We conjecture that speculative design/narratives, which intentionally critique the present, can build commitment to making change; that remixing, which involves making changes to existing narratives, can support members to envision and analyze near-term changes and outcomes; and that futurism, which involves crafting new, visionary narratives, can support members to hold tight to DEIJ commitments even as they face barriers.
As a harbinger, you will be invited to engage in the following types of activities:
- Annual Hybrid Retreat: The first annual retreat will take place in Chandler, Arizona October 9th-10th. We will engage in storycrafting through speculative design, remixing, and futurism. We will have a guest facilitator who will challenge us in our storycrafting efforts. Funds will be available to support in-person retreat attendees participation and support virtual attendees so that they can engage meaningfully in the retreat. The virtual attendees will attend a subset of the retreat when virtual participation can be meaningful and engaging.
- Arts-based Activities: These will be core activities of our Community of Transformation and will involve activities such as composing I-poems, collage-making, storyboarding, and creating in nature.
- Book Club Sessions: In these virtual sessions, we will prioritize books written by Indigeneous, Black, and LGBTQIA+ authors and will include readings across a variety of styles (e.g., graphic novels, fiction books, non-fiction books). These books will align with other activities and will provide inspiration for our story crafting activities.
- Power and Privilege Workshops: These virtual workshops will help us to become more persistent and sophisticated in our efforts to dismantle power and privilege found within our change teams, STEM education, and the university, especially those aspects that continue to oppress and oftentimes push minoritized people and perspectives out of academia.
- Afternoon Teas: We will have monthly afternoon teas as an opportunity to develop community through more informal dialogues. During these small group discussions, we will seed our discussion with a question that aligns with current events or a topic that emerged in our community of transformation.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. 2236374 and 2236163. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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