Friday Forums is a commitment to the state and region in elevating national conversations and showcasing models of disrupting complicit racism. Each session welcomes national thought leaders to lead discussions and provide opportunities for participants to share ideas on actionable items towards a diverse, equitable, and inclusive campus.
Call for Proposals
Each Friday Forum general session is followed by three (3) tracks for University of Utah participants. We are currently accepting proposals for these tracks from U of U faculty and staff for our upcoming March Friday Forum: The Long Game: Deepening the Work on March 26!
Please submit your proposal by February 12.
We encourage all national institutions to hosts similar discussions internally to continue deepening this work in their communities.
Thank you to our committee members and sponsors!
- Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
- University Marketing and Communications
- Auxiliary Business Development
- Convene
- Student Affairs
- Human Resources
- Domo
- Jude McNeil
- Tramaine Jones
- Tino Diaz
- Candida Duran Taveras
- Ivy Farguheson
- Ray Burgman
- Emma E. Houston
- Bryan Hubain
- Rachel Hayes-Harb
- Stephanie Michelle Shiver
- Monisha Pasupathi
- Dean McGovern
- Linda Paternina
- Elizabeth Kronk Warner
- Martell Teasley
- Michelle Love-Day
- Sarah Projansky
- Devon Darland
- Megan Randall
- Sierra Stevens
- Carmen Gold-Johnson
- Sarah Sherer
- Dani Baum
- Dori Nottingham
- Laura Walkinshaw
- Sherrie Hayashi
- Sheila Sconiers
- Mauricio Laguan
- Meligha Garfield
- Liz Owens
- Shawn N. Bryce
- Paloma F. Cariello
- Veronica Aponte
- Celina Milner Leon
- Kristi Ryujin
- Rachel Aho
- José Rodríguez
- Montelleo Hobley
- Robert Merrills
- Adrienne Andrews
- Cha McNeil
Past Events
2020
Confronting Our Racism
The legacies of racism that constrain us are deep and long, and we are not going to solve our discomfort with training. The work we must do is about rooting out the systematic racism that lives in the everyday. We must recognize that racism pervades the structures that have raised us and that we in turn have fostered in higher education. We cannot run from that system, but we can dismantle its roots. We must unearth, uproot and plant anew.
In case you missed it, log in with your uNID to view the main panel here. Breakout session recordings can be viewed here.
2020
A Racially Just Workplace
In his powerful essay, “Why So Many Organizations Stay White” Victor Ray concludes, “At a minimum, leaders should stop thinking about discrimination and inequality as rare events and understand that racial processes often shape behavior in the absence of ill-intent. Conversations about organizational inequality need to refocus from a narrow concern with feelings and racial animus to the massive inequalities in material and psychological resources that organizations distribute between racial groups.” The November Friday Forum, installment: A Racially Just Workplace addressed questions that provide insight and solutions on how we create a racially just workplace, what is needed, and how we create a more equitable and inclusive campus.
Missed the forum? You can watch it here!
2020
Establishing Anti-Racist Policy
Noted scholar, Andre M. Perry wrote “Racism is not a distraction…It is the policy of the privileged and the enemy of the just.” Participants brainstormed and addressed how organizations approach what is necessary for developing anti-racist policies and making change in higher education.