Summit Info
Workshops
Click here to register (opens new window)
10:15 - 11:30 am | 1:15 - 2:30 pm
Administrator’s Roundtable on Implementing Inclusive Excellence
The purpose of the roundtable is to showcase efforts by DU administrators to implement the concept of inclusive excellence. Participants will have an opportunity to hear the specific details, plans, and programs from administrators regarding embedding diversity into their respective areas. Challenges and prospects in the implementation of inclusive excellence will also be presented. This roundtable is open to all.
Nurturing Creative Women, Athletic Lesbians, and Creative Gay Men: Endorsement of Positive Stereotypes and Support for Civil Rights
While there has been a decrease in the explicit endorsement of hostile attitudes toward historically disenfranchised groups such as women, people of color, and lesbians and gay men, according to modern prejudice theory there has been a concomitant shift in rhetoric that is employed to justify and legitimize social inequity for these and other groups. This use of modern prejudice rhetoric – even though it is less overtly hostile -- continues to foster campus climates that are unsafe and non-inclusive for members of these groups
The workshop will consist of two parts. First, there will be an interactive didactic presentation on (a) modern prejudice theory, (b) the findings in the literature regarding positive stereotypes, and (c) the findings on the relationship between endorsement of positive stereotypes and the support for equal rights policies. The second part of the workshop will consist of small group discussions on the implications of the findings for work within the DU community to address issues of equity. The group discussions will be organized around role within the community (students, faculty, administrators, staff, etc.) to allow groups to develop concrete action steps.
Go past Go and Do Not Collect $200, Privilege Monopoly: An Experiential Opportunity to Engage in Diversity Awareness
The purpose of this activity is to provide participants with an opportunity to engage in a hands-on activity to increase awareness of ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic privilege in the United States. To exemplify privilege, participants will play the familiar board game, Monopoly, but with an educational “twist.” For this activity, the Monopoly game board is manipulated to reflect notions of privilege. While this session will focus upon ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic privilege, the activity is very adaptable to include sexual orientation, disability, religion, etc. as well. Session attendees will leave the session with an excellent experiential learning tool to recreate within their organizations and classrooms to generate social awareness and thoughtful discussion.
Diversity Diversified: Learning and Working with International Students
Thomas L. Friedman declared that the world is flat, and Richard Florida contended that America is losing its edge in attracting a global creative class. Integration of economies and technology is resulting in greater interaction among people of diverse backgrounds. It is skill in itself to manage cross-cultural and global relationships. With over 900 international students and scholars, from over 90 countries, the University of Denver community has both an opportunity of global learning, and a challenge of managing diversity.
The objective of this session is to provide an opportunity for the DU community to deliberate about the international diversity issues and generate workable inclusive excellence strategies for international students. The session will be delivered in an engaging participative format and will have three broad sections.1) Background on international diversity and participation in an experiential exercise 3) Case study discussion on international diversity 3) Team work on designing an inclusive strategy for international students.
Catching Up: The Contemporary Disability Rights Movement
Most Americans know about and can describe the March on Washington, the Equal Rights Amendment, and other figureheads and accomplishments of a variety of civil rights movements. But names such as Jacobus Tenbroek, Justin Dart and Ed Roberts, Willowbrook, ADAPT, and many other important hallmarks of the contemporary disability rights movement are far less well-known. Why is this? And, what difference does it make?
For the better part of a half century people with disabilities and, to a lesser extent, advocates on the behalf of persons with disabilities, have forged a civil rights movement in the United States and abroad. The movement has some striking similarities to some of those we have all heard about in school and elsewhere, but is less known and understood than its counterparts. The discussion of the disability rights movement is a small but important step toward moving past representation and towards full integration, understanding and acceptance for people with disabilities
This workshop will be a discussion of the disability rights movement including some comparisons and contrasts with the others. Audience members will be engaged by the co presenters, each of whom has a disability, in a hearty discussion of the important factors that make or break social movements, why understanding of social reform for groups of people is important and how DU can improve its understanding of disability and the lives of people with disabilities.
Teachable Moments: Owning and Operating as a Diversity Educator Regardless of Your Title
A racist article appears in your school newspaper. You learn of a Facebook group that makes fun of rape. A sexist joke is e-mailed out and you get a copy. You see a group of people harassing a student who is dressed in native attire. A colleague or friend questions the abilities of a student who has shared her or his learning disability. You overhear students talking about ‘how gay’ the event was last night. How are these teachable moments and how can you use the concepts of inclusive excellence to leverage these opportunities to help others have a better understanding of diversity? Regardless of your role (staff, faculty, or student) you can move these situations into teachable moments.
This presentation will examine how others have successfully created teachable moments in the past and offer you tips for doing so in the future. Using a case study and small group discussion format, the session will look at the concepts of teachable moments and inclusive excellence. Additionally, participants will examine case studies and hypothesize ways that teachable moments could have been utilized.
Social Class Issues: Making the Campus Climate Inclusive for All Students
Transforming institutions through Inclusive Excellence means creating environments that foster achievement for all students, regardless of individual differences. Through the stories of students, staff and administrators one can gain a better understanding of how they can continue to work to ensure inclusion inside and outside the classroom. In this workshop, participants will gain a better understanding of how several DU students’ socioeconomic-status impacts their academic and social experiences at the University of Denver. Five students will be asked to engage in a dialogue around issues of class, their experiences on campus, and what would make their experiences more inclusive both inside and outside the classroom.
Becoming Allies
This session will be a student led dialogue about individuals' journeys to become allies to groups to which they do not belong. Students will offer their perspectives about the impact of their multiple identities in their efforts to be allies. In their perspectives they will address challenges and lessons learned as well as areas for further growth.
Writing about your Race: An Autobiographical Writing Workshop
This session will provide an opportunity for participants to write and reflect on their racial identity and examine how childhood environments and relationships, as well as adult experiences, continue to impact their self-image. Participants do not have to be great writers; rather, they just need to have the desire to reflect deeply on personal experiences and enjoy writing. Participants will be exposed to a variety of questions to help guide their writing and will be invited to share their stories with other workshop participants.
To allow more time for reflection and sharing this workshop will encompass both workshop session times (10:15-11:30 and 1:15-2:30), and participants are required to sign up for both sessions. Participation in this workshop will be capped at fifteen (15) people. Participants are asked to please bring writing utensils (paper, journals, pens/pencils, and/or laptop computer) to record their reflections. For more information about this session, please contact Amanda Stone Norton at anorton@du.edu or 303.871.3989.
[top]
Writing about your Race Part 2: An Autobiographical Writing Workshop
***Participation in Writing about your Race Part 1 is mandatory to attend this session***
This session will provide an opportunity for participants to write and reflect on their racial identity and examine how childhood environments and relationships, as well as adult experiences, continue to impact their self-image. Participants do not have to be great writers; rather, they just need to have the desire to reflect deeply on personal experiences and enjoy writing. Participants will be exposed to a variety of questions to help guide their writing and will be invited to share their stories with other workshop participants. To allow more time for reflection and sharing this workshop will encompass both workshop session times (10:15-11:30 and 1:15-2:30), and participants are asked to sign up for both sessions. Participation in this workshop will be capped at fifteen (15) people. Participants are asked to please bring writing utensils (paper, journals, pens/pencils, and/or laptop computer) to record their reflections. For more information about this session, please contact Amanda Stone Norton at anorton@du.edu or 303.871.3989.
Sexuality, Privilege, and Socio-cultural Identities: Performing Intersections of Diversity
Drawing from research in feminist methodologies, African-American studies, and performance studies, the presenters of this workshop seek to use the power of personal narrative as a pedagogical, political, and consciousness-raising tool. Four members of the DU community, representing various sexualities, ethnicities, religions, and regions, will share personal narratives that highlight issues of sexuality while drawing connections among other identity categories. In addition to addressing issues of diversity for those who occupy marginalized positions, presenters will also reflect on the difficult process of recognizing one’s own privilege and discuss the risks and rewards of marking oneself as an ally for those who are oppressed. The presenters avow diverse identity categories, and will be highlighting issues of sexuality, as well as being inclusive of other diversity issues. The performative nature of this session will help to break down the “fourth wall” that oftentimes separates presenter, text, and audience in an interactive way that will hopefully open possibilities for dialogue and transformation.
The performative aspect of the presentation definitely moves away from the typical workshop format and seeks to include audience members in an interactive, dialogic manner. As a result, audience members and the larger university community will hopefully recognize performance and narrative as valid theoretical and pedagogical tools that can work to promote inclusiveness and supplement more traditional quantitative research data.
“Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America” Dialogue Session
This session is part of the “Power of Diversity Reading and Dialogue Project” which encourages the DU community to read a specific book related to diversity and participate in a dialogue group at the Summit related to the topic of the selected book. For the inaugural year, the book selected for the project is “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich. This is a powerful book that focuses on class inequality, poverty, and the realities of low-wage work and complements the theme of this year’s Summit on “Inclusive Excellence.” Inclusive excellence is about transforming the University of Denver by embedding diversity into every facet of the University and ultimately increasing educational access for different populations. Increasing access to higher education may decrease the likelihood that individuals will be subjected to the working conditions and poverty described in the book. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that some of DU’s staff, faculty, and students may have or are currently sharing similar experiences to the individuals described in the book.
In this session, dialogue participants will specifically 1) discuss issues of diversity presented in the book; 2) examine the dynamics of the issues and their manifestation specifically at the University of Denver; 3) and generate any recommendations for addressing the issues that emerge in the book. The recommendations will then be disseminated to the DU community.
Challenging Conversations: How to Facilitate Discussions about
Diversity in the Classroom
Educators seeking to infuse diversity into their course curriculum
and class discussions embark on a rewarding and challenging journey. This session will assist participants in developing skills and strategies for effectively facilitating discussions about diversity in the classroom, including: constructively addressing conflict; strategies for teaching students who are in various developmental stages; and, suggestions for creating a classroom climate that encourages constructive yet challenging conversations about race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other issues of diversity.
Understanding Culture to Build Bridges Between Students
One of the issues that some diversity initiatives do not address is the intersection of several identities/roles that a person has to integrate, including ethnic identity. It is sometimes difficult to understand the extent to which each person diversifies the environment. There remains some anxiety about broaching the topic of diversity, especially when it comes to ethnic identity for fear of offending someone This workshop will help participants gain a basic understanding of various ethnic identity development models and participate in an ice breaker intended to allow people to share information about their cultural backgrounds with other students and leaders. The icebreaker will be presented as one way that Resident Advisors, Graduate Resident Directors, student organization leaders and advisors, and others can bring everyone’s voice and experiences to the table. When people feel like their voice has been heard and can see how they fit into the bigger picture, it becomes easier to identify a role and place for self.
Whose History of Photography is it anyway?
This session will explore pedagogy for teaching diversity in the history of photography. If photography is the democratic medium, then why are so few groups represented in its history? Why do many academic historians lack diversity in the artists they represent? In this session, participants will explore new approaches to being ‘all- inclusive’. Through lecture and viewing slides of photography, participants will gain an appreciation of how photography has been used to influence Inclusive Excellence, in positive and negative ways, throughout the history of photography.
Unmasking "The Right Way" to be sexually assaulted: Sexual assault, the media, and problematic social norms
In our society, survivors of sexual assault are often rendered invisible, insignificant, and/or unworthy within the media. Not only are survivors rendered voiceless and often guilty, dominant patriarchal discourse simultaneously sends messages on the “acceptable” ways for men to rape woman and the “correct” way for women to be survivors. This session will provide attendees with the opportunity to thoughtfully consider the feelings of a marginalized group that is often entirely invisible on college campuses; sexual assault survivors. The purpose of this session is to deconstruct the representations of survivors of sexual assault and decipher how students, faculty, and administrators can use problematic representations to illuminate power, privilege, and oppression on college campuses. In addition, the presenters will also engage attendees in a critical dialogue addressing how these damaging discourses undermine feminisms and advocacy against sexual assault. The presenters will utilize examples from high profile sexual assault cases to engage in dialogue that reveals these hidden and damaging messages and discuss how to generate critical consciousness.
8th Annual White Privilege Conference – DU community members bring it home
Participants from the recent White Privilege Conference in Colorado Springs will share their thoughts about their experiences. Panelists will share reflections of their paths of personal growth, connecting the dots, and how this translates to creating social change in the DU community.
Promising Practices of Inclusive Excellence
This session will highlight the successes and lessons learned from staff at DU who are moving forward to implement Inclusive Excellence in their departments or divisions. Participants will learn about strategies, tools, and resources that may be of benefit to their own efforts in embracing Inclusive Excellence at DU.
[top]