Diversity and Inclusion

Thursday, May 25 | 5-6 p.m.
Diversity Center

The Pan-Asian Organization will be hosting a “Pani Puri Challenge”on May 25, 2023, in the D&IC. Participants will be given the chance to eat Pani Puri, a famous Indian street food!

6:30-7:30 p.m. | Tuesday, May 16
Memorial Hall 113 – Diversity Center

In honor of AAPI Heritage Month, LUNA in collaboration with PAO, will be hosting a kukui nut lei making event that also teaches the cultural importance of both kukui nuts and leis to the Hawaiian and Polynesian people. This event will be open to the public and is something you can further take home.

AAPI Art and Media Exhibit
May 11-13 | All Day | Warch Gallery
In collaboration with LUNA
This exhibit aims to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month by showcasing different AAPI cultures through a variety of artistic means! Gift bags will be provided to visitors on a first-come, first-serve basis.

AAPI Cultural Dinner
May 13 | 5 p.m. | D&IC
In collaboration with Beta Theta Pi

Kukui Nut Lei Workshop
May 16 | 6:30 p.m. | Memorial Hall 114
In collaboration with LUNA
This event teaches the cultural importance of both kukui nuts and leis to the Hawaiian and Polynesian people. This event will be open to the public and is something you can take home.

AAPI & LBGTQIA+ Boba & Movie Night
May 18 | 5 p.m. | Mudd Library 401
In collaboration with Prism
This event aims to celebrate the intersectionality between AAPI and queer identities! Anyone is welcome to join. Boba will be provided to attendees on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Pani Puri Night
May 25 | 5 p.m. | Memorial Hall 105
In collaboration with D&IC and International House
Participants will be given the chance to eat Pani Puri, a famous Indian street food.

A Scholar-Activist Conversation with Dr. Sami Schalk & T.S. Banks
Tuesday, May 2 | 6:30 p.m.
Warch Cinema

Sponsored by the Ethnic Studies Department and the Lawrence University Disability Working Group. This talk is free and open to the public.

Dr. Sami Schalk (she/her) is an associate professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction (Duke 2018) and Black Disability Politics (Duke 2022). Dr. Schalk’s academic work focuses on race, disability, and gender in contemporary American literature and culture. She also writes for mainstream outlets, including a monthly column called “Pleasure Practices” in TONE Madison. Dr. Schalk identifies as a fat, Black, queer, disabled femme and a pleasure activist.

T.S. Banks (he/him) is a Black & QTDisabled, non-binary teaching artist, poet, and playwright from Madison, WI. He is the Founder of Loud ‘N UnChained Theater Co and LNU Publishing House, which is home to Black mad-Krip, neurodivergent, and chronically ill authors and teaching-artists. His work addresses visioning for Black Liberation, a critique of the medical system, radical care + access, madness, QT Mad-Krip Liberation, disability justice, & abolition. T’s chapbooks “Call Me ill,” “Left,” & “SPLIT” can all be found at LnuTheaterCo.com.

The Diversity Center is looking for faculty and staff volunteers to assist in a mock interview event on May 17 from 5-6:30 p.m. If interested, please fill out this form. Your help is appreciated!

If you have any questions, please reach out to either Asher McMullin (asher.b.mcmullin@lawrence.edu) or Lissette Cruz-Jiménez (lissette.cruz-jimenez@lawrence.edu).

The Program for Leadership of Underrepresented Students (PLUS) is looking to host a mock interview event. The first hour will be conducted in Main Hall (interviews) and the other half will be in the Diversity and Intercultural Center for dinner, as well as a follow up conversation with the Career Center.

Faculty and staff volunteers will only need to stay for the first hour, but you are more than welcome to join us for dinner!

When: Thursday April 27, 2023 from 7-9 p.m.
Where: Wriston Auditorium

Paisley Currah is a Professor of Political Science and Women’s & Gender Studies at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of CUNY.

Currah has written widely on transgender issues; he is the co-founder of the leading journal in transgender studies, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Currah’s book, Sex Is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity, was published May 2022 by NYU Press.

Currah has advocated for transgender rights at all levels of government. He was a founding board member of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute, served on the founding board of directors of Global Action for Trans Equality, and sat on the advisory board of Human Rights Watch’s LGBT Program.

When: Wednesday April 19, 2023 @ 4:30 p.m.

Where: Warch Campus Cinema

The Office of Diversity, Equity and inclusion presents the 2022-2023 DE&I Community Conversations Series: Race, Racism and Justice. The fourth talk in the series will cover how Indigenous people around the world are revitalizing ancestral foods and knowledge, ways to promote healthy eating, robust local economies, and more resilient communities.