Equity Conference 2025

10:00am – 10:30am
Opening and Welcome
Equity Conference Committee
A conference welcome.

11:00am – 12:30pm
KEYNOTE
“Brilliance Remastered” – Alexis Pauline Gumbs
This vibrant presentation by Sista Docta Gumbs is an intensive meant for community accountable intellectuals and artists in the legacies of Audre Lorde’s profound statement in “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”

1:00pm – 2:30pm
KEYNOTE
“Fusing Race and Class to Win” – Ian Haney-Lopez 
Ian Haney Lopez is a dynamic speaker who will share his research on the evolution of racism in American politics to life and how powerful elites stoke racial and class division. 

3:00pm – 4:30pm
KEYNOTE
“The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom” – Eddie Cole
Eddie Cole, is the author of The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom.  Focusing on the period in America between 1948 and 1968, Cole shows how college presidents, during a time of violence and unrest, strategically, yet often silently, initiated and shaped racial policies and practices inside and outside of the educational sphere.

4:30pm – 6:00pm

“From Cops to Care: Transforming Mental Health Crisis Response on College Campuses” – Dr. Shelly-Ann Collins Rawle, Dr. Ian Wallace, Dr. Jay Howell, Dr. Katie Johnson, Dr. Stacie Pham, Jennifer Staffero, Susan Chen, Karla Castillo and Jason Conwell
This workshop advocates for reallocating resources from campus policing to expanded counseling and mental health services, focusing on the current practices of involving law enforcement in mental health crises, particularly 5150 assessments and transportation for hospitalization. 

10:00am – 11:30am
“CSU Librarians Organize: A Conversation with Emily Drabinski” – Emily Drabinski
Join us for a discussion with Emily Drabinski, immediate past president of the American Library Association, where we will discuss academic libraries, the librarianship profession, union organizing, and the recent increase in challenges, censorship attempts, and bans of library content that highlight LGBTQIA+, ethnic, and race issues, experiences, histories, and people.

1:00pm – 2:30pm
“Bilingual Counselor Faculty Work: The Unspoken and Unpaid Work of our Bilingual Counselors” – Dr. Lissa Lim and Dr. Stacie Pham
As CFA works towards a more equitable future, we must consider the ways we can more fairly recognize and compensate counselors for the bilingual services they provide.

3:00pm – 4:30pm
“Signed, Sealed and Delivered: Moving Beyond Scholarship to Community Praxis with Black Deaf Communities” – Dr. Lissa Ramirez-Stapleton
Do you ever feel like publishing articles and presenting at conferences isn’t enough? Do you want your scholarship to make a deeper impact? Do you miss being connected to your community? I did too.

Scholarship on Black Deaf communities often highlights systemic barriers, cultural resilience, and linguistic injustice—but I wanted to move beyond research to meaningful engagement. In this presentation, I will share my journey from academic discourse to action by embracing community-centered praxis, confronting hearing privilege, and building authentic collaborations with Black Deaf individuals.

Whether you are an educator, researcher, or advocate, this presentation will ignite your creativity on how you can transform your scholarship into sustained, justice-driven action. 

5:00pm – 6:30pm
“Shifting Landscapes” – Maria Hinojosa 
Participants will experience an insightful analysis of the current changing state of political, cultural and immigration landscapes from one of America’s leading Latina journalist, Executive Producer and Anchor of Latino USA, distributed by a public radio program, a frequent guest on MSNBC and a four-time Emmy award winner, four Peabody award winner and a Pulitzer.

9:00am – 10:30am
KEYNOTE
KEYNOTE – “Addressing the threat of white Christian supremacy and nationalism within the academy: Building pathways toward resistance” – J. Cody Nielsen
Dr. Nielsen’s research focuses on two core area of consideration within higher education and societal systems: The first, area of concern is related to religious, secular, and spiritual equity within campus and organizational climates through a lens of policies and practices. Second, a focus on larger questions of institutional climate, organizational structures, and systems work. 

9:00am – 10:30am
KEYNOTE
“Graduating Young Men of Color” – Dr. Adisa A. Alkebulan; Dr. Frank Harris; Dr. Alvin Henry; Dr. Ricky Pope and Dr. Allison Vaughn
Across the country, colleges and universities are reflecting on how well we serve men of color. Led by faculty since Fall 2023, faculty, staff, and leaders from across SDSU have been meeting together regularly to assess the university’s legacy of support for men of color students, review current data, and develop a shared, evidence-based approach to doing better.

10:45am – 12:15pm
“CSU by the Numbers” – Marcelle Alvarado, Vincent Cevasco, Dr. Jason Chin and Beka Langen
It is an open secret in the CSU that faculty and student demographics have shifted and continue to change. See the numbers and discuss what they show about the CSU as the largest post-secondary comprehensive education system in our nation. 

10:45am – 12:15pm
“The Black Student Debt Crisis” – Dr. Jalil Mustaffa Bishop
Student debt is a racial and economic justice issue. In this workshop, we will try to address the following questions: In what ways does university debt exacerbate student debt, and how can faculty organize around the Black student debt crisis? What are the continuing impacts of student debt on Black faculty and staff?

10:45am – 12:15pm
“Care, Community, & Connection: How to Effectively Process Social and Political Change” – Dr. Monique Turner and Gina Carlson
This workshop will emphasize the importance of creating and maintaining brave spaces to allow students to experience community, connection, and for faculty to create caring spaces as well as discuss effective strategies and encourage attendees to brainstorm new strategies, given the student population at their respective campuses.

12:30pm – 2:00pm
“Be A Revolution”- Ijeoma Oluo
We have an enduring inability to talk honestly about race and its systemic manifestations. This has led to our current racial, economic and political dynamic. Oluo will provide reflection into how people across America have been working to create real positive change in our structures. 

2:15pm – 3:45pm
“Tapping the Healing Power of Trees” – Dr. Theresa Avila
Trees symbolize wisdom, strength, growth, and renewal, and we can learn much about weathering the seasons of our own lives, simply by observing the way trees grow and live. 

2:15pm – 3:45pm
“Black and Palestinian Solidarity”- Dr. Melina Abdullah, Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, Dean Harootunian, Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb, and Dr. Anthony Ratcliff
This panel will explore the deep connections and shared struggles between Black and Palestinian liberation movements. We aim to deepen the understanding of how international solidarity transcends borders by examining the intersections of race, class, gender, colonialism, and resistance. 

2:15pm – 3:45pm
“Resisting & Protecting our Families/Communities Against Immigration Raids -Training for Educators” – Flor Alvarez, Guadalupe Cardona, and Ian Sereulo
At this workshop, Union del Barrio and Alianza Comunitaria will share their successful organizing strategies as they protect our communities against immigration raids. 

4:00pm-5:30pm
“White Evangelical Racism” – Anthea Butler
Known for her clear eyed and hard hitting analysis of race, politics, Evangelicalism, gender and sexuality, media and popular culture, Anthea Butler is sure to give participants a view of the “church” and its place in American life. 

Dinner with Special Guest – 6:30pm-8:30pm

7:30am-9:00am
“Energy Healing for Racialized Trauma” – Dr. Dale Allender
During this session participants will experience three mindfulness healing practices to help minimize the impacts of stress in our physical body and energy body from racial micro-aggressions and racialized trauma.  

9:15am-10:45am
“Short Changing Students: How the CSU is Failing Our Future” – Dr. Charles Toombs, Dr. Sharon Elise, Dr. Chris Cox
In our 2017 Equity Interrupted report, we remarked: “as the students got darker, the funding got lighter.” Seven years later, as the student body continues to change, we see something different. 

11:00am – 12:30pm
“Building Connections, Support and Protections for Immigrant Communities on Campus” – Karla Castillo and Nancy Jodaitis
Currently CSU students, faculty and staff are facing rampant anti-immigrant rhetoric and living under the threat of deportation. This workshop aims to provide space to connect, provide information and support this vulnerable community. 

11:00am-12:30pm
“Who are they after this week?: Supporting Faculty During Periods of Targeted Harassment by Members of the Public” – Nina (9-uh) Flores
Faculty face an ongoing threat of harassment by members of the public related to their teaching, research, or personal identities.  In this session, we will consider what it means to center the faculty member (rather than the institution).

11:00am-12:30pm
“CWT Toolkit and TPM” – Dr. Sharon Elise and Dr. Lori Walkington
CFA is an anti-racism and social justice union. This means transforming the approach to safety and security in ways that address racism and bias, excessive violent use of force, and the experiences of faculty and students from marginalized backgrounds, especially, as anticipated by the new CSU Time, Place and Manner policies.

12:30pm-2:00pm

KEYNOTE
“We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders” – Linda Sarsour

Sarsour is a tireless civil rights activist who will share her insights on mass organizing and global affairs. She approaches her work from the lens of a Brooklyn born and raised Palestinian Muslim working woman who has organized and pushed back in community with others on damaging narratives of women, Palestinians, Muslims, African Americans, immigrants, and persons who are LGBTQIA+. 

2:15pm-3:45pm

“Rupture and Jubilation: A Victory for Liberatory Ethnic Studies” – Theresa Montano, Tracie Noriega and President Charles Toombs

On November 30, Federal Judge Fernando M. Olguin dismissed with prejudice a two-and-a-half-year-old lawsuit alleging that the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC) curriculum was discriminatory and antisemitic. This session will discuss the historic case above, plus other court cases, district bans and CSU faculty who are still seeking just verdicts. Learn what you can do to fight back.

 2:15pm-3:45pm

“Mad Scholarships and Activisms: Cultivating Neurodivergent-Centered Learning and Organizing Spaces” – Dr. Pau Abustan and Kelan Koning

In this session, contributors to Mad Scholars: Reclaiming and Reimagining the Neurodiverse Academy, Dr. Pau Abustan (Cal State Los Angeles, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) and Kelan Koning (CSU Northridge, English) will discuss the ways we embody and practice Mad scholarships and activisms with our students and interwoven communities we teach, learn, and organize with. During this interactive workshop, passages from our Mad Scholars anthology will be read and we will prompt attendees to journal and engage in somatic exercises that encourage us to manifest Mad love, pride, and dreams for ourselves, our students, and our communities.

“Queers for Palestine!: Academic Freedom Repression and Pinkwashing” – Sang Kil, Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb, Dr. Rouhollah Aghasaleh, and Dean Harootunian

This panel will bring faculty who were job suspended for activities related to recent campus political and social actions and a student to talk about the queer movement organizing in the CSU for Palestine and the fight against this genocide and suppression of academic freedom with Time Place Manner fascism.

4:00pm-5:30pm

KEYNOTE 
“Dying of Whiteness” – Jonathan Metzl

Jonathan Metzl is an acclaimed physician and sociologist who speaks, teaches, and writes on a range of topics including mental illness and gun violence, race and whiteness in America, health and healthcare, and diversity and structural competency in higher education. In this session, Metzl will talk about the present divide and foster ideas for ways forward.

6:30pm-8:00pm
“The Intersection of Technology, Power and Society” Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble

In her best-selling book on algorithmic harm in commercial search engines, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, Safiya Noble, warns about the dangers of turning so much of our data and intellectual capital over to corporate monopolies. 

“Shine Bright Dance Party” – 8:00pm-10:00pm

 

7:30am-9:00am
Walk / Yoga / Sound bath – Tesfaye Oneyka

9:15am-10:45pm
“Equitable Leadership Development and Systems Change” – Nataki Garrett
An accomplished writer, director and producer of Stage, Opera, Film and XR/VR Garrett has a passion for new and innovative work. Her work is deeply focused on equitable leadership development and creating greater accessibility through systems change.

11:00am-12:30pm 
“Communicating Realness: Being together and sharing before we part” – Vang Vang and Mark Allen Davis