Working Toward Connection: Finding Our Way to Each Other and Why It Matters [Week of Wellbeing Symposium with Allison Pugh]

The UMass Okanagan Week of Wellbeing (WoW) takes place from February 9-13, 2026 for a celebration in a cross-campus collaboration involving the Okanagan Wellbeing Collective, the Office of Equity and Inclusion, Student Affairs, Campus Life, and many others. WoW will provide various opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to relax, connect, and recharge. Join us for this keynote event promoting wellbeing across campus with lightning talks, lunch, and a keynote with Q&A by Allison Pugh, author of The Last Human Job. 

SCHEDULE

Welcome Remarks and 7-Minute Lightning Presentations

9:00–11:00AM, Student Union Ballroom

	9:15 | Carolina Aragón, Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, 10 Years of Public Art for Public Good Carolina Aragón is an associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. She has been a member of the UMass faculty since 2011. Her creative scholarship involves creating innovative artworks with her students to better engage communities around issues of climate change and environmental justice.
	9:30 | Lucy Xiaolu Wang, Resource Economics, The Hidden Infrastructure of Wellbeing Lucy Xiaolu Wang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Resource Economics in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; she has been at UMass for 4.5 years. Prof. Wang studies the economics of innovation and digitization in health care markets. She is also a faculty research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition and a faculty associate at the Canadian Centre for Health Economics.
	9:45 | Dawn Bond, Facilities and Grounds, Connection is Prevention Dawn Bond is the Director of Operational Services for Facilities and Campus Services, where she leads campus-wide services that include Residential Services, Mail Services, Distribution, Card Access, Customer Service and the 24/7 call center. Through close collaboration with students, faculty, and staff, Dawn’s work helps ensure campus operations run smoothly and responsively every day. She is deeply committed to building strong partnerships across the university that enhance the campus experience and support a safe, connected, and welcoming environment for all.
	10:00 | Wilmore Webley, Office of the Provost, Equity Is Wellbeing: Using the Classroom Equity Action Plan Wilmore Webley is a Professor of Microbiology with expertise in Infectious Disease and Immunology, who joined the faculty in 2003. Senior Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion, who participated in the Classroom Equity Action Plans and now oversees and manages the EAP initiative. Webley believes that learning flourishes when wellbeing is intentionally supported through equitable practices that foster belonging, dignity, and agency for all members of the learning community.
	10:15 | Amanda Paluch, Kinesiology, Steps and Health Amanda Paluch is a physical activity epidemiologist and kinesiologist with a focus on advancing the measurement of physical activity. She has expertise in applying physical activity and fitness measurement in the setting of observational epidemiologic studies or as a tool for interventions.
	10:30 | Sabrina Hafner, UMass Dining, Safety, Trust, and Wellbeing Through Campus Dining Sabrina Hafner is the Associate Director of Nutrition for UMass Dining, where she leads campus-wide efforts focused on food safety, dietary accommodations, inclusive menu development, and health promotion. Her work bridges dining operations, public health, and student wellbeing, ensuring that campus food environments are safe, transparent, and welcoming for all. Sabrina collaborates closely with chefs, health promotion teams, academic partners, and the surrounding community to embed wellbeing into everyday dining experiences.
	10:45 | Dan Bensonoff, Campus Gardens, Growing Food, Growing Community As the coordinator of the UMass Permaculture Initiative, Dan works to ensure that the gardens provide an exemplary space for eco-conscious gardening and sustainable living. Aside from working in the gardens, Dan teaches a practicum on permaculture gardening, coordinates the UMass Student Farmers' Market, and provides learning experiences for various visiting groups.

Lunch

11:00-11:30AM, Student Union Ballroom
Join us for lunch with a menu by Chef Alex customized for this event!

Keynote and Q&A with Allison Pugh

Working Toward Connection: Finding Our Way to Each Other and Why It Matters

11:30AM - 12:30PM, Student Union Ballroom

RSVP to Attend

ABOUT ALLISON PUGH

Allison Pugh is Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. Her book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton 2024) is based on a study of the standardization of work that relies on relationship.  She is also the author of The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity (2015), a study of the effects of job precariousness on intimate life, and the editor of Beyond the Cubicle: Job Insecurity, Intimacy and the Flexible Self (2016). Her first book, Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture (2009), won multiple best book awards and was widely reviewed.  

Pugh’s research and teaching focus on how people forge connections and find meaning and dignity at home and at work, and how economic trends – from job insecurity to commodification to automation – can make that harder.  Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and has taken her from therapy sessions in Virginia to juvenile detention classrooms in California to robots in Japan. 

The 2024-5 Vice President of the American Sociological Association, Pugh has been a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Berggruen Institute, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a visiting scholar in Germany, France and Australia.  She is a former journalist, and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New Republic and other outlets. 

Pugh grew up in New York City and attended public schools there, working as a waitress at the US Tennis Open and an intern at Ms. magazine.  She packed salmon roe in Alaska, interviewed Obama for the Associated Press when he was a law student, and served as a US diplomat in Honduras. She lived for 12 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she co-founded a K-8 charter school in Oakland.  She now lives in Washington, DC, and for eight months of the year rows on the Anacostia River with Capital Rowing Club.