Opening Keynote Address:
How We Meet This Moment With Courage: Our communities and the country face challenges to democracy, equality, and a country where everyone belongs. How can this generation rise to the challenge and provide leadership that the country needs the most? We need to practice solidarity, to promote democracy, and to have courage. 

Aimee Allison is the founder and president of She the People, a national organization that elevates the voice and power of women of color as leaders of a new political and cultural era. She made political history in 2019 when she organized and moderated the nation’s first presidential forum for women of color which led to to widespread recognition of the issues and strength of this voting block. For the past 5 years, has been a leading advocate for women of color on the presidential ticket, on the Supreme Court, and in Congress. Allison’s expert political insight and power building efforts have been featured across national and international media outlets from Politico to the New York Times and PBS to MSNBC. Allison holds a B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University.

Scholar and Founder Radical Love Productions

Closing Keynote Address
Solidarity Matters: A call to stand in the Kingian legacy of multiracial solidarity and love-driven justice. 

Dr. David Kyuman Kim is Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Religion at the University of California, Berkeley and Founder of Radical Love Productions, a media and consultancy company dedicated to creating content that speaks to the most important moral issues about what it means to be human, specifically around questions of race, democracy, and justice. Most recently he served as Executive Director of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. For nearly twenty years, Dr. Kim was Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies at Connecticut College, where he founded the first center on race and ethnicity at a liberal arts college. He has held appointments at Brown, Stanford, UPenn, Union Theological Seminary, the Graduate Theological Union, UC Berkeley School of Law, and the Social Science Research Council, where he served as a Senior Advisor and Editor-at-Large of The Immanent Frame, the SSRC’s online platform  on secularism, religion and public life.

Author of Melancholic Freedom: Agency and the Spirit of Politics (Oxford 2007) and co-editor of The Postsecular in Question and Race, Religion, and Late Democracy, he is widely published in the fields of religious studies, Asian American studies, political theory, and race and democracy. Cornel West calls him “the leading philosopher of religion and culture of his generation.” His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Truthout, and The Immanent Frame. His podcast and book The Public Life of Love are in development. A food enthusiast and classically-trained musician, he lives in Oakland, CA.

Presenters: Fabiola Peñafiel, Ms. Hooper, Ms. Hutchins, & Ms. Morales Kent

Description: The workshop will provide a brief snapshot of the emergence of the term “First Generation College Bound” after the Civil Rights Movement and how college access has improved or not for these students since then. In addition to some history, we will offer a current perspective on what it means to be a first-generation student today by looking at the socio-economic and personal impacts of college attendance for a student and their family as well as the implications on the start of generational wealth. Using excerpts from the book The Privileged Poor, we hope to prompt conversations on the challenges and successes of these students. 

 

Presenters: Ms. Kasimirowski, Sarah Sonenshine, Shiraz Rothschild, Theo Lopez, Imani Butts

Description: Activism has been a central part of Jewish identity since the 19th century in Europe, and in the US in the early 20th century. While some causes pertain directly to Jews, many protests and movements Jewish people were involved in were related to broader social and political justice movements. Our workshop will talk about the history of Jewish activism, centered on involvement in the Civil Rights Movements. From here, we’ll go into reflection and discussion on the intersectionality of our own identities, and take this into a broader context of Thacher.

Presenters: Teal Smith, Zibi Laird, Sarah Sonenshine, Evie Stoen

Our workshop will discuss the importance of intersectional identity within the LGBTQ community. Specifically, we will be celebrating Black queer and trans identity as it is in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy. We will be discussing specific individuals and applying their contributions and ideals to Thacher’s culture. The individuals we are presenting are Marsha P Johnson, Bayard Rustin, and Audre Lorde. We think these individuals will each contribute to a multifaceted conversation about intersectionality, justice, queerness, transness, and Blackness. 

After presenting, we will ask the members of our workshop to reflect on their own identities and what intersectional lenses they can see themselves and their family through. After taking time to reflect independently we will come back together, allow space if anyone wants to share, and then facilitate a closing conversation. This final conversation will ask the workshop to turn towards organizing that expands beyond each individual’s identity, closing the gap between our presentation and personal reflection. This should line up with discussing different forms of collective expression and liberation that our three significant figures represented and demonstrated in their work. We hope our workshop will pair the importance of internal reckoning and identity work with the direction to take action and leadership beyond the self.

 

Presenters: Fiona van Otterloo, Margot Edwards, Zander Glickman, Darragh Mahoney, and Sarah Thele

We will talk briefly about language use on campus and how to support your peers with disabilities. We will specifically discuss ways to respond if a friend decides to reveal that they are disabled. To conclude, we will have some fun activities/crafts to allow students to have something to do as we converse and to find a break from the long day.

 

Presenters: Ms. Nicole Chung, Dr. Russell Spinney, Ms. Sepideah Mohsenian-Rahman, Lily Clemens, Margaret Zhang, Gary Liu, Henry Zhou, Sarah Kwon, Willie Hu 

Description: Black and Asian Americans have long been pitted against each other, an example of how White supremacy breeds inter-minority hostility over allyship. Where does this narrative of Black-Asian hostility come from in American communities? How do these experiences lie within and also beyond our borders? And how can we work towards a place of solidarity, despite our differences as minority groups with distinct histories? 

We will walk through some of the history and origins of Black-Asian hostility, specifically highlighting Rodney King and the 1992 riots just down the road in Los Angeles and also thinking about how anti-Blackness and anti-Asianness show up in diasporas more broadly. We will lecture on the distinctive histories these minorities carry in this country and how, despite the differences, these groups have been able to join forces and stand together (e.g. discriminatory treatment of Black and Japanese Americans during WWII, Yuri Kochiyama and Malcolm X in Harlem, Joe Ishikawa working to desegregate swimming pools in post-war Lincoln, Nebraska) in oft-missed moments of history. Throughout the workshop there are moments for individual/small group reflection, and wrap up with some tool-building for how to form meaningful allyships, and why it matters.

Presenter: Narmeen Hashim

 

An invitation to join in Narmeen Hashim (Antiracist Educator, Nonprofit Director, Council Facilitator & Artist) in the practice of Council; conscious conversation in circle. During our session we will each have an equal opportunity to listen and speak from the heart, and weave our words, dreams, and stories for collective liberation. Expect a cozy, intentional container with warm tea and high vibration. 

Presenter: Alex Brown, Director of the Boswell Library 

Description: Generative AI is everywhere all of a sudden, but is it as beneficial as some people think? In this workshop we'll look at some of the ethical issues with AI, with a special focus on bias. Participants will gain a basic understanding of what generative AI is - and is not - capable of and what its implications are for DEI going forward.