Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging: Who Am I? Where Am I?
On Monday, November 7th UniSound hosted the first session of our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging workshop series. Here, we reflect on the session and what we learned moving forwards to the second session on Monday, January 23rd.
Going into this first DEIB session, our facilitators Dr. Kendra Ross, Lee Saville-Iksic, and Maggie Richardson put a lot of thought into how to start or continue the journey of DEIB work for the workshop participants. They decided that before each individual can focus on DEIB issues that other people face day-to-day, they have to understand what makes up their social identity and where they are in their own personal DEIB process. Only after understanding how each individual’s identity impacts how they enter a space, can the work start to focus on other topics related to DEIB.
To make sure everyone had the proper time to self-reflect, participants each filled out their own social identity wheel to gain a better understanding of themselves for the conversation. We were happy to see so many people register and attend our first session either in person or over zoom. There was a great conversation about the social identity wheel where attendees discussed which parts of their identity they thought about most and least along with why that was. After, Lee told an African folktale about Anansi and then led a conversation around the story and how it was presented.
The following Monday, November 14th, there was a follow-up conversation with the attendees to discuss what resonated with them and what they want to focus on moving forward. Many attendees learned that DEIB work is a lifelong journey that each of us takes and that everyone is on their own level of how far they have come. Want to join us on that journey for session two? RSVP here: https://forms.gle/5pNoPd18i6qQ9KAz7
