The aim of the 2021 Diversity Forum, “Dismantling Oppressive Systems: Building Just Communities,” is to engage and equip participants with the knowledge, skills and resources to identify sources of systemic oppression, consider strategies for dismantling that oppression, and actions critical in fostering more equitable and just communities in which we live, work and learn.

There is no cost to participate, and all are welcome.

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Presenters: Mary C. Parker, Liz Foster-Shaner

This workshop is for organizations and individuals who want to be more actively anti-oppressive but are stuck. Maybe you hired a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant for a few trainings or initial consultations but the work ended there. Or, you’ve personally attended a few DEI workshops but don’t know what to do now. We’ve developed a holistic process to address systemic oppression for organizations and individuals. In this workshop, we’ll introduce the concept of the DEI Lifecycle (choosing your plant, planting the seeds, watering and maintenance, harvesting, and replanting). These phases come out of our experience working with organizations and, during the workshop, we will share case studies to describe the importance of each phase in the overall process. We will also emphasize the need to do this work holistically both in terms of stakeholder engagement and in terms of the phases we describe above. During the workshop, organizations will have time to do a self-analysis of their current phase(s) of this work. Our experience is that most organizations focus on the first two phases and then get distracted from the work by competing priorities. We hope to move organizations from one day of dedicated training sustained commitments to anti-oppressive practices. To do that, our approach is an intersectional, anti-oppressive framework using an applied theatre praxis. We draw heavily from critical race theory as a core foundation of our work.

If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at diversity@pitt.edu by July 21

This workshop is a part of the 2021 Diversity Forum.

Dial-In Information

Zoom link and login information with be shared following registration