The Honors DEIJ Reflections & Connections Summit will be hosted from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Rome Ballroom today. This summit “will feature an interactive event by Honors DEI, Honors for Diversity, Honors Council, and Honors Student Leadership Board-Stamford,” according to a University of Connecticut Daily Digest post about the event.
The summit will start at 2 p.m. with a welcome from Dr. Jennifer Lease Butts, the associate vice provost for enrichment programs and director of the honors program.
The first workshop will be held from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., and will be about “DEI 101,” according to the Daily Digest post. This workshop will be led by two honors DEI student specialists, Rebecca Drouillard and Daniel Heumann.
After this workshop, a presentation will be held from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. that covers racial microaggressions at UConn. This presentation will be given by Dr. Micah Heumann, the director of the office of undergraduate research.
A description is given for the presentation on The UConn Events Calendar: “During the Spring of 2019 through the Winter of 2020, our team collected 1,229 from BIPOC identifying graduate and undergraduate students to give voice to these students, identify trends, patterns and recurrent issues that need institutional attention and assess the impact of racial microaggressions on student success, wellbeing and campus climate.”
The last workshop of the summit is called “The Seventh Generation Process: Exploring the Future through Our Interconnectedness in the Present,” and will be hosted from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. by Timothy Beaucage, the honors program advisor and STEM scholar coordinator.
The UConn Events Calendar describes the workshop as a way to, “cultivate radical hope and reinvigorate your commitment to engage in complex global issues with a sacred ‘deep time’ practice session inspired by the work of activist and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy.”
The rest of the summit will be an “International Night celebration with student performances and buffet,” according to the Daily Digest post.
The UConn Events Calendar goes more into what will be happening at the international night.
“In an effort to celebrate our cultural differences and similarities, the Honors Community will be hosting a night full of food, interactive performances and games from around the world,” the events calendar says. “The ultimate goal of this event is to highlight the diversity of this campus and foster connections between groups in the honors community, the UConn community and beyond!”
According to the Daily Digest post, “students, faculty and staff from ALL campuses are encouraged to attend. This event is hosted by Honors, but open to all!”
For more information about the Honors DEIJ Reflections & Connections Summit, you can contact the Honors Council at uconnhc@gmail.com.