Black Bodies Panel

July 17, 2022
12:00 p.m. (Pacific)
3:00 p.m. (Eastern)

Black bodies are used, abused, and more yet when they try to find healing, they are faced with more barriers. Hear from a panel of 3 young professionals about the barriers of the medical and mental health system, what we can do to go beyond navigation of the system, and why they chose to be a part of the change.

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat17

Donnise is a Bay Area native, born in Fremont, raised in Berkeley, Hayward, and Union City. She graduated from James Logan High School in 2009 then attended Iowa State University where she earned a Bachelors of Science in Child, Adult, and Family Services. She then moved to Austin, Texas, where she attended The University of Texas at Austin, earning her Masters of Science in Social Work. Donnise returned to California briefly, where she had her daughter, Chance Adrielle, now 6, prior to moving to Atlanta, Georgia where she became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Donnise finally returned home to the Bay Area in 2020. Throughout her career, Donnise has developed and utilized her social work skills to provide various social services including assessment, case management, rehabilitation, advocacy, training, consultation, therapy, and supervision; out in the community, juvenile justice, hospital, and school systems. Each experience deepening her insight and offering a more profound understanding of her role as a social worker. Donnise currently works as a Mental Health and Wellness Specialist at a San Jose high school in East Side Union High School District where she utilizes creative and innovative techniques that youth are interested in; music, art, poetry, games, social media and technology to provide a safe and supportive environment where youth learn to explore and process their thoughts and feelings; identify their challenges; name, cope with, and heal from trauma so that they transition into adulthood with a strong and healthy mindset to be able to face and manage life hardships that will inevitably come their way, while reaching their highest potential. Donnise is incredibly passionate about the work that she does, bringing a refreshing energy and hope for change that is often missing in social work due to long-standing systematic barriers, burnout, or compassion fatigue. She sees the bigger picture of how systems affect her clients on micro, meso, and macro levels and uses this to advocate for her students, provide psychoeducation to school staff and administrators, and create equitable school initiatives. For Donnise, this work is particularly imperative for the advancement of the Black community, a community that has developed within a country, society, and system that was never intended for it to thrive in. Donnise was recently accepted into the Doctorate of Social Work program at the University of Southern California, which she plans to begin in January 2023. With her DSW, Donnise will learn the process of social change and engage with imaginative thinkers and innovators that will demonstrate, encourage, and foster new, creative, innovative ways of eliminating racism, a social construct that is sewn into the fabric of this country and consistently and significantly impacts the daily lives of millions of people.

Black Bodies Panel

July 17, 2022
12:00 p.m. (Pacific)
3:00 p.m. (Eastern)

Black bodies are used, abused, and more yet when they try to find healing, they are faced with more barriers. Hear from a panel of 3 young professionals about the barriers of the medical and mental health system, what we can do to go beyond navigation of the system, and why they chose to be a part of the change.

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat17

Janelle Prothro was raised in East Palo Alto, California where she completed themajority of her grade school education and became first aligned with her passion and desire to pursue a career in medicine at a young age. Her genuine love of people and affinity for science were the main drivers of this desire. Shortly before high school, her family moved to Union City as her mother wanted to ensure access to a higher quality of education for her and her younger brother. She attended James Logan High School where she went on to attain statewide recognition academically as well as athletically. This earned her a Division I scholarship to the University of California, Riverside as a track athlete. Janelle thoroughly enjoyed her enriching experience in undergrad as she was very active in her campus community via organizations such as Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. where she held the office of Chapter President for almost 4 years. Upon graduation with her B.S. in Biology from UCR, she was accepted to Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, California, where she completed a 2-year Premedical Post-Baccalaureate program. Following the completion of that program, she went on to complete her Master’s in biomedical sciences where she submitted her thesis on “HIV/AIDS Prevalence and the Role of Related Prevention Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviors on the Acceptance of Pre/Post-Exposure Prophylaxis in African Americans.” After completing her master’s degree, she taught 8 th grade science in South Central Los Angeles, a role she thoroughly enjoyed, while applying to medical school. She accepted a scholarship to Ross University School of Medicine where she is now currently a medical student pursuing her Medical Doctorate degree. Ultimately, her goal is to become an Obstetrician/Gynecologist and address the disparity of maternal mortality in her community.

Black Bodies Panel

July 17, 2022
12:00 p.m. (Pacific)
3:00 p.m. (Eastern)

Black bodies are used, abused, and more yet when they try to find healing, they are faced with more barriers. Hear from a panel of 3 young professionals about the barriers of the medical and mental health system, what we can do to go beyond navigation of the system, and why they chose to be a part of the change.

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat17

Lanise Powell is an HIV PrEP Navigator for Alameda County based clinics at Lifelong Medical Care, a federally qualified community health center. She works with patients to help them gain access to PrEP, PEP and other resources for HIV prevention. Lanise is excited to continue building her career in sexual health and education, as she is an aspiring OB/GYN currently studying for the MCAT. She hopes to continue serving underserved and underrepresented communities and ensuring that all patients have equal access and representation within healthcare. Lanise graduated from San Diego State University in 2020 with a BA in Biology (Pre-Med) and minors in Sociology and Interdisciplinary Studies. She is currently in the final year of her Master’s in Healthcare Administration program, specifically tailoring her studies to not only focus on biological science and medicine, but also the intersection of various demographics on social determinants of health and how they may affect our underrepresented populations. Lanise sees the importance in connecting with the community and is dedicated to finding progressive ways to improve healthcare for all patients.

Wandering Theorist

Rescheduled | More information coming soon

A wandering theorist may move aimlessly through history or purposeful in a moment of time, always finding a thread of connectivity through our movements. In this workshop, attendees observe and reflect through dancing across the world and examining the smallest virtual moments to draw critical and transformative tools for leadership, research, education, and wherever we may roam this world. Beginning with an odyssey of the presenter and song, the workshop will modulate towards sharing humanizing practices in travels from participants and the collective joy into the next expeditions.

Register here: Coming Soon

A leader in nonprofit and academic organizations for over two decades, Paul David Terry (he/they) is the assistant director of affinity programs at UC Davis and alumni diversity representative for the University of California Office of the President. He directs alumni affinity groups, leads the CAAA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and programs DEI trainings for volunteer alumni leaders across the globe. He has served as the past chair of the UC Davis Chancellor’s Committee on LGBTQIA+ Communities, a member of the Lived Name and Gender Identity Task Force, the co-chair of the Website and Data subcommittee for the Chancellor’s Next Generation Campus Safety Task Force and the vice-chair for the UC Davis Health Vice Chancellor’s LGBTQ+ Health Advisory Council. His work garners multiple awards to support public scholarship. As an IME Fellow at University of San Francisco, he teaches Critical Race Theory and How To Talk About Race, and designs virtual educational resources for educators across the country.

Go Good

July 22, 2022
2:00 p.m. (Pacific)
5:00 p.m. (Eastern)

The philosophical attacks on the overrepresentation of ‘Man’ have effectively broken down illusions enabled by Western code, leading to valiant searches for maps of ourselves—our ancestral and emergent genres of human. Often fixated on resuscitation and recovery, what enables the next step when the archive fails to resemble Man’s in language, form, and content? What animates the return when the fragments of memory and the gravity of magic catapult you through space and time, forcing the mind to conceive of an unrecognizable map? This workshop begins to play with these possibilities, countering Western logics by disregarding frames of scarcity, and approaching archival fragments as launch pads of these ancestral and emergent genres.

Reliant on the memory of a Guyanese elder and the body as archive, this workshop begins to swell the imagination, encounter new worlds, and restructure the frames we have placed around materiality, home, and humanity. Finally, this workshop will take up computational methodologies and the scholarship of Afro-Caribbean feminists to reimagine storytelling and memorialization.

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat22

Christin Washington (B.A., Amherst College, 2017) is a PhD student in the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a graduate research assistant with African American Digital and Experimental Humanities (AADHum) at UMD. Focusing on digitality’s place in Black and American life, she explores how digital technologies stretch and remodel the present limits of storytelling and memorialization, warp time, and shrink space. As a former Five College Digital Humanities scholar, she developed the beta for her born-digital undergraduate thesis, Dare to Remember: A Digital Memorial of Black Brooklyn. Her research with AADHum converges with her work in the Museum Scholarship and Material Culture program at UMD.

Why We Create Black Student Spaces

July 25, 2022
5:00 p.m. (Pacific)
8:00 p.m. (Eastern)

Black student spaces are cherished spaces. They’re sacred spaces. But what drives us to create them? During this interactive session that is part lecture and part workshop, Heather Streets, Ed.D. and Gertrude Jenkins will lead a discussion about why Black students at historically white institutions create digital counter-spaces to find community, share information, and get advice. They’ll also brainstorm ideas with you about how to create your own safe spaces. Gertrude and Heather want to help amplify the role of autonomous Black student spaces as a form of resistance against institutional oppression and increase opportunities to highlight Black student agency. They hope you’ll join them!

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat25

T. Gertrude Jenkins is a veteran English teacher and co-founder of Making Us Matter, an education non-profit which provides services that center the distinct needs of Black students and teachers. Her work as an educator expands around the country and across the globe; she has worked and studied in school school systems in Florida, Georgia, California, and Botswana. Jenkins is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of San Francisco as part of the International & Multicultural Education program in the School of Education. Her research focuses on the legacy and evolution of fugitivity in Black teacherhood and Black education in general. Her work is motivated by her desire to provide an alternative for Black teachers, students, and families who desire education spaces that are free from systemic white supremacy.

Why We Create Black Student Spaces

July 25, 2022
5:00 p.m. (Pacific)
8:00 p.m. (Eastern)

Black student spaces are cherished spaces. They’re sacred spaces. But what drives us to create them? During this interactive session that is part lecture and part workshop, Heather Streets, Ed.D. and Gertrude Jenkins will lead a discussion about why Black students at historically white institutions create digital counter-spaces to find community, share information, and get advice. They’ll also brainstorm ideas with you about how to create your own safe spaces. Gertrude and Heather want to help amplify the role of autonomous Black student spaces as a form of resistance against institutional oppression and increase opportunities to highlight Black student agency. They hope you’ll join them!

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat25

Heather recently completed her doctorate in International and Multicultural Education with a concentration in Racial Justice from the University of San Francisco. Her research focused on how Black students who attend historically White universities use online spaces for support, knowledge production, and organizing for activism. Heather continues to look for opportunities to develop her ongoing interest in deepening and expanding conversations about anti-blackness in higher education and uncovering the ways in which Black students respond.

Difference & Disability

July 26, 2022
2:00 p.m. (Pacific)
5:00 p.m. (Eastern)

Combining lived experience and formal academic knowledge, Jennifer will facilitate a discussion about difference and disability — thinking through what it means to do research with families and people who are perceived "Different" from society. Also how can we capture the dimensionality of disability, and what does that look like when we seek to create resources for families whose very marker means stigmatization - can we actively include voices that are not heard in these spaces?

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat26

Experienced professional with a decade of working in schools, nonprofit programs and social impact organizations. Jennifer is committed to addressing issues of equity and inclusion for young people with disabilities. Jennifer has experience as a school leader and a special educator. In her recent graduate program, Jennifer conducted MPhil research at Cambridge University (UK) about inclusive education for at-risk young people with learning differences and disabilities. Past academic achievements include a Rotary Global Grant scholarship, a Fulbright Scholarship and NYC Teaching Fellowship. Jennifer currently works as a Senior Research Manager at Understood, a non-profit dedicated to supporting the 1 in 5 individuals who have learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia.

Bad Taste in Movies

July 27, 2022
5:00 p.m. (Pacific)
8:00 p.m. (Eastern)

For this sessions, we will use the tool of critical media analysis to interrogate the cultural racism in films that incessantly perpetuate and award mioptic representation of Black people. We believe that movies are a site of praxis, which function both informally and formally. Therefore, the transformative possibilities that exist involve not only sharpening tools to critically analyze films using the HACK method (will be revealed in discussion) but also radically reimagine ways to color the stories of Black bodies to creatively undermine dominant images.

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat27

Born and raised in Harlem, New York City, Noah received the Gates Millennium Scholarship to study at Amherst College. During his time in college, he studied abroad and worked in India, Brazil, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Greece. Following this learning experience, he served as a youth development volunteer for the Peace Corps in Morocco. Inspired to learn more about the transformative nature of education, he engaged in the unique learning experiences at the University of Cambridge, earning his MPhil in Education, Globalization, and International Development. Noah is currently continuing his educational journey as an education doctoral candidate in international and multicultural education at the University of San Francisco. His third volume, Compositions Elsewhere, Vol. III: Equity, Research, and the Poetics of Education has been recently published with Kulshi Mumkin, LLC.

Bad Taste in Movies

July 27, 2022
5:00 p.m. (Pacific)
8:00 p.m. (Eastern)

For this sessions, we will use the tool of critical media analysis to interrogate the cultural racism in films that incessantly perpetuate and award mioptic representation of Black people. We believe that movies are a site of praxis, which function both informally and formally. Therefore, the transformative possibilities that exist involve not only sharpening tools to critically analyze films using the HACK method (will be revealed in discussion) but also radically reimagine ways to color the stories of Black bodies to creatively undermine dominant images.

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat27

Eghosa is a first generation Nigerian American originally from Sacramento. She is co-founder of Making Us Matter (M.U.M.), a Black woman-owned nonprofit educational organization. M.U.M. aspires to create an educational experience that values the voices and experiences of students and where Black educators are valued and their experiences can inform their teaching. She is currently pursuing an Education doctorate with a concentration in Racial Justice at the University of San Francisco through the International & Multicultural Education department. She is the author of Making Us Matter: Combating Anti-Blackness, White Supremacy, and Other Conversations About Race In Schools and the co-author of Making Us Matter & the Work of Spirit Revival and Black Teachers Are Essential: A Comparative Study In Black Student Experience.

She has presented at conferences on unpacking anti-Blackness in education, Black student experience, and culturally-responsive curriculum development. She has developed curriculum for Ethnic Studies, Social Justice English, and Sociology. With over 14 years of experience her writing, teaching, and research meet at the intersections. Her sites of inquiry are centered on anti-Blackness in education, Critical Pedagogy, BlackCRT, the experiences of Black girl learners, and embodied epistemologies. She seeks collective liberation and visibility for those who have been left in the margins.

Bad Taste in Movies

July 27, 2022
5:00 p.m. (Pacific)
8:00 p.m. (Eastern)

For this sessions, we will use the tool of critical media analysis to interrogate the cultural racism in films that incessantly perpetuate and award mioptic representation of Black people. We believe that movies are a site of praxis, which function both informally and formally. Therefore, the transformative possibilities that exist involve not only sharpening tools to critically analyze films using the HACK method (will be revealed in discussion) but also radically reimagine ways to color the stories of Black bodies to creatively undermine dominant images.

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat27

Rece is a longtime student with shifting interests and affiliations. He prefers to work in mixed media environments where the ephemeral intersects with the tangible. His current work is bent by the gravity of structural death.

Sista Circles, Table Talks, & “No, Can We Talk About It” Spaces

July 29, 2022
11:00 a.m. (Pacific)
2:00 p.m. (Eastern)

Using the framework of Non-Violent Communication (Rosenberg, 2015) participants will be able to identify, articulate, and address their unmet needs as BIPOC + Queer people. At the end of the session, participants will have strategies for critical reflection, combating body terrorism, and engaging in some radical self-love (Taylor, 2018). They will also be equipped with skills for thriving in spaces meant to erase and exhaust them while working to build communities centered around authenticity.

Register here: https://bit.ly/collcat29

Atiya McGhee (they/them/theirs) is a doctoral student in Cultural Foundations of Education. Their current research interests include Black (a)gender and (a)sexualities, social justice education, feminist methodologies, and dialogic pedagogies. Prior to Syracuse, Atiya worked in Residential Life for several years. Atiya holds a M.Ed. in Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration (‘16) from the University of Vermont, and a B.A in Creative Writing and Literature from Wheaton College in Massachusetts (‘14). Outside of academia, Atiya spends a lot of time reading fanfiction, listening to K-pop, and watching anime.

Artist Showcase

Michiko M. Kealoha directs the Center for Student Life and Leadership Development at Cañada College, a community college in the heart of Silicon Valley, California. She is also an Instructor of Leadership Studies in the institution’s Education and Human Development Department. She received a Master of Arts in Educational Administration with an emphasis in Leadership and Student Affairs from University of the Pacific, and completed her doctoral in International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco, studying International and Multicultural Education with an emphasis in Human Rights. Her research interests include human rights education, counter-narratives and storytelling through the arts, and social movements.

Artist Showcase

Manicures are a common feature for many and provide opportunities for entrepreneurship and skill for those who give them. Recognizing nail art as a medium for creativity, expression, and opening space for reflection, this design is inspired by color choices, daily life, and just general joy. The nail art techniques used include stamping and gradients.

Aliyah McGuire (she/hers) is a recent graduate of the University of San Francisco's International and Multicultural Education program. She is deeply invested in college access work, family-oriented, and currently really into pastel colors. She has been consistently doing her nails for the past 6 years and has been an appreciator of nail art for many more.

Artist Showcase

Patricia Rojas-Zambrano is a psychotherapist, activist, artist, and educator. She completed a B.S in Psychology at Universidad de Los Andes in her native Colombia where she worked in community-based projects. Upon relocating to the US to complete graduate studies at CIIS (EXA, 02), she focused her practice towards community mental health settings that serve immigrant and refugee communities. In her clinical practice, she has specialized in the treatment of trauma using both Expressive arts and somatic psychology approaches. She is the co-founder and Director of Wellness in Action at the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, a community-based training program for unserved and underserved immigrant and refugee communities and mental health practitioners of color. Ancestral knowledge, relational wisdom, creative expression, and embodied practices are central to her work. Her passion for education inspired her to pursue doctoral studies in Multicultural and International Education, which is currently underway at the University of San Francisco.

Artist Showcase

Jazzmin (she/her) is a multimedia consultant and human rights education researcher. She works with educational nonprofit organizations on human rights and social justice projects, as well as consults educational institutions on visual presentations and publication formatting. Jazzmin is a doctoral student in International and Multicultural Education with a concentration in Human Rights Education at the University of San Francisco. She is a co-managing editor of the International Journal of Human Rights Education and represents Northern California with the national human rights education network, HRE USA.