For the fifth year in a row, Webster University will address issues of diversity when it presents the 2020 Diversity & Inclusion Conference Feb. 24 through 27.
This year’s topics include workforce diversity and how to be an ally, and a student panel discussion on recent study abroad trips to Costa Rica and Ghana, along with four speakers, including keynote, Michele Norris, who will speak on Wednesday, Feb. 26.
A journalist and author, Norris is the founder of The Race Card Project, which she started in 2010 to begin a wider conversation about race among her readers. She invited people to submit comments in six words about their experience of race in the United States. Thousands of people – of all races, from all over the U. S. and the world – have submitted their candid thoughts on race in the six-word essays. Norris and collaborators won a Peabody Award for the project in 2014.
She served as co-host of “All Things Considered” on National Public Radio for more than a decade. Before joining NPR as its first African American female host, Norris spent 10 years as a reporter for ABC News in the Washington bureau. She is the author of “The Grace of Silence,” a memoir and nonfiction book, and is a Post Opinions contributor and consultant at The Washington Post.
In 2009, she was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists for her body of work, in addition to coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign – when she co-hosted NPR’s Democratic presidential candidates’ debate, covered both conventions, anchored multi-hour election and inauguration live broadcasts and moderated a series of candid conversations with voters on the intersection of race and politics.
Opening the conference on Monday, Feb. 24, is Sam Whiteout, who engages audiences in conversations about race and social injustice that are often avoided. His work centers on creating space for and developing conversations about issues of race, allyship and politics, while discussing how to navigate unfamiliar territory, specifically for young people who want to be involved in campus activism.
Central to Whiteout’s message of #BeYouBeGreat is the idea that you do not have to identify as something to care about it or recognize its value – allyship is an essential tool in strategically working toward progress.
On Wednesday, Feb. 26, Aisha Sultan, the region’s only nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and an independent filmmaker, will speak. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Her work explores social change and how it affects families. She teaches writing at Washington University, and speaks frequently about the challenges in creating a more diverse and inclusive society.
Shelly Tochluk, Ph.D., who will speak on Thursday, Feb. 27, is the author of “Witnessing Whiteness,” and a professor in the education department at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Los Angeles. An educator with a background in psychology, she spent 10 years as a researcher, counselor and teacher in California’s public schools. She now trains teachers to work with Los Angeles’ diverse school population. She also works with Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere-Los Angeles or AWARE-LA, where she co-created a workshop series that leads white people into a deeper understanding of their personal relationship to race, white privilege and systemic racism.
Additional programs include Gazelle’s presentation on Feb. 26, “Why Diversity and Representation Matter in Today’s Newsrooms,” with Gazelle publisher Cillah Hall, KMOX Radio’s Carol Daniel and KSDK Channel 5’s PJ Randhawa, moderated by Gazelle community editor Trish Muyco-Tobin.
Webster’s Diversity & Inclusion Conference’s roots go back to 2012, when a group of students at the Webster University Delegate’s Agenda expressed an interest in learning more about diversity and inclusion efforts on campus. Administration was also passionate about prioritizing inclusion throughout the global Webster University community, so the Global Inclusion and Diversity Summit was formed in spring 2013. It was so successful, the decision was made to form an annual conference.
In 2016, Chancellor Elizabeth (Beth) Stroble and Nicole Roach led a group of faculty, staff and students in organizing the first annual Embracing Diversity & Inclusion: Critical Conversations conference. Conferences since then have focused on topics like accessibility, safe zones, trans rights, microaggressions, hate speech and much more.
For more information on the 2020 Diversity & Inclusion Conference, visit webster.edu/conversations.
