Northern Michigan University will hold its annual Uniting Neighbors in the Experience of Diversity (UNITED) Conference Sunday, Sept. 28, through Wednesday, Oct. 1. It is free and open to the public. NMU President Fritz Erickson will deliver the opening keynote at 11 a.m. Monday, Sept. 29, in the University Center Great Lakes Rooms. Other featured speakers and their topics are (all presentations in the Great Lakes Rooms):

Motivational speaker Andres Lara, better known as the Cuban guy, escaped from his native country at 16 and turned his life around within 10 years to become the person he is today. He will give a talk titled “How to Move Forward When You Feel Like Quitting” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29.

TC Tolbert, a trans and genderqueer feminist poet and teacher, will read from Gephyromania and a manuscript in progress, Exhales: 2008-2013, a series of poems that deal with violence against trans people. The reading will be held at 1 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29. At 4 p.m., Tolbert will lead a workshop titled “From Homoflexible to Transfabulous: All Hail the Queen!”

Jill Doerfler of the University of Minnesota-Duluth will present “Intersections: Identity and Tribal Citizenship Among the White Earth Anishinaabeg” at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 30.  She is the co-author of The White Earth Nation: Ratification of a Native Democratic Constitution (2012) and the co-editor of Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories (2013). 

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, a New York Times best seller published in March 2011 by HarperCollins, about a young entrepreneur who supported her community under the Taliban. She will present “Unsung Heroes of the Developing World” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 30.

Emily Arnold-Fernández, founder and director of Asylum Access, is a social entrepreneur and human rights pioneer. She will present “Syria, Iraq and Kids at the Border: Responding to the Defining Crises of Our Time” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 1.

For a full schedule, visit www.nmu.edu/UNITED.