News & Events

Announcing the CNY Educators of Color Dialogue for 2023

After a successful and meaningful pilot of a dynamic dialogue bringing together regional educators of color, based in local school districts, the Syracuse University Study Council and the Intergroup Dialogue Program are offering a second Educators of Color Dialogue to take place on Mondays from February 27 through Monday, May 1, 2023.

Six sessions will take place, from 4:30 to 6 pm online, on the following dates: 2/27, 3/13, 3/27, 4/10, 4/24, 5/1

These sessions will be facilitated again by the team of Professor Courtney Mauldin and Easton Davis, from the School of Education and Intergroup Dialogue Program. Interested educators may apply to participate in the Educators of Color Dialogue through this link. Applications are due by January 20, 2023.

For further information or with any questions, please contact the facilitators, Dr. Courtney Mauldin (ccmauldi@syr.edu) or Easton Davis (edavis13@syr.edu).

We are excited about this collaborative work with local educators!

In keeping with the Syracuse University School of Education’s mission and vision, we are committed to working in partnership with CNY schools and community to support diversity, equity, and inclusion and to build transformative experiences for educators and students.

Syracuse University Building Interfaith America Grant (2022-23)

In the Spring of 2022, several members of the SU community received a grant from Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC). Led by Diane Schenandoah of the Barnes Center, Diane Swords of the Intergroup Dialogue Program, chaplains from Hendricks Chapel, and others from various departments of the University, this grant supported four Witness to Injustice (WTI) experiential workshops and an April dialogue that allowed participants to reflect on the experience and suggest next steps. Witness to Injustice is a unique and powerful two-to-three-hour interactive group teaching tool. It uses participatory education to foster truth, understanding, and respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the part of the world now known as the United States; especially in the territory stewarded by people of the Onondaga Nation and other Haudenosaunee peoples. The spring events generated ideas for continuing these projects into the 2022-23 academic year.  

“The time for healing is upon us as human beings. Our spiritual and societal health as a whole has come to a precipice. Our love of one another needs to be brought to the forefront of our consciousness.” These words by Diane Schenandoah, Faithkeeper of the Oneida Nation Wolf Clan and Honwadiyenawa’sek (One Who Helps Them) at Syracuse University’s Barnes Center, continue to inspire further efforts to share wisdom, spirituality, and history of the Haudenosaunee. 

Towards this, a second grant funded by IFYC’s successor organization Interfaith America is supporting the current year’s initiative which involves three activities: a ten-minute video for first-year students that was shown during SU new student orientation; at least two more WTI events; and trips for members of our SU community to the Skä•noñh – Great Law of Peace Center about 6 miles from campus. A core commitment of this year’s activities is to engage SU administrators in participating in and promoting these events and efforts.

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  The Witness to Injustice / KAIROS Blanket Exercise™ at Syracuse University is facilitated by a team made up of citizens of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and non-native allies from Syracuse Peace Council’s Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation Committee (NOON). The most recent WTI exercise took place at Hendricks Chapel on November 4.

• The video, “Where Are Your Feet,” introduces students, staff, and faculty to the reality that we are all visitors here, inhabiting land with a very long history, and to a people indigenous to that land. The video remains available for showing and is being developed further this year.
• The Skä•noñh – Great Law of Peace Center is a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Heritage Center focused on telling the story of the native peoples of central New York. This third piece of the project includes providing transportation for students and other SU community members to experience Haudenosaunee spirituality, culture, and history.

Schenandoah writes, “Our confederacy formed under the principles of the Great Laws of Peace and is the oldest participatory democracy on Earth. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s constitution was the model for the American Constitution. Our unique governmental principles blend our natural laws and spiritual laws together. This is essential to our foundation, along with the duties to care for and make all decisions based upon the highest good of the coming seven generations. Spirituality is a central part of our lives, and we are related to all living beings and have been given the duty to care for and nurture one another.”  

Join a Community Conversation with Anya Stanger, Ph.D. ’15 on her recently published book, “Incarcerated resistance: How identity, gender, and privilege shape the experience of America’s nonviolent activists” (2022).

PRISON WITNESS: HOW IDENTITY MATTERS IN THE EXPERIENCE OF RESISTANCE

November 1, 4-5:30 pm, at the Women’s Info Center
601 Allen St., Syracuse NY

Anya Stanger earned her doctorate at Syracuse University in 2015. She now teaches Women’s and Gender Studies and Sociology at Sierra College, and Conflict Studies at Syracuse University. Co-sponsors include Social Science PhD Program, PARCC, Intergroup Dialogue Program, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

For more information on this event, contact Diane Swords (drswords@syr.edu).

Professor Amanda Tachine from Arizona State University visited campus recently as a guest speaker in EDU 781, Professor Gretchen Lopez’s graduate course for doctoral students in the School of Education.

Dr. Tachine, Assistant Professor in Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (Higher & Postsecondary Education), presented on her recently released book “Native presence and sovereignty in college: Sustaining Indigenous weapons to defeat systemic monsters” (Teachers College Press, 2022). Dr. Tachine shared aspects of her writing process during the COVID lockdown, methodological reflections, and further research and stories of Navajo (Diné) resurgence, continuance, and refusal. The book follows several Navajo students on their journeys toward college. Reviewers describe it as a “compelling exemplar of Indigenous methodology” and “paradigm-shifting” (Sandy Grande); providing “crucial lessons for confronting systemic education inequities” (Teresa McCarty).

Dr. Tachine also engaged faculty and graduate students (from Cultural Foundations of Education, Higher Education, Teaching & Leadership, the Engaged BIPOC Scholar-Practitioner Program and the Native Student Program) in small group lunch/dinner gatherings including discussion of a second publication released this year, “Weaving an otherwise: In-Relations methodological practice,” co-edited with Z. Nicolazzo (Stylus, 2022). A critical and dynamic volume, this scholarship explores “possibilities by weaving an otherwise in qualitative research” (p. 2) including chapters addressing “reflexivity, responsibility, and relationships” (p. 6), survivance, kinship, ghosts, gifting, community, individual and collective storytelling, abolition, and decolonization.

This was a one-day visit but with tremendous impact on all who attended, providing fuel for many ongoing/future discussions, projects, and reflections. The Intergroup Dialogue Program expresses deep gratitude to Prof. Amanda Tachine for sharing her work so generously in these beautiful ways. We wish you well as the book tour(s) continue!

Join the Burton Blatt Institute’s (BBI) Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach (OIPO) and Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature  for the latest in an exciting, ongoing series on disability literature, media, and the arts, focusing on critical reflection, teaching, and research in today’s world.

Healing, Ethics of Care, and Ecocrip Sensibilities With Naomi Ortiz

Thursday, April 7, 2022

5:00-6:30 p.m. EST VIA Zoom | Register for this event: https://syracuseuniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fwQ0DCjaTuKZkdsDI4HYIg

Enabling and “Cripping” the Back-to-the-Land Movement With Clark A. Pomerleau

Monday, April 11, 2022

12:00-1:30 p.m. EST VIA Zoom | Register for this event:

https://syracuseuniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_C5njGOWjRauVTpwJj-O-qA

The Ethics of Passing and Disability Disclosure in Higher Education With Joseph A. Stramondo

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

5:00-6:30 P.M. EST via Zoom | Register for this event: https://syracuseuniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_JEGR9atpSHia4pkyrIMmQw

The Spring 2022 (Dis)courses Series is sponsored by the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach (OIPO) at the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University and Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, with very special thanks to the Syracuse University Libraries, and with additional support from the Center on Disability and Inclusion, the Central New York Humanities Corridor Health Humanities Working Group (Medicine, Disease, Disability, and Culture), the Consortium for Culture and Medicine, Cultural Foundations of Education, Dept. of Biology, Dept. of English, Dept. of History, Dept. of Women’s and Gender Studies, the Disability Cultural Center, Disability Studies, The Graduate School, Hendricks Chapel, Information Technology Services, the Intergroup Dialogue Program, La Casita Cultural Center, the LGBTQ Resource Center, LGBTQ Studies, the Renée Crown University Honors Program, the School of Education, and the Syracuse University Humanities Center.

American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation, live captioning, and image descriptions will be provided during each event. Additional accommodations requests for each event can be made when registering via Zoom. The events will be recorded, and accessible videos will be shared publicly on the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach (OIPO) website (https://bbi.syr.edu/projects/oipo/). Copies of selected texts will be available for purchase via the Syracuse University Campus Store (https://www.syrcampusstore.com/books/office-of-interdisciplinary-programs-and-outreach-events).

Visit (Dis)courses online (https://bbi.syr.edu/projects/oipo/discourses/) to register for the Zoom webinars and learn more about the series and our co-sponsors.

Questions? Contact us via email at oipo@syr.edu.

Original series poster designed by Prof. Emily Vey Duke.

The Cornell-Syracuse South Asia Consortium presents a symposium interrogating the histories and trajectories of anti-Asian violences.

The recent surge of racially motivated attacks on Asians in the United States brought renewed attention to the issue of anti-Asian violence. It is necessary to situate this rising tide of violence in the broader histories that have produced it. By taking up “Asia” as a fraught geopolitical category that is formed through imperialist projects, this symposium attends to the underlying logics of violence that are crucial to rendering these histories legible. Building connections that are enabled by transnational, relational, and critical lenses not only will deepen insights into the discourse of anti-Asian violence, but also will allow a meaningful consideration of the implications of this moment for solidarity and movement building. This symposium will convene a cohort of scholars, students, and activists whose work can collectively help trace the genealogies and geographies of anti-Asian violence.

Thursday, March 24

4:00 –5:00 pm
220 Eggers Hall (Strasser Legacy Room)

Friday, March 25, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm

220 Eggers Hall (Strasser Legacy Room)

9:30 am Opening Remarks by Symposium Organizers

Susan Thomas (Cultural Foundations of Education)
Antonio Tiongson (Department of English)

9:45 am Roundtable: Queering Solidarities: Race, Caste, and Gender

Chris Eng (Department of English, University of Washington in St. Louis)
Gaurav Pathania (Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Eastern Mennonite University)
William Mosley (Program for Interdisciplinary Humanities, Wake Forest University)
Esther K. (Red Canary Song Collective)
Discussant: Viranjini Munasinghe (Department of Anthropology, Cornell University)

11:00 am Panel: Cripping Violence, Indigeneity and Pedagogy: Global Perspectives

Juliann Anesi (Gender Studies, University of California, Los Angeles)
Deepika Meena (Department of Anthropology, IIT Gandhinagar)
Edward Nadurata (Department of Global and International Studies, UC Irvine)
Discussant: Michael Gill (Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University)

2:30 pm Panel: Transnational Asia: Feminist & Decolonial Critiques

Juliana Hu Pegues (Literatures in English, Cornell)
Danika Medak-Saltzman (Women’s and Gender Studies, Syracuse University)
Deepti Misri (Women and Gender Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder)
Discussant: Mona Bhan (Anthropology and Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies, Syracuse University)

3:30 pm Closing keynote
Speaker: Ikyo Day (Mount Holyoke College)
“Nuclear Antipolitics and the Queer Art of Logistical Failure”
For more information or to request accessibility arrangements, please contact Emera Bridger Wilson, atelbridge@syr.edu