This semester-long project will include a series of community fora on a book relating to democracy, culminating in a public lecture by the author at the end of the semester. Possible books include Heather Cox Richardson’s Democracy Awakening, Jedediah Purdy’s Two Cheers for Politics, and Danielle Allen’s Justice Using Democracy. Through this community read, students will be able to deeply engage with the text and further their understanding of democracy as a political concept.
Betsy Cracco, staff
This three-day weekend retreat for students will explore the multiple aspects that make up mindfulness while taking a contemplative, multicultural approach to well-being. Serving as both an academic break and an opportunity for personal healing, this retreat will include activities such as yoga, hiking, art-making, and group discussions. Through these activities, participants are encouraged to engage in group dialogue, digitally detox, and embrace their identities.
Jess Dillard-Wright, faculty
This project aims to amplify discussion surrounding disability justice and accessibility, specifically as these topics apply to education and care. The first aspect of this project will focus on two educational video lectures led by a subject expert for both campus community members and the public. The second aspect of this project is focused on Intergroup Dialogue Workshops and Supported Syllabus and Instruction Workdays. Intergroup Dialogue Workshops will emphasize education on disability justice and community, while the Supported Syllabus and Instruction Workdays will provide opportunities to discuss and address conditions that give rise to disability. Overall, these events will facilitate open dialogue surrounding disability and a learning opportunity.
Alice Feldman, staff
Building upon the Narrative 4 (N4) Story Exchange initiatives previously hosted by Student Affairs and Campus Life in collaboration with the Okanagan Well-Being Collective, this project will train interested staff, faculty, admin, and students in the Commonwealth Honors College to become certified N4 facilitators. The training session will take place in August/September, in preparation for an N4 Story Exchange in November. This N4 Story Exchange will provide the opportunity for participants to share personal narratives to build community and foster connections across differences.
Jo Fuchs, undergraduate student
This student-centered initiative intends to design and build a permaculture garden in the Northeast Quad, to be cared for by student volunteers and the UMass Permaculture Initiative. The proposed space will include an outdoor classroom, quiet enclosed spaces for reflection, gardening areas, and social spaces. RSOs, student organizers, and faculty will be able to use the space for hands-on learning in a creative, open environment. In creating this unique learning space, CCOH aims to encourage communication, collaboration, and authenticity.
Elisa Gonzales, faculty
This project invites scholars and practitioners who contributed to The Routledge Companion to Latin Theatre and Performance to speak on campus. The event will feature notable researchers of Latine theater, including Dr. Jorge Huerta, Noe Montez, and Olga Saltveit Sanchez. As part of this event, UMass graduate and undergraduate theater students will perform short scenes. Speakers will be allowed to expand upon their writings and share their perspectives, building ties within UMass Amherst’s Latine community and encouraging open dialogue on Latine performance, identity, and history.
Sarah Haile, undergraduate student
This event will invite diverse experts on reproductive justice to UMass Amherst to discuss various aspects of this topic, including their perspectives, the reality of a post-war world, and inequities in care. The panel will be a safe space that facilitates dialogue about this pressing issue, and will allow attendees to ask panelists meaningful questions while speaking openly about their own experiences.
Angela Hakkila, staff
This project covers a series of three presentations focusing on the immigration “crisis” in Massachusetts, anti-Blackness in the United States, and intersectionality as a framework for understanding these phenomena. The series of events aims to facilitate discussions on campus surrounding immigration and identity and to enable discourse that will increase our ability to understand one another.
Rebecca Hamlin, faculty
Through the hosting of three events that focus on immigration and the 2024 elections, this project will engage the community in a series of structured discussions about immigrant experiences, views of immigration in politics, and other current events relating to immigration. These events are designed to be progressive, building from information transference, to understanding, and then to action by asking participants to interrogate their personal views on immigration, the reality of immigration in the United States, and then to consider what they might do if they want to get involved in immigrant assistance and advocacy.
Jeff Hescock, staff
This project is a community reading and discussion of the book Advancing Democracy: African Americans and the Struggle for Access and Equity in Higher Education in Texas by UMass Professor Amilcar Shabazz. Over a series of conversations, members of Environmental Health and Safety will engage with this book and its findings.
Moira Inghilleri, faculty
This project aims to bridge the disciplinary silos that can arise in academia while recognizing that the pressing issues of our times require a holistic approach to problem solving. Working in conjunction with a pre-existing general education initiative, the grant will fund a series of extracurricular events for students, beginning with a student-led forum called “Confronting Stereotypes across Majors,” where they will discuss stereotypes associated with their majors in an effort to dismantle biases related to fields of study.
Boram Kim, graduate student
This project aims to address collective efforts to combat discrimination, specifically via the “Stop Asian Hate” and “Black Lives Matter” movements. Drawing inspiration from the artwork of Sam Gilliam and Pacita Abad, “Colors of Unity” combines guided discussions and collaborative art creation. Guest speakers will provide insights into the artists' work, and a student group will lead a guided art-making process using recycled fabric and dye. It will culminate with a large fabric sculpture made by UMass students, faculty, and staff alike.
C.N. Le, faculty
This project plans to revive the UMass Amherst Asian and Asian American Film Festival through a mix of screening and Q&A panels of important Asian and Asian American films. This will shed light on the system of racial hierarchy in the United States, the historical and contemporary opportunities and challenges faced by the Asian and Asian American communities as well as within solidarity work with other racial and ethnic groups. Taking the stance that more opportunities for intra- and intergroup understanding are needed, the project will use three films, screened over three days (each followed by a question-and-answer session with the filmmaker) to facilitate dialogue and bridge difference.
Sandy Litchfield, faculty
This project addresses the existential grief and anxiety associated with the current climate crises. To promote a productive and civil discourse, three experts in fostering productive dialogue will be invited to campus to make space for and lead conversations centered on the thorny issues that might divide us. These experts include a local Indigenous leader and cultural steward who is working to revitalize traditional practices, an artist, poet, and novelist who will explore climate grief, anxiety, and alienation in their work, and an actor and theater director who applies theater techniques to inspire dialogue and build community.
Nandita Mani, staff
This project intends to get students to participate in a Popular Education Hub that will allow them to access popular education tools and resources that engage with progressive movements for social change. Students will facilitate this through a general session introducing these methodologies while covering topics such as immigrant rights and climate justice.
Asha Nadkami, faculty
This project will host a symposium to bring scholars from around the world to engage in conversations about anticolonial thought, which can help bring about better futures by deconstructing colonial practices. This symposium will consist of panels, roundtable discussions, and informal conversations.
Anthony Nassar, student
This project consists of a visit to and discussion about the Palestine Museum in Woodbridge, Connecticut. The educational field trip will be open to all UMass students and faculty and will teach participants about Palestinian culture through Palestinian art, drawings, and significant moments in Palestine's history.
Dave Neely, staff
This project will host conversation tables facilitated by student leaders in one of the UMass dining commons, so people can engage with other students about social issues. The tables will allow participants to engage in an empathetic manner regarding issues of national and global importance affecting our campus community. The project aims to help students dialogue with one another, addressing students' expressed desire to have additional structured opportunities for discussion across differences.
Nicole Nemec, faculty
This project introduces our campus to the ways in which nonviolent peace activists have responded to increased violence, including times of declared and undeclared war. As part of this project, a speaker will be brought to campus to discuss and engage in dialogue on how they use storytelling to build trust, establish mutual recognition, and create new pathways for peace and co-existence.
Char Nim, graduate student
For this project, UACT will hold a series of workshops led by grassroots community organizers. These workshops will introduce members of the on- and off-campus communities to new and ongoing community projects through understanding various forms of social justice organizing work and the context(s) within which they arise. There will be public discussion, participatory activities, and personal reflection time.
Jeff Parker, faculty
This project inaugurates a new speaker series, titled “Beyond Borders,” that will be organized by two faculty members and a staff member from the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. The series will include international writers and their literary translators who will speak about their work, from poetry to novels, which address relevant global issues. At the end of the writers' presentations, a Q&A will allow the UMass community to engage in conversations around the topics discussed. The project's goal is to facilitate presentations, conversations, and cultural exchange about a wide range of topics to impact many different backgrounds and experiences on the UMass campus.
Jane Pyo, postdoctoral researcher
The Asian American Resistance Collective (AARC) is an interdisciplinary and community-engaged research group that promotes intellectual conversations around the democratic consequences of Asian hate and encourages community actions for resistance. The project, led by junior scholars of the Global Technology for Social Justice Lab (GloTech), will facilitate research and community action against Asian hate. The project will have two parts: First, a bi-weekly research workshop will allow members to collaborate with GloTech on original projects concerning Asian hate and will present their work to multidisciplinary scholars; second, in September 2024, the AARC will host a roundtable event on Asian hate, inviting the UMass community—including student associations, certificate-affiliated faculty, employees, and the UMass Asian American community—to engage in healthy dialogue.
Garen Sahakian, undergraduate student
This project, hosted by the Armenian Students Association, aims to raise awareness and offer valuable insights to not only the Armenian community of UMass but also to individuals outside the community. The association will bring a guest speaker to campus to deliver a comprehensive lecture that sheds light on relevant issues, events, and conflicts in Armenia. By inviting and engaging with both Armenians and non-Armenians, this project hopes to foster a deeper understanding and immersion of these matters, therefore contributing to a more informed and empathetic discourse.
Bilal Said, undergraduate student
This multifaceted project offers a holistic approach to learning, consisting of two parts. First, the project will include a guest speaker and Q&A conversation to facilitate intellectual insights and historical context surrounding the conflicts in Palestine. The second part will include an immersive, interactive experience of learning about Palestinian cultural artistry— specifically, embroidery. This workshop, led by skilled artisans, will allow participants to make their pieces so they may experience an intimate understanding of Palestinian culture. The aim of combining these two events is to go beyond headlines and statistics and engage in a cultural immersion that will leave participants with a tangible and personal connection to Palestinian culture and artistry.
Stephan Saint-Juste, undergraduate student
The Lunch and Learn project will create a safe and open environment to talk about challenges within the Black undergraduate student community at UMass. The project will engage participants in various topics including Black men and vulnerability and the lack of support among Black people. There will also be an “agree-or-disagree” format so that every participant will have an opportunity to express their thoughts and opinions while engaging in open conversations about the differences and similarities in the group.
Michael Sakamoto, staff
A collaboration between the UMass Fine Arts Center and the Asian and Asian American Arts and Culture Program, this project will host a performance and outreach on-campus residency with the internationally acclaimed Palestinian-American ensemble, Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre. Across two days, the company members will conduct multiple activities, including a free public artist conversation and Q&A session, a free dance workshop for community-based performance, a stage performance by the company, and a film screening. The screening will feature 12 autobiographical film shorts created during the pandemic by the company. All the events aim to create discourse around many topics: love, fear, regret, loss, race, exile, dreams, and more surrounding the Palestinian and Palestinian-American experience. These events aim to create cross-cultural dialogue and understanding.
lakota sandoe, graduate student
This project will bring facilitators from Soul Fire Farm, “an Afro-Indigenous-centered community farm committed to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system,” to the University of Massachusetts for a discussion about systemic inequality in land use/management and food systems.
Brad Seligmann, staff
This project will include a screening of Three Chaplains, a documentary by David Washburn and Razi Jafri. The film follows the lives of three Muslim chaplains serving in various branches of the United States Armed Forces and the challenges the chaplains face, including accusations of divided loyalty and Islamophobic rhetoric. After the screening, attendees will engage in an open conversation and Q&A session with the documentarians. One of the chaplains in the film may also attend the conversation virtually. In addition to discussing the film, Washburn and Jafri will talk about their experience working together as a Jew and a Muslim, and how their collaboration could create possible tensions—some outside of their control. While the participants are expected to mostly consist of film studies majors, the project's hosts aim to open the event to the entire UMass community.
Musbah Shaheen, faculty
The project's goal is to to reflect the rich diversity of UMass Amherst by encouraging students, faculty, and staff to share and record their stories via "collecting stations," which will be set up for use all over campus. These various snippets will then be amassed and transformed into a digital montage that will be premiered, culminating in a small group discussion over a meal. This campus community storytelling project will contribute to our understanding of the diversity of people and life histories surrounding us every day.
Nina Tissi-Gassoway, faculty
This project is the development of a course called “Cultivating Conversations,” which will prepare students for engaging in conversations with people who hold diverse perspectives. The class will be divided into three segments. The first segment will be “Pre-Dialogue,” which will focus on community-building, self-reflection, and other important tools for engaging in a conversation. In the second part, “Practicing Dialogue" will focus on working on having these conversations that address current United States or global issues including free speech, trans rights, or other national/global issues of interest. The third part will be “Next Steps,” which will consist of students then applying their knowledge to other spaces in their lives.
Nina Tissi-Gasso, faculty
This project will help us instruct Queer and Trans educators about dialogues regarding social justice. Four meetings, hosted by educators, will facilitate connections among and create a space for educators to grapple with issues pertaining to social justice advocacy in education. Some of the topics covered in these meetings will include "Intersectional Oppression in Queer and Trans Lives" and "Race, Racism, and Racial Divides within Queer and Trans Communities."These meetings will include a Queer scholar to anchor the dialogues.
Megan Ussery, undergraduate student
Currently, there is great polarization regarding political, social, and cultural issues; this event hopes to engage students with these topics. Scheduled for April 2024, the goal of this project is to give students a chance to engage in discussion about complex topics related to social justice while exploring the intricacies of activism, advocacy, and allyship. Several local community activist groups will be invited to discuss their work, and panel discussion and/or keynote speakers will be invited to discuss systemic racism, violence, reproductive justice, and the policing of knowledge, bodies, identities, and language, as well as the ways in which people resist injustices, build coalitions, and work to advance social change.
Erika Zekos, faculty
This project aims to invite dialogue around the critical topic of spatial justice, which addresses architecture’s intersection with social and environmental justice, and focuses on the unequal ways people are served by the built environment. An invited speaker will lead a series of formal and informal discussions, grounded in a specific reading, to talk about spatial justice and the intersection with social and environmental justice.
Spring 2024 Funded Events
Community, Democracy, and Dialogue Talk: "I Never Thought of It That Way" with Mónica Guzmán
Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool we're not using: our own built-in curiosity.
Author and journalist Mónica Guzmán discussed her book, her work, and strategies for navigating our divided world with UMass students, faculty, and staff.
Guzmán is a bridge builder, journalist, and author who lives for great conversations sparked by curious questions. She is senior fellow for public practice at Braver Angels, author of I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times, host of A Braver Way podcast, and founder/CEO of Reclaim Curiosity. She was a 2019 fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation and a 2016 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Guzmán is the inaugural McGurn Fellow at the University of Florida, working with researchers at the UF College of Journalism and Communications and beyond to help better understand ways to employ techniques described in her book.
Standing Together: A Presentation and Open Discussion
As part of UMass Amherst’s Community, Democracy, and Dialogue (CDD) initiative, two representatives from the world-renowned Jewish-Arab grassroots organization Standing Together visited campus on Wednesday, March 6, to lead a presentation about their work in Israel and engage in a discussion with more than 300 attendees in the Student Union Ballroom.
Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom: Presentation and Discussion
A conversation with SoSS President Roberta Elliott and Executive Director Tahija Vikalo to learn about the work of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom.
In 2010, a group of 12 Jewish and Muslim women gathered around a dining room table with the hope that, through learning about and with each other, they could build bridges of solidarity and understanding between their communities and together stem the rising tides of polarization and acts of religious-based hate. Thus, the Sisterhood movement was born.
