13th Annual EIUnity Diversity Conference: The Rebirth of a Nation

I report how children’s and young adult non-fiction books, literature, and textbooks (mis)represent the Black Freedom Movement, which contains the centuries of slavery until beyond the Civil Rights Movement. If unchallenged by teachers, students will remain ignorant of slavery’s ubiquity and brutality, its centrality to America’s emerging economy, and enslaved African Americans’ humanity and resistance. Similar misrepresentations appear in Civil Rights-based curricula. Omission of the period after slavery before the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement leaves students oblivious to the racial terror, legislative disenfranchisement, and judicial re-enslavement. I demonstrate how teachers, parents, and students can first identify and then fill the gaps within misrepresentative curricula.

Target Audience: Students, K-12 teachers, and Parents

This workshop will present the Freshman Connection mentorship program and its impact on freshman students at Eastern Illinois University. The program focuses on building inclusivity at EIU and supporting students from all backgrounds, like commuters and first generation students. The data will also highlight leadership opportunities and benefits of the program.

One of the texts used for the course Learning in Diverse Contexts is Disrupting Poverty by Budge and Parrett. It explores ways elementary teachers can offset the poverty seen in their students’ lives. This session will discuss this text and its powerful impact on one undergraduate student in particular.

Research describing animal-assisted activities (AAA) and their impact on young children have been documented, albeit sparingly, in the research base. This emerging base includes AAA efforts with “reluctant readers” (e.g., Lane & Zavada, 2013) and developing readers (e.g., Linder, Mueller, Gibbs, Alper, & Freeman, 2018). Scorzato et al. (2017) reported evidence from their pilot study on the behavior, communication, and social skills with adults with severe to profound intellectual disabilities.

Fung (2017) noted that most animal-assisted related research to date has been focused on more therapeutic purposes, being delivered by health-care professionals. However, there has been more literature prevalent in the past few decades describing canine-assisted reading programs in public libraries; yet, there are few controlled studies which show clear measures of outcomes. Additionally, efforts have generally taken root in more urban areas (i.e., see www.sitstayread.org). Fung continued, making a case for canine-assisted activities (CAA) which focused on reading with participants being students with disabilities. She noted that canines could be used as a non-judgmental audience, as a speech elicitor, as a comfort companion, and as a younger sibling, allowing the child with a disability to become a caretaker to build self-esteem.

The purpose of this presentation is to provide a description of law, the hierarchy of CAA, and research regarding animal-assistance strategies and programs.

Target Audience: Educators

Transition from high school to life beyond high school can be scary and challenging for anyone, including students with disabilities and their families. This presentation seeks to explain some of the changes in law and access and potential means of support from faculty and staff at colleges/universities for this transition.

Target Audience: Teachers, Parents, Faculty, Staff, Students

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education and access to the general education curriculum, yet students with disabilities are often segregated in self-contained classrooms and schools. This presentation will advocate for inclusive rather than exclusive special education services.

Target Audience: Pre-K through 12 Teachers

The purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview of advocacy skills for individuals with disabilities using service dogs to assist them in confronting barriers they are likely to encounter when working in public, and to help educate the general population regarding misconceptions about service dog use.

We will cover the impact that on campus resources have on trans* success. Marginalization, discrimination, and oppression impacts their collegiate experience. Through individual interviews, trans* identifying students discussed both positive and negative experiences with campus resources. This presentation will discuss ways we can further create more inclusive environments for trans* students.

Identity and Diversity are intertwined in unique ways. Their points of intersection are nuanced and unpredictable. Race, a significant label that embodies a set experiences, greatly influences how and in what ways we see ourselves, how others see us, and how we see others. It is a major factor of both our identity and diversity.

What becomes complicated, controversial, and sometimes contemptuous is our inability to recognize that like identity, diversity is focused on the self as a primary starting point. We form internal understandings about who we are and the factors we believe are most crucial to our identity. and how we comprehend that which we define as different from us. Further, how each of us sees ourselves as individuals may or may not mirror how each of us sees ourselves as a member of a group. This holds that we may be members of a group that reflects certain sets of similar characteristics or values, but individually we reflect ideologies or characteristics that are not common to that group.

How does this play out for people of color in a racialized society that has deliberately constructed unilateral definitions to categorize them? Whites are able to identify diversely as complex, multi-faceted individuals and as members of a collective. But racial stereotypes create the perception of people of color to be predictable and narrow in scope. The narrative is often pre-defined and relegated to a box that appeases the culture of power. The image that is the most amenable to prevailing value systems physically, socially, and culturally is the one most accepted and touted by the larger society.

Pulling in the work of Cross, 1995, the presenter amplifies Black racial identity theory to illuminate the stages of “becoming “black. This is a launch pad for an interactive discussion of the assumptions that are attached to people of color and how people of color walk a fine line between individual expression of cultural identity, expectations of group affiliation, and social promotion and acceptance.

Research has consistently shown that informal interactions between students and faculty boost academic and personal outcomes for students. Moreover, these relationships can have a reciprocal effect on faculty members in the form of greater verstehen - or understanding - of the lives of students. Based on a review of this literature and personal observations and experience coordinating a program for informal student/faculty interactions, I argue that now, more than ever, we need to develop our empathy for our students. Through the Black Live Movement, a global pandemic, threats to Dreamers, and intimidation of the Gender and Sexually Diverse Community, life off of the syllabus may be our best approach to empowering student success.

Target Audience: Faculty and Students

The Coronavirus global pandemic significantly impacted individuals around the world as far as finances, mental health, and overall sense of safety, specifically in college students. The purpose of this study is to examine quarantine and isolation experiences in college students due to the COVID-10 pandemic.

Target Audience: Undergraduate, Graduate, Faculty, and Staff

Queering Faith: The Bible is a training that takes an in-depth look at common verses in the Bible that are typically used to combat homosexuality. The historical context the verses were written in will be evaluated, and the translation of the verse will also be analyzed. This training addresses the complicated relationship between religion and sexual minoritized individuals.

Target Audience: Open to any student, staff, or faculty member who is interested in becoming an ally for the LGBTQA+ community and learning more about gender and sexuality-related issues

The Beyond Bystander training complements the Safe Zone Core training taking a more thorough look at how to effectively advocate for members of the GSD community. This training will provide an interactive platform to assist in being a better advocate and ally for the Gender and Sexual Diversity community.

Target Audience: Open to any student, staff, or faculty member who is interested in becoming an ally for the LGBTQA+ community and learning more about gender and sexuality-related issues.

The current generation of college students are experiencing the traumas of living in a global pandemic. Many are suffering from isolation and loneliness, crushed dreams about college, and a sense of being cheated. This workshop presents the concept of unconditional positive regard as a tool for inclusive practice in the college classroom.

Target Audience: Faculty and Graduate Student Instructors

A discussion on the lack of representation of professional of color in higher education and how it affects the faculty and staff.

Trans 101 is an interactive and exploratory presentation which reviews basic terminology, statistics, and best practices regarding the transgender umbrella. This presentation is truly a 101 and audiences can expect to leave with the proper building blocks in being a proactive ally.

Target Audience: Open to any student, staff, or faculty member who is interested in becoming an ally for the LGBTQA+ community and learning more about gender and sexuality-related issues.