| Title | Date | Start Time | End Time | Location | Session Description | Presenter Bio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Economic Diversity: Pell Grant Recipients at CSU | 9/23/2009 | 8:30:00 AM | 9:30:00 AM | Room 224-226 | Financial aid is designed to allow academically qualified individuals access to higher education, regardless of their socio-economic background. However, multiple national statistics show that students from low income households enroll and complete college at much lower rates than young adults from middle and upper socio-economic backgrounds. Federal Pell grant eligibility and the proportion of students receiving Pell grants is often used as a proxy by universities and policy researchers to measure how well low income students are able to access higher education. As a land grant university, CSU’s mission and strategic plan emphasize the importance of serving undergraduates who are low income, with the specific goal of increasing the proportion of undergraduates who are Pell grant eligible. To attain these goals, the University has developed and financially committed to specific programs targeted at resident Pell grant recipients and students from economically disadvantaged Colorado high schools This presentation will begin with a discussion of national trends regarding the effectiveness of financial aid as an economic equalizer for low income students to be able to attain post-secondary degrees. Then a closer look at institutional level data will demonstrate how CSU plans on meeting its goals of academic access and success for low income students. |
Heather Novak works at Student Financial Services as the Statistical Assessment Coordinator. Originally from Las Vegas Nevada, she has lived in Fort Collins for over 10 years. As CSU alumni (02 BA, 05 MA) she finds working at the university in a position that allows her to research financial aid and economic diversity both challenging and exciting. Heather is pursuing a PhD in Research Methodology from the School of Education and intends to complete a dissertation considering the issue of economic access to undergraduate education in the United States. |
| A Collision of Identity: Issues and Outcomes of the Indian Adoption Project (1958-1967) | 9/23/2009 | 8:30:00 AM | 9:30:00 AM | Room 214-216 | American Indian transracial adoptees often find themselves at the intersection of belonging, hierarchy and social memory. The architect behind this sometimes violent collision is the Indian Adoption Project. The Indian Adoption Project, a handshake agreement between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Child Welfare League, ran between 1958-1967. The Project was designed to save American Indian children from impoverished economic and social conditions while giving them access to resources afforded to the Euro-American middle class. By 1972 over 30% of American Indian children were placed into non-Indian homes. Research with adult American Indian transracial adoptees illuminates not only issues of adoption, but what it means to be Indian living in a White world that possesses a colonizing social memory. It also reveals what it means to be Indian having been raised in a White world trying to return home. Interviews and surveys conducted with adoptees expose the sometimes brutal difficulties they faced in both worlds. As transracial, transnational and transethnic adoptions become increasingly common, a dialogue of outcomes and issues needs to be initiated. That is the purpose of the presentation. | Susan Devan Harness received her Master’s Degree from Colorado State University in Cultural Anthropology. Her book, Mixing Cultural Identities Through Transracial Adoption: Outcomes of the Indian Adoption Project (1958-1967), was recently released by Edwin Mellen Press. She continues her research of the issues and outcome of American Indian transracial adoption as an independent scholar. Ms. Harness currently works as a Field Director for the Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research collecting data on substance use attitudes and trends of American Indian adolescents. |
| Listening to Students’ Experiences to Create Safe Learning Spaces | 9/23/2009 | 9:00:00 AM | 10:30:00 AM | Room 203-205 | Students at CSU participate in a diverse array of learning opportunities both in and out of the classroom. As faculty and staff at CSU, our role is to facilitate opportunities in an environment that is physically, emotionally, and mentally safe for all to learn. A recent study involving CSU students provides insight into the kinds of things that make a space safe for students with multiple marginalized identities. We can learn from students’ experiences – both positive and negative – about how to create a safe and welcoming environment for all to learn. | Chris Linder is the Director of the Office of Woman’s Programs and Studies and a PhD student at the University of Northern Colorado in the Higher Education and Students Affairs Leadership Program. Chris earned her MA in Higher Education Administration and a BS in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Bobby Kuntsman is an Assistant Director of Co-Curricular Leadership in the Student Leadership, Involvement and Community Engagement Office. He works with various leadership programs and student organizations. Prior to his arrival at CSU, he was an Area Hall Director at North Central College where he earned a Master in Leadership studies and a is a graduate of the Environmental Studies program at Florida State University. |
| Regional and National Hate Groups | 9/23/2009 | 10:00:00 AM | 11:00:00 AM | Room 224-226 | This will be a general overview of the hate groups in this region using examples from the internet, actual writings and materials from such groups. Demographics of members and active locations will be explored. | The winner of the adult category is Hal Mansfield, founder and Director of the Religious Movement Resource Center. Hal was nominated by his wife, Linda Benefiel. He has dedicated 30 years of his life to combating hate groups and destructive organizations, and educating thousands of people about cults. Hal offers wise counsel and compassionate support to those involved in hate groups and their families. He continues to gather data about cultic impacts and has investigated excessive social and behavioral influence in non-mainstream religious groups, hate groups, sales organizations, and other groups since 1978. Just last year, he handled 756 calls and consultations and his website received over 4,000 hits. He is an experienced speaker and freely donates his time and expertise to educate university groups, church groups, and law enforcement officials. He single-handedly organized the successful 1998 Rocky Mountain State Conference on Cults, Gangs, and Hate Groups. In addition, he is a committed volunteer with reFOCUS, a support and referral network for former members of cults and ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association). The noteworthy nominees in the adult category were Sarah Buffington, Ginny DeHerdt and Diane Watkins. |
| Living Room Dialogues and Interfaith Diversity in Local Communities | 9/23/2009 | 10:30:00 AM | 12:00:00 PM | Room 213-215 | Not uncommonly, newcomers as well as longtime residents of Fort Collins point to the city’s homogeneity as a drawback. However, many engaged community volunteers could claim otherwise. This workshop is designed to explore the foundation of the myth of homogeneity and explore how all of us can participate in the emergence of the “hidden” diversity across our communities and celebrate it more fully. Over the past half dozen years I have helped organize and convene Abrahamic interfaith initiatives and broader multi-faith initiatives in the Northern Colorado region and elsewhere, using the strategy of Living Room Dialogue. The Living Room Dialogue has been around for decades under many different names. For example, the Network for Peace through Dialogue (formerly Center of International Learning) was begun in 1985 by sociologists, theologians, and educators from Germany, the Philippines and the United States united by their world-view and wanting to participate in transformative change. The success of LRD was popularized by Len and Libby Traubman, conveners of one of the first Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogues in 1992. My workshop will demonstrate how diverse (even conflicting) faith communities, engaged in active, often difficult, conversations, can provide important insights into the challenges and rewards of advocating for cultures of peace worldwide. | Dr. Tivona recently received her doctorate through CSU’s Interdisciplinary program, combining peace education with critical issues in communication studies and political science. Her dissertation – Globalization of Compassion: Women in the Foreground of Cultures of Peace – investigated the media’s complicity in propagating cultures of conflict and violence and precluding clearer understanding of the full spectrum of human performance across the globe. Elissa is a popular speaker and diversity trainer throughout Colorado and has recently returned from the “holy land” where she had to test “theory” with a team of Israeli, Palestinian and international activists together walking the Green Line (former 1967 border, acknowledged widely as a basis for negotiating two states for two people in this war-ravaged region). |
| Understanding the Impact of Eco-Privilege | 9/23/2009 | 11:00:00 AM | 12:00:00 PM | Room 220-222 | Eco-Apocalypse, Eco-Apartheid, or Eco-Equity; our future lies within one of these three concepts. This workshop will examine the idea of privilege and its role in the environmental sustainability movement (the green movement). This workshop focuses on the growing development of the green economy, from conservation to lifestyles and accessibility. Although we may see the green movement growing in our own community, we do not see the impact that it has on other communities. Currently, the green movement is a movement for the privileged in our society having a negative impact on individuals of lower socio-economic status. Environmental sustainability is on the forefront of our minds, but we neglect the impact of race, ethnicity, and power on the movement. We will explore the idea of the eco‐privilege that we have and how we can reach out of our green bubble and expand to other communities before reach a point of no‐return. Our path to Eco-Equity will begin with the exploration of five steps. We will explore the bridging of the environmental and social justice movements, teaching anti-oppression with sustainability, the importance of green jobs, designing model cities, and how politics is an important part of the solution. |
Bobby Kunstman: Bobby is an Assistant Director of Co-Curricular Leadership in the Student Leadership, Involvement and Community Engagement Office. He works with various leadership programs and student organizations. Prior to his arrival at CSU, he was an Area Hall Director at North Central College where he earned a Master In Leadership Studies and a graduate of the Environmental Studies program at Florida State University. Joslyn McGriff: Joslyn McGriff is a Residence Director at Colorado State University. Joslyn holds a Bachelors Degree in Sociology and African American Studies from the University of Wyoming University and a Masters in Student Affairs in Higher Education from Colorado State University. Prior to working at CSU she was the Greek Life Area Coordinator at the University of New Mexico. |
| Intersecting Identities: I'm My Own Theory/The Many Dimensions of Me? | 9/23/2009 | 1:00:00 PM | 2:30:00 PM | Room 203-205 | This session on Intersecting Identities will challenge attendees to reflect on the numerous identities we carry with us day to day. We will begin with an activity that explores hidden identities and the most salient aspects of our self-conceptualization. The activity is done in silence and allows participants to self-identify feelings around their social classification in terms of race, gender, age, class, sexual orientation, and education level, etc. A discussion debriefing the provocative nature of the activity will ease participants into considering aspects of their identities that are 1) internalized or more salient to themselves and 2) externalized by societal and/or intrapersonal interactions. This activity provides a platform for discussion of Susan Jones and Marylu McEwen’s Model of Multiple Dimensions of Identity. Facilitators will give a presentation, analysis and reflection of the core and contextual identities included in this model. The presentation will close with a group dialogue around intersecting identity development that will provide participants with a better understanding of contextual influences and perceptions of self. Faculty, administrators, and students will benefit from a deeper perspective on how multiple dimensions of identity affect learning in and outside of the classroom. | Jody Donovan currently serves as the Associate Dean of Students/Executive Director of Parent & Family Programs. As part of the Student Affairs in Higher Education (SAHE) faculty, Jody co-teaches Student Development Theory each fall. Katharine Wormus is a second year SAHE graduate student. Kate currently works in Apartment Life as Manager of University Village. Kinsey Holloway is also a second year SAHE graduate student. Kinsey works in Apartment Life as Manager of Aggie Village. |
| What Works: Recruiting Minority Graduate Students | 9/23/2009 | 1:00:00 PM | 2:30:00 PM | Room 224-226 | The number of domestic minority students (African American, American Indian, Alaskan Native Asian American, Hispanic) who graduate with masters and doctoral degrees is unacceptably low, as are the recruitment and retention rates of these students who actually make it into graduate programs. Such small numbers have a variety of negative effects on issues that range from the US economy and the conceptualization of graduate degrees to educational outcomes that minority students consider as realistic options. In order to increase the number of minority students who seek graduate degrees, particularly PhDs, major changes must be made in the way students are recruited, retained and mentored through their graduate experience. The purpose of this panel discussion addresses the first step in the process of growing the number of minority students who graduate with a PhD, successful recruitment strategies. The objectives of the panel discussion are as follows: Identify key factors that support successful recruitment strategies. Present specific recruitment initiatives that have proven successful, from individual faculty efforts to organized unit programs. Provide an opportunity for the audience to ask questions. |
Dr. Jodie Hanzlik, Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Affairs provides the leadership for the Graduate Center for Diversity and Access (GCDA). The GCDA’s mission is to support recruitment and retention opportunities for all students with an emphasis on domestic minority students through a range of activities. Due to the effectiveness of all of the GCDA programs, it appears that minority graduate student enrollment and retention numbers have demonstrated accelerated growth patterns. Prior to Dr. Hanzlik’s tenure in the Graduate School, she was a faculty member and head of CSU’s Occupational Therapy Department for a total of 21 years. |
| What is Diversity? When is it Good? | 9/23/2009 | 1:30:00 PM | 2:30:00 PM | Room 214-216 | As a positive social value, diversity caught on in the aftermath of the civil rights struggles of the 50s, 60s and beyond. So we tend to define diversity in terms of the groups who fought for their rights in these struggles: African-Americans; other racial and ethnic minorities; women; gays and lesbians. But there is more to diversity than this. In his great essay “On Liberty,” John Stuart Mill emphasized new and different ways of thinking and living as the keys to promoting diversity. For Mill, diversity depended not on having lots of ethnic and racial groups present in a society, but on individuals being creative enough to think their own thoughts and brave enough to live their own lives. Arguably this is the deepest, most important kind of diversity and the kind that contemporary liberal democracies, with their strong commitment to the value of every individual, should promote. Not all kinds of diversity are good, however; as the saying goes: “increased perversity is not desirable diversity.” The talk concludes by considering several controversial examples of diversity and asks: how should we balance diversity against the other fundamental values and commitments of liberal democracies, when they come into conflict? | Philip Cafaro is associate professor of philosophy at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. A former ranger with the U.S. National Park Service, his main interests are environmental ethics, ethical theory, and wild lands preservation. He is the author of Thoreau's Living Ethics: Walden and the Pursuit of Virtue (University of Georgia Press, 2004) and co-editor of the anthology Environmental Virtue Ethics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005). He has published articles in Environmental Ethics, the Journal of Social Philosophy, Philosophy Today and BioScience, and in the Encyclopedia of Biodiversity and the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History. |
| University Dialogue: Challenges and Opportunities for Promoting Productive Conversations | 9/23/2009 | 2:30:00 PM | 4:00:00 PM | Cherokee Park Ballroom | Talking about diversity and developing new relationships begins by sharing and listening to all of our unique experiences as individuals. Come together and share your stories of times when you have faced both road blocks to talking about diversity issues, in addition to hearing your positive experiences of breakthroughs when change was realized. A key part of our task for the first day of dialogues is to collect information through keypad voting technology on what important things need to be discussed during the second day of dialogues as we work towards actions and next-steps. | Center for Public Deliberation |