Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan
Undergraduate Student Resources
Graduate Student Resources
Staff Resources
Faculty Resources
DEI Workshops
DEI Events
1. LSA DEI x Sustainability Summit: For People + Planet
2. Panel: Military Service as a DEI Identity
3. Panel: The Why, What, and How of Menopause
4. LSA DEI Events Archive
LSA Collegiate Fellows Program
Anti-Racism Report
Preventing Sexual Harassment Report
Supporting LSA’s LGBTQ+ Community Report
Cultural Heritage and Awareness

LSA DEI x Sustainability Summit: For People + Planet

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan
Undergraduate Student Resources
Graduate Student Resources
Staff Resources
Faculty Resources
DEI Workshops
DEI Events
1. LSA DEI x Sustainability Summit: For People + Planet
2. Panel: Military Service as a DEI Identity
3. Panel: The Why, What, and How of Menopause
4. LSA DEI Events Archive
LSA Collegiate Fellows Program
Anti-Racism Report
Preventing Sexual Harassment Report
Supporting LSA’s LGBTQ+ Community Report
Cultural Heritage and Awareness

Event Description

“Social injustice and environmental injustice are fueled by the same flame: the undervaluing, commodification, and exploitation of all forms of life and natural resources, from the smallest blade of grass to those living in poverty and oppressed people worldwide.” Leah Thomas in The Intersectional Environmentalist

What is your vision for a world where both social and environmental justice are fully realized? Using the framework that Thomas sets in The Intersectional Environmentalist, join the LSA DEI Office and LSA Sustainability for an exploration of the intersections between Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and sustainability.

This event will take place on October 16th, 2024, from 9 AM to 1 PM at the Michigan Union. The day's activities will commence in the Rogel Ballroom from 9 AM to 11 AM. We will hear from LSA Dean Rosario Ceballo, keynote speaker Shalanda Baker (Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action), followed by four engaging lightning talks from LSA experts, each with a unique focus on sustainability and environmental justice. Lightning talk areas include intersectional theory, environmental justice, recognizing privilege, and understanding the environmental impact on BIPOC communities.

From 11 AM to 1 PM, participate in drop-in workshops addressing topics such as people and planet, food literacy, and utilizing various environmental justice screening tools. Throughout the event, attendees can engage in interactive activities designed to collect valuable feedback. Additionally, the event will feature illustrator and graphic recorder Yen Azzaro, who will capture the day's highlights visually. Enjoy complimentary food plus, earn a token which can be redeemed for local, delicious produce from the U-M Campus Farm Stand while supplies last.

Video Recording: External Link

Professional Development Areas

Prior Knowledge and/or Experience:

Creating a Sustainable Event

Food

A focus on choosing lower carbon footprint rated food items - information about M-Dining's carbon impact and MHealthy icons can be found here.
Opting to host a zero waste event - which aims to reduce waste, recycle, and compost as much as possible. Zero waste events information can be found here.

Decor

Did you know that mylar balloons are not biodegradeable? We chose to forgo common, single-use event decor like balloons, as it does not align with zero waste event practices.
For florals, we focused on locally sourced stems as well as purchased from stores where the florals were otherwise going to be thrown out. Consider buying from a local farmer for your next event which has less transportation-related emissions, often lasts longer, and supports local businesses.

Swag

We partnered with the Michigan Campus Farm - which is entirely student run and focuses on sustainable and carbon neutral farming practices. On a first-come, first served basis, participants received/will receive a token worth $5 of campus farm produce that can be purchased at their weekly farmstand on campus. The tokens can be reused over and over again, and we did not create waste via shipping packaging or by purchasing items that may not be heavily used.

Other details

Water bottles - we encouraged all of our speakers and volunteers to bring their own reusable water bottles, which can be refilled in the event space at the beverage station.
Printing - only printed the most crucial information for aiding communication throughout the event day and enhancing the event where necessary. However, all marketing and communication practices around the event were implemented completely digitally and all resources and feedback pertaining to the event are also digital.

Keynote

Shalanda Baker, Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action

Shalanda Baker

Shalanda H. Baker is the inaugural Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action at the University of Michigan and a globally recognized scholar of energy justice. Before joining the University of Michigan, Shalanda served as the Senate-confirmed Director of the Office of Energy Justice and Equity, Secretarial Advisor on Equity, and Chief Diversity Officer at the United States Department of Energy. At the Department, she served as the architect of theagency’s equity and justice efforts. Prior to that, she served in the Biden-Harris Administrationas the nation’s first Deputy Director for Energy Justice.

She has spent over a decade conducting research on the equity dimensions of the global transition away from fossil fuel energy to cleaner energy resources. Before joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Shalanda was a Professor of Law, Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University, where she taught courses on renewable energy law, energy policy, and the energy transition. While at Northeastern, Shalanda also co-founded and co-directed the Initiative for Energy Justice (www.iejusa.org), an organization committed to providing technicallaw and policy support to communities on the frontlines of climate change. Ms. Baker has also served as an associate professor of law at the University of Hawai’i William S. Richardson School of Law, where she was the founding director of the Energy Justice Program. Prior to that, she served on the faculty at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Shalanda holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from the United States Air Force Academy, a Juris Doctor from Northeastern University School of Law, and an LLM from the University of Wisconsin School of Law, where she also served as a William H. Hastie Fellow. She has authored numerous articles, book chapters, and essays on renewable energy law, energy policy, and international development. In 2015, she was awarded a 2016-17 Fulbright-García Robles grant to explore Mexico’s energy reform, climate change, and indigenous rights. Her book, Revolutionary Power: An Activist’s Guide to the Energy Transition, argues that energy policy is the next domain to advance civil rights (Island Press 2021).

Ms. Baker is a former Air Force officer and, prior to joining the legal academy, she worked as a corporate and project finance attorney in Boston and Tokyo.

Lightning Talks

Samantha L. Adams

Samantha L. Adams is a Doctoral Candidate in English and Women’s and Gender Studies at theUniversity of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where she is the current James A. Winn Graduate Fellow atthe Institute for the Humanities. Her research lies at the intersections between African AmericanLiterature, Ecocriticism, Black Feminisms, and Black Studies. Her dissertation focuses on theliterary and historical relationships between Black subjects and bodies of water beyond theAtlantic Ocean.

Bénédicte Boisseron

Bénédicte Boisseron is Professor and Chair of the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies (DAAS) at The University of Michigan. Her interdisciplinary research brings into conversation Global Black Studies, Caribbean Studies, Critical Animal Studies, and Environmental Humanities. Her first book, Creole Renegades: Rhetoric of Betrayal and Guilt in the Caribbean Diaspora (University Press of Florida, 2014) received awards from the Caribbean Philosophical Association and the Caribbean Studies Association. Her second book, Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question (Columbia University Press, 2018), draws on current debates about black life and animal rights in the history and cultures of the Americas and the Black Atlantic. Her current book project on Black freeganism was supported by a 2022 Guggenheim fellowship and she is also at work on a short book (Living with Dogs) under contract with Duke University Press. She is the Principal Investigator of the DAAS Black Ecologies project funded by the Mellon Foundation and is currently teaching a course on Black Ecologies (AAS 498).

David Temin

David Temin is a political theorist whose research and teaching spans American political thought, Native American studies and politics, comparative and global political thought, and postcolonial and critical race studies. His research explores how the diverse strands of anticolonial thought help to reconsider central dilemmas of social and environmental justice in empire’s wake, as well as refashioning political concepts such as sovereignty and land. Temin's first book, Remapping Sovereignty: Decolonization and Self-Determination in North American Indigenous Political Thought (University of Chicago Press, 2023), bridges political-intellectual history and conceptual analysis to show how key 20th-century Indigenous intellectuals and activists in lands today claimed by Canada and the United States reshaped the philosophical substance and normative goals of “decolonization.” The book traces how these conceptual moves and practical efforts to enact decolonization hinged on heavily debated projects of disentangling self-determination from the sovereign state, the restitution of dispossessed land, autonomy and safety for Indigenous women, and care-based duties of ecological stewardship. Remapping Sovereignty won the "Best First Book Award" (2024) from APSA's Foundations of Political Theory section. Temin has also published research in venues such as Political Theory, Perspectives on Politics, American Political Science Review, Political Research Quarterly, Constellations, and European Journal of Political Theory. He is currently working on a second book, entitled "Wages for Earthwork," in which he argues for the centrality of ecological labor to anticolonial climate justice politics.

Jessica Kenyatta Walker

Jessica Kenyatta Walker is an American Studies scholar exploring food and racialization within everyday cultural landscapes. Her research is deeply interdisciplinary, thoughtfully mining the intersections of Black Studies, Critical Food Studies, Black Feminist Theory, and theories of space and place. Her current project explore the cultural legacies of soul food as a battleground for Black representation.

Event Day Information - Workshops

Workshop Information

**Note: Participation is first come, first served due to high interest and limited space. Thank you for understanding; we’ll look to host additional sessions at a later date!

We will offer rotating, small-group workshops on different sustainability-related topics, ranging from campus sustainability goals to our personal relationships with the land.
If you are not able to stay for these workshops, please consider participating in the Creative Zone or using some of the Conversation Starters we’ll place throughout Rogel with other attendees.

Workshop 1 - Indirect Emissions
Discuss current campus initiatives around Scope 3 emissions and their intersection with environmental justice. How can we achieve carbon neutrality while centering equity?

Workshop 2 - Maize and Blue
Engage in conversations around the historical, cultural, and environmental implications of Maize, or corn! What can we learn about ourselves, food justice, and Indigenous knowledge from corn?

Workshop 3 - Land as a Relationship
This is an introspective session that will help you reflect on your relationship with land, as a foundational component of climate justice. How were you taught responsibility, obligation, and mutuality?

Workshop 4 - Centering Detroit
Join a conversation about how, who, and where people are engaging with climate advocacy in Detroit through data visualization tools, story sharing, and BIPOC leaders. How does climate change relate to health and race in the city?

NOTE: THIS WORKSHOP ENDS AT 12:30 as the facilitator will be joining the Arboretum tour, but may pivot to an open table discussion.

Workshop 5 - Storytelling Intersectional Environmental Environmentalism
Learn how to start a conversation about sustainability, what and who Planet Blue is, and how to build your climate narrative. How do individual experiences shape connections to the environment?

Timetable

Announcements will be made between sessions and there will be five minutes between each 20-minute rotation. The event will end promptly at 1:00pm.

Session 1:
11:10AM - 11:30AM

Session 2:
11:35-11:55

Session 3:
12:00-12:20

Session 4:
12:25-12:45

Event Day Information - Presentation

9AM
Opening remarks from LSA Dean Rosario Ceballo

9:10AM
Keynote, Shalanda Baker, inaugural Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action

9:45AM
Introducing our lightning speakers - Isis Settles, LSA Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Samantha Adams, Intersectional Theory
David Temin, Environmental Justice: A Wider Lens
Benedicte Boisseron, Unpacking Privilege
Jessica Kenyatta Walker, The Reality for BIPOC

The remaining time will be used for Q&A with the speakers, beginning approximately at 10:30 and lasting until 11am.

Event Day Information - Arboretum Tour

If in the Michigan Union, please meet on the second floor outside of the Pendleton Room at 12:30pm. Please bring your mcard - the group will travel via the Michigan Commuter North bus to the Arboretum.

Participants are also welcome to meet at the Arborteum at 1pm for the start of the tour, utilizing their own transportation.

This semester, a Black Nature Walk will wind through Nichols Arboretum in the trails around the peony garden. The walk is the creation of a group of students enrolled in a Black Ecologies course taught by Professor Bénédicte Boisseron from the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Black ecology is the study of Black people in relation to their environment. In 2022, poet and scholar Joshua Bennett curated an outdoor exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden featuring work by Black poets. Inspired by this, students are now creating a similar experience at Nichols Arboretum. They will showcase poems from Camille T. Dungy's anthology "Black Nature," along with a special "In Memoriam" poem by Marcellus Williams, a death row inmate executed in Missouri on Tuesday, September 24th, 2024.

The exhibit will open on October 16th at 1 p.m. at the Washington Heights Arboretum Entrance. Come for a unique, immersive nature walk focusing on Black Nature and Ecology, with the participation of DAAS member Elizabeth James for Indigenous storytelling. If you are coming from the DEI x Sustainability Summit in the Michigan Union, we will be leaving as a group at 12:30PM.

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