Student Equity & Engagement Center - NMU Events and Announcements

Student Equity & Engagement Center

Virginia Keeler is a Deaf artist, born and raised in Michigan, who has experienced firsthand the consequences of audism, language deprivation, and ableism. This testimony wishes to illuminate the everyday struggles and consequences of romantization of disabilities, as well as the complete lack of knowledge regarding to the Deaf world and culture.

Student Equity & Engagement Center

Virginia Keeler is a Deaf artist, born and raised in Michigan, who has experienced firsthand the consequences of audism, language deprivation, and ableism. This testimony wishes to illuminate the everyday struggles and consequences of romantization of disabilities, as well as the complete lack of knowledge regarding to the Deaf world and culture.

Student Equity & Engagement Center

Dr. Carter Wilson will share his personal journey through two major schools of thought--critical theory and critical race theory. These schools of thought provided the intellectual foundation for his (Gustavus Myer) award winning book, Racism from Slavery to Advanced Capitalism. Dr. Wilson will explain why there is a right-wing, racist political assault on these two schools of thought

Student Equity & Engagement Center

Dr. Carter Wilson will share his personal journey through two major schools of thought--critical theory and critical race theory. These schools of thought provided the intellectual foundation for his (Gustavus Myer) award winning book, Racism from Slavery to Advanced Capitalism. Dr. Wilson will explain why there is a right-wing, racist political assault on these two schools of thought

Student Equity & Engagement Center

M. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) says that “our stories explain us, justify us, sustain us, humble us, and forgive us. And sometimes they injure and destroy us” (169). The stories that others tell about us can do the same: sustain and humble us, but also injure and destroy us. This presentation will examine the ways that common (usually fictional) anti-fat stories circulate within and through our classroom discourses—sometimes even without our knowledge. In response, I’ll provide a framework for a fat pedagogy designed to help address anti-fat bias in the classroom.

Student Equity & Engagement Center

M. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) says that “our stories explain us, justify us, sustain us, humble us, and forgive us. And sometimes they injure and destroy us” (169). The stories that others tell about us can do the same: sustain and humble us, but also injure and destroy us. This presentation will examine the ways that common (usually fictional) anti-fat stories circulate within and through our classroom discourses—sometimes even without our knowledge. In response, I’ll provide a framework for a fat pedagogy designed to help address anti-fat bias in the classroom.

Student Equity & Engagement Center

Join us for the Diversity Common Reader 2023 Keynote! Elsa Sjunneson is an award winning Deafblind author and editor living in Seattle, Washington. Her fiction and nonfiction writing has been praised as “eloquence and activism in lockstep” and has been published in dozens of venues around the world. In 2022 her book, Being Seen won the Washington State Book Award for biography and memoir. She has been a Hugo Award finalist nine times, and has won three Hugo awards, an Aurora Award, and  and a BFA award for her editorial work.

When she isn't writing, Sjunneson works to dismantle structural ableism and rebuild community support for disabled people everywhere. Her work includes her debut memoir Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism, her Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla novel Sword of the White Horse, and her episode for Radiolab “The Helen Keller Exorcism.”

Student Equity & Engagement Center

Nyshell dreamed of building a creative safe space where Black women can feel seen and celebrated.

Out of that dream came Socialight Society in Lansing, Michigan. Socialight Society is a local independent bookshop, celebrating Black women and Black literature where you can find classic, contemporary, and children’s titles predominately authored by Women of Color, who often lack representation in traditional bookstores.

Join us as Nyshell shares her journey to becoming an entrepreneur and activist and how she centers her work and her life on celebrating of Black Womanhood and inspiring the next generation of community builders, leaders, and activists.

Student Equity & Engagement Center

Dr. Abby Knoblauch presents a lecture on Fat language, rhetorics, and power in this session hosted by the Student Equity & Engagement Center, Feminism for All, and Diversity in Disability. Dr. Knoblauch specializes in feminist rhetorical theories and feminist pedagogies, embodied rhetorics, fat rhetorics, teacher development, and writing pedagogies and teaches at Kansas State University. This session delves into the world of fat studies giving participants a base level of understanding on the topic with time for dialogue and questions. 

Student Equity & Engagement Center

Beyond Body Positivity and Towards Body Liberation. Join us for a lecture that introduces concepts of fat liberation and explores the history of fat liberation and body positivity movements, the intersection of fat identities with other marginalized identities, and how fatphobia works in our society.