialogue can foster understanding and recognition that no human is ever truly alone. Workshop.

10:00 – 11:15 Loosemore Auditorium
The Invisible Privilege of Being Able-Bodied
Karen Gipson (faculty), Stephanie Deible (graduate student), Chandler McBride (student)

Discussion of the invisible privilege of being able-bodied at GVSU. Various perspectives will be shared, for example, an undergraduate quadriplegic student who lives and takes classes in downtown Grand Rapids, a graduate student with Cerebral Palsy who lives and works on the Allendale campus, and a faculty member with hemiparesis and mild expressive aphasia. Q & A for the panelists will combine with interactive discussion of the invisible privilege of physical ability, using a list modeled after Peggy McIntosh’s Invisible Knapsack work. Panel with Q & A.

11:30 – 12:45 LIB 030 (Multipurpose Room)
Overheard at GVSU: What are Students Saying about Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality at GVSU?
Kate Remlinger and the Students of ENG 392

This session examines public discourses of race, gender, and sexuality on Overheard at GVSU’s Facebook page and Twitter feed. Rather than examining blatant, obvious forms of linguistic subordination in a global context, we investigate the subtle ways that language functions to create and maintain local and contemporary language ideologies. Overheard at GVSU provides relevant data to demonstrate GVSU students’ beliefs, values, and attitudes about language use and the role of language in processes of subordination or othering. We also discuss how our own awareness has developed from understanding the relationship between linguistic and social prejudices. Our goal is to not only foster awareness of subtle and indirect forms of prejudice, but also to show that many of us unknowingly take part in othering. Our hope is that this awareness will foster positive personal and community-wide changes. The session will begin with a short overview of the different ways that language functions in the processes of othering. Class members will then present examples and analyses of linguistic subordination drawn from Overheard at GVSU using a fast-paced presentation format where each of the 25 presenters will have 2.5 minutes to present 7 slides each. We will follow this with our overall results and conclusions, and allow time for an open discussion. PechaKucha (fast paced, concise, collaborative)

11:30 – 12:45 KC 2204 (Pere Marquette Room)
Autism Awareness on Campus
Jamie Owen-DeSchryver (faculty) with Holly Miller, Stephanie Spruit, Maggie Whaley and Jeremy Myers (students)

During this session, the goal is to help others learn about autism, individuals with autism, and autism support on campus. We will discuss media portrayal of autism, the foundations of the disorder, the increasing rate of diagnosis, diagnostic criteria, and strategies for academic and social success. Those with autism are portrayed in a negative way and with this workshop we hope to spread a positive light on the subject. Also, we hope that this awareness can bring inclusion and respect to those that are different than you. Workshop.

11:30 – 12:45 KC 2263
Why #BlackLivesMatter When All Lives Matter?
Lisa Perhamus (faculty)

The language of social movements matter. #BlackLivesMatter insists that the humanity of Aiyana Jones, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner and that of the many, many people whose names are not carried through mainstream media networks be honored, recognized and understood within the realities of institutionalized racism. The call of #BlackLivesMatter has galvanized people from all over the United States to take a stand against injustice and brutality and to demand better systems of accountability. And yet, in recent months, some groups of people have shifted the words “BlackLivesMatter” to “All Lives Matter,” even to “Police Lives Matter.” How has it happened that the language of a movement about police brutality against Black people has multiplied into language about the many groups of people whose lives matter? And yet, isn’t it true that all lives matter? What is going on with the use of this language in relationship to systems of power in the U.S.? What changes when the words change? In this session, we will discuss these questions with the goal of reaching a deeper understanding about the relationship between language and power within this particular context. This session is committed to authentic dialogue that honors the emotional intensity of this topic while ensuring that our conversation remains constructive. We will practice honoring each other’s humanity. Group dialogue; roundtable.

11:30 – 12:45 Loosemore Auditorium
Thinking about Privilege: Take-aways from the Knapsack Institute
Deepak Subramony (faculty)

This session introduces students to two valuable intellectual lenses through which to view the inter-related phenomena of privilege and oppression in human society. The first of these is the concept of intersectionality, which helps us understand how each one of us is the result of a unique intersection of multiple variables, each of which either privileges us or disempowers us, depending upon how that particular variable is viewed by the society in which we live. As a result, some of us enjoy multiple layers of privilege, while others endure multiple layers of oppression. Most of us experience a mix of both. The second conceptual tool that this session introduces is that of the invisible 'knapsack' of unearned privilege that many of us carry though life in a mostly oblivious manner, from which we benefit greatly but tend to explain said benefits as resulting from our own competencies/talents/efforts. The insights presented here were obtained via participation in the 2013 Knapsack Institute (an intensive three-day summer program focused on social justice pedagogy at the University of Colorado) as well as from my own experiences teaching educational technology and social/cultural foundations of education for more than a decade. Interactive presentation

1:00 – 2:15 LIB 030 (Multipurpose Room)
What’s Race Got To Do With It?
Kristie Scanlon (staff) with Kayla Jones and V’Lecea Hunter (graduate students)

Clips of the documentary film “What’s Race Got to Do with It?” will be shown and then discussed with the audience. This film chronicles the journey of a diverse group of college students participating in a 15-week intergroup dialogue program. The film is set up with ten short chapters, each highlighting the unique challenges and obstacles that marginalized students face compared to their peers. Some of the chapter titles include; “I’m more Black than ever”, “A lot of us are getting pushed” and “I can be sure my race will not work against me”. As the students share personal stories, debate hot topics, and confront one another about the role race plays in their lives, they make discoveries about their preconceived ideas and assumptions, and in so doing, help the audience begin to disentangle their own. The film provides a starting point for a deeper, more productive level of conversation. This session will include sharing some of the film’s chapters, followed by a facilitated dialogue on reactions and responses to film and how they see these same issues playing out on GVSU’s campus. Video presentation with facilitated discussion and dialogue.

1:00 – 2:15 KC 2204 (Pere Marquette Room)
Campus Accountability: The Bias Incident Protocol and Speak Up! as Tools
Marlene Kowalski-Braun (staff) with Mackenzie Butler and Brandon Fitzgerald (students)

This session will explore how the Bias Incident Protocol and the Speak Up! Campaign serves as tools in creating a safe and inclusive campus climate. Participants will explore the strength of these efforts as well as the limitations. Significant time will be spent discussing the tension that often exists between the protocol and first amendment/free speech rights. Bias incident trends and specific (non-identifying) examples will be shared to shed light on macro- and micro-aggressions. What identity categories are marginalized most on GVSU's campus? What does the protocol require us to do in response to these trends? Time will be spent talking about active bystander behavior - as well as the need to move beyond interruption to understanding more deeply systems of oppression. Combination workshop and small group discussion.

1:00 – 2:15 KC 2263
Shhhhhh. Let’s Not Talk About It…..
Lois Owens (faculty)

The above title refers to one of the most not talked about subjects in this country: RACE! The activity is designed to allow persons from all walks of life to begin this dialogue using the simple model of team work. We begin by viewing a section of President Obama’s speech on race, then proceed into the activity. Participants will be divided into teams, and each team is given a bag with several individual letters in the bag. Participants are informed that there are only four (4) words that need to be formed from those letters and that all of the letters needed are in the bag. The team then begins to work on arriving at the same conclusion regarding what the four words are, using all of the letters in the bag. Participants are given approximately 15 minutes to complete the task. When the time is up, each group should have found the words that lead to dialogue that lead to understanding. Because the work is done as a team, no one person is responsible for selecting the words, and all can participate at whatever level he or she decides. The discussions come about as participants begin to examine the words closely: which ones were easier to select and why, and how the words impact our society today, what the words mean to each participant. The groups then meet as one large group for a debriefing. While the exercise sounds simplistic, it is not. Participants find that they indeed can talk about race, that they are in a safe setting, in which it is perfectly appropriate to speak. In addition, many cannot wait to speak because new perspectives and insights have been gained. Participants are free to say whatever they have perhaps always wanted to say regarding a discussion on race. Combination workshop and small group discussion.

1:00 – 2:15 Loosemore Auditorium
Revisiting the Digital Divide in the Context of a 'Flat' World
Deepak Subramony

This presentation employs a variety of theoretical lenses to help today's students (i.e. tomorrow's leaders) understand the nature and ramifications of the Digital Divide -- which continues to remain one of the biggest challenges related to equity/privilege/social justice confronting the United States and other nations in modern times, even as technological advances, globalization, and other socioeconomic shifts are rendering digital media technologies nearly ubiquitous across many parts of the globe and multiple sections of society. In equipping participants to tackle the Divide, the presentation offers a twin-pronged approach consisting of (1) a voluntary dismantling of existing socio-cultural privilege systems, coupled with (2) overcoming resistance through the widespread, systemic introduction of culturally responsive technology instruction. Interactive Presentation.

2:30 – 3:45 LIB 030 (Multipurpose Room)
No Respect Here: What's Wrong with Respectability Politics
Scott Burden (graduate student) and Tyler Stringer (student)

We are told that conversations around justice for marginalized populations must be respectful and normative. We believe this message is problematic, over simplified and even silencing. This session will dissect the notion of respectability and present alternative ways of addressing injustices in our communities. To discuss respectability politics it is imperative to address micro-aggressions. We will begin our discussion by defining key terms such as micro-aggressions and respectability. These terms will be displayed on a whiteboard. We will then ask the room to attempt to tie these concepts into current events such as “Black Lives Matter” and the high rate of violence against transgender folk. Instead of lecturing, we will act as facilitators who will interrogate problematic language along with the participants. It is our intent that this discussion will evolve into an analysis of systemic violence rather than individual cases of violence. This conversation will be held through an anti-assimilationist lens. Facilitated Discussion.

2:30 – 3:45 KC 2204 (Pere Marquette Room)
The Myth of the Happy Slave and Other Stereotypes Found Lurking in Children's Literature
Janet Navarro (faculty) with Hayden Adams, Stephanie Zingaretti, and Ali McEldowney (students)

Ideas about self and other, power and privilege are planted and at an early age. In this session we will highlight some of the more insidious stereotypes found within the illustrations and text of well-known children's literature. We will briefly share criteria we have used to uncover obvious as well as more subtle stereotypes. In small groups, participants will have an opportunity to examine children's literature selections with discussion focused on how children’s literature can prompt difficult dialogues with people of all ages. Workshop.

2:30 – 3:45 KC 2263
The World As The Rich and Powerful See It
George Lundskow (faculty) with Jesse Fulkerson and Arthur Fortune (students)

This session compares the cost of college from 1968 to the present. How did students graduate college with no debt and new cars? What happened between then and now? The session explains the rise of neo-liberal, neo-imperial, and predatory capitalism to explain increasing costs, decreasing benefits, and global inequality. Presentation.

2:30 – 3:45 Loosemore Auditorium
Learning What We Cannot Know: Conversations and Stories to Expand Our Perspective
Patricia Stow Bolea (faculty)

A primary limitation for any person who wishes to be inclusive, but who has a limited range of experience with difference, is their own perspective. Sharing experiences and stories in trusting environments (like classrooms can be) shapes curiosity, questions, and future experiences. This session will explore those things we can't know until we are in those conversations and hear those stories from people who have those lived experiences. Faculty and students will facilitate discussion around inclusive good will and limited perspectives using the power of conversation and story. Engaged discussion.

4:00 – 5:15 LIB 030 (Multipurpose Room)
Islamophobia in America
Sebastian Maisel (faculty) and Mohamed Mohamed (student)

The rise of political tensions and religious extremism in the Middle East has led to an increase in Islamophobia, especially within the United States. Although Muslims have become an integral part of American society, there still remains a fear towards them from their fellow Americans. This session will explore the history of Islamophobia within the United States by analyzing its root causes all the way to contemporary and more recent issues. The presenters will explain the causes behind religious extremism within Islam and how those events are used as a generalization for Muslims across the world, including American Muslims. Participants will come to learn why Islamophobia is a problem and how it affects both Muslims and non-Muslims in America. The presentation will run for about 15 minutes and then after the presentation, the floor will be open for questions and answers from the audience for about 10 minutes. After this, the presenters will engage in a debate activity to discuss the two different perspectives and create solutions on attempting to eradicate the issue being discussed. We hope that this activity will get the people in the audience to understand that Islamophobia is a theory developed by the media, and the best way to combat it is by getting a better understanding on the issue by stepping out of their comfort zone and learning about the religion of Islam through classes, speaking with Muslim students, and really just listening to other media outlets. The purpose of this session is to educate students on the matter and give them a better understanding so they can form better senses of judgment, rather than having preconceived notions of a religion all based on conservatives who have little to no knowledge on the subject matter. Engaging presentation.

4:00 – 5:15 LIB 002 (Lab)
Addressing Gender Normative Issues on Campus
Cael Keegan (faculty) and Margie Munoz (student)

Through collaboration between the Milton E. Ford LGBT Resource Center, contributors from the campus Trans* community, Women and Gender Studies faculty, and a Women and Gender Studies student deeply interested in increasing inclusivity on campus, Addressing Gender Normative Issues on Campus will open space for discussion on trans-exclusive issues on GVSU’s campus. This will begin with educating on terminology and follow up with bringing into question gender normative classroom practices and infrastructures that are problematic when striving for gender inclusion. Per recommendation of the Gender Expression and Identity Committee, this session moves towards enhancing understanding and awareness regarding trans* identities, and create a more educated space in which we can function in solidarity as a university community. Engaged Pedagogies.

6:00 – 7:15 LIB 030 (Multipurpose Room)
Beyond Black and White: Teaching Fifty Shades of Grey in Race, Racialization, and Race Relations
Debjani Chakravaty, Randa Elbih, Kimberly McKee (faculty) with Mackenzie Kibbe (student)

Our panel explores and examines the meaning of race, racism, and race relations on university campuses from the perspective of faculty as well as students. We move beyond a binary of black and white and re-center the experiences of communities of color, more broadly. We understand race as a constructed, communal identity tied to not just collective historical memory (or lack thereof), but also contemporary events on college and university campuses. Senior honors student Mackenzie Kibbe will present her findings from analyzing campus “crush” websites and add to the discussion on race and racialization on campus. Dr. McKee and Dr. Chakravarty will invite audience members to respond to campus-related incidents and media clips of college students speaking on race. They will discuss the paradox of intersectionality and significance of racialization as they speak about race in a local as well as global context. Finally, Dr. Elbih will discuss her interpretation of the term/label faculty of color and the assumptions and connotations of such a term. She will locate her experience as a Muslim, immigrant, woman of color within a predominately white campus. She will also address her insider/outsider status as a person of color given her positioning as a transnational immigrant. Cumulatively, the panel encourages attendees to deconstruct racism as colorism, exoticization, and ethnocentrism. We will end our presentation by engaging attendees to examine the positionality of faculty, staff, and students of color at a predominately white institution in an attempt to counter and challenge racism and color-blindness on campus. Panel/Roundtable.

7:30 – 8:45 LIB 030 (Multipurpose Room)
ReACT!ing with Eyes Wide Open: An Anti-Sexual Violence, Interactive Performance
Allison Manville Metz (faculty) with Aubrey Dull, Alyssa Phillips, Dmitri Westbrook, Megan Prangley, Nicole Buchmann, Alexandria Elliot, Anika Jamison, Dezarae Begay, Emilee Miller, Mallory Caillaud-Jones (students)

Two campus groups sponsored by the Women's Center, ReACT! and Eyes Wide Open, will come together to initiate a dialogue to empower audience members to champion consent and healthy relationships. ReACT! performs live scenes with GVSU student actors which aim to prevent incidents and support survivors of relationship violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Eyes Wide Open is a student organization for peer educators who educate the Grand Valley community about sexual assault and provide resources through community outreach, presentations, and events. This session will be the first time the two groups have presented a full length program together for our GVSU community. Interactive Performance (Presentation - Discussion model).

7:30 – 8:45 LIB 002 (Lab)
Breaking Bubbles and Building Bridges
Katie Gordon (staff) with Shelby Bruseloff, Derek Zuverink and Natalie Gallagher (students)

Recognizing that there is a lack of dialogue and education regarding religious diversity in the community, we strive to bring change to Grand Valley's campus. In order to further a positive conversation around religious identity and engagement, Better Together at GV and representatives from faith and non-faith backgrounds will facilitate an open dialogue about how interfaith can positively impact our community. This teach-in will act as an Interfaith 101, teaching the ground rules of interfaith such as dialogue not debate, embracing and celebrating differences and similarities, and overcoming stereotypes. Participants will engage in interfaith dialogue throughout our teach-in. Engaged pedagogies.