UMass Amherst Symposium Examines Civic Engagement in Region’s Latinx Communities

***MEDIA ADVISORY***

Date:     Friday, Sept. 21
Time:     9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where:  Campus Center, Amherst Room, 10th floor, UMass Amherst

UMass Amherst will host a day of presentations and dialogue between local community leaders and partners, faculty, staff and students who are developing social justice approaches to university-community partnerships within the Latinx communities in western Massachusetts. Community members will be co-presenting with their academic collaborators.

The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Click here to register. Deadline for registering is Tuesday, Sept. 18.

The schedule for the day includes:

9:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.: Panel 1: “Building Partnerships for Community Learning.” Panelists: Dana Altshuler, Holyoke Public Schools ethnic studies coordinator; Joel Ariel Arce, UMass Amherst College of Education doctoral student; Laura Valdiviezo, associate professor, UMass Amherst College of Education and director of the UMass Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies; Gloria Penagos, migrant program coordinator, Holyoke-Chicopee-Springfield Head Start Inc.; and Raúl D. Gutiérrez, assistant professor of Latinx studies and Spanish, Holyoke Community College.

11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.: Panel 2: “Politics of Place: Belonging and Place-Keeping in Holyoke, Mass.” Panelists: Maria Salgado-Cartagena, program coordinator, Community Partnerships for Social Change, Hampshire College and people’s historian of Holyoke’s Puerto Rican diaspora; Vanessa Rosa, assistant professor of Latina/o studies, Mount Holyoke College; Nelson Rafael Roman, executive director, Nueva Esperanza and Ward 2 Holyoke city councilor; Joseph Krupczynski, associate professor, UMass Amherst department of architecture and director of UMass Civic Engagement and Service-Learning.

12:45 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.: Lunch Workshop -- Student Bridges: Youth-Centered and Asset-Based Approaches to Community Engagement

1:45 p.m. – 3 p.m.: Panel 3: “Hurricane Maria/One Year Later: Challenges and Impacts in Western Massachusetts.” Panelists: Vanessa Pabon, community engagement director, WGBY; Mari Castañeda: professor and chair, UMass Amherst department of communication and associate dean for equity and inclusion for the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; Tara Parrish, executive director, Pioneer Valley Project; Emily Rodriguez, organizer for Pioneer Valley Project; Jen Sandler, lecturer, UMass Amherst department of anthropology and director of the UMass Alliance for Community Transformation (UACT).

3:15 p.m. - 4 p.m.: Closing Reflection. Ginetta Candelario: associate professor of sociology, Smith College, director of the program in Latin American and Latina/o Studies and faculty affiliate of the study of women and gender program.