Learn More Series

Conducting Research with Tribal Communities

Wednesday, November 20. 2:00-3:00pm

BU Diversity & Inclusion Office, 808 Commonwealth Avenue, Suite 1M or Zoom

Join BU Diversity & Inclusion for a panel featuring scholars conducting research with federally-recognized Native American and Indigenous tribes. The panelists will discuss equity-centered frameworks and practices for conducting research alongside tribal members and on tribal territory. This event is open to all members of the BU community. Refreshments will be served.

Register here.

Resources:

• Research-based comics about repatriation and NAGPRA law. Issue #1 is about efforts to have Anishinaabe ancestors returned from U of Michigan and Harvard. https://nagpracomics.weebly.com/ 
• The Community-based PhD: Complexities and Triumphs of Conducting CBPR, edited by Sonya Atalay and Alexandra McCleary (2022), University of Arizona Press. Written by graduate students, for graduate students. 
• Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS)
• NSF has a new policy of working with Native communities PAPPG (page 80)
• Resource Generation: Land Reparations & Indigenous Solidarity Toolkit 
• Native Governance Center: A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgment
• National Park Service: Indigenous History and Ways of Knowing – Boston Harbor Islands National Recreational Area, Massachusetts 

What’s in a Name? Renaming Myles Standish Hall

Wednesday, December 4. 5:00-7:00pm

Location TBD

In this program, panelists Kimberly Howard (Wheelock College of Education & Human Development), Anna Ward (Wheelock College of Education & Human Development), Thomas Green (Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag), and Travis Franks (Utah State University) will reflect on the challenges and advocacy of removing the Myles Standish name from a BU residence hall. They will engage with the audience in a conversation on what attendees can do to support efforts to make BU a more inclusive University for Native American and Indigenous community members. Dinner will be provided for registered attendees.

Register here

Resources:

• BU Libraries: Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center Exhibition, “Renaming Myles Standish Hall”
• BU Today: Unnaming Myles Standish Hall 5/23/24
• The Indigenous History of Boston Harbor: A Q&A with Thomas Green of the Massachusett Tribe 4/22/24 
• BU Today: POV: Rename Myles Standish Hall–“A Symbol of Continued Oppression” by Adam Shamsi & Anne Joseph 11/28/22 
• Boston Political Review: “Native Tribe Speak to BU About Renaming Myles Standish Hall” by Jack Martin & Adam Shamsi 3/25/22, updated 4/1/22 
• WBUR: “Why BU should rename Myles Standish Hall” by Travis Franks 9/21/21 

Latin American Indigenous Voices: Developing a Digital Archive

• Celia Bianconi (CAS Romance Studies): Dr. Célia Bianconi is a Master Lecturer and head of the Portuguese Language Program in the Romance Studies Department, where she teaches all level courses on Portuguese language and Brazilian culture, also focus on Social Justice Dr. Bianconi’s main research and publication are devoted to teaching and learning of Portuguese as a foreign language (PFL) in the United States. Dr. Bianconi was awarded the 2022 Frank and Lynne Wisneski for Excellence in Teaching from BU and in 2023 received a Leadership Award from the American Organization of Teacher of Portuguese (AOTP).
• María Datel (CAS Romance Studies): María Datel is a Master Lecturer and the head of the Spanish Language Program in the Romance Studies Department. She teaches all levels of Spanish, has developed the program for Spanish heritage learners, and co-teaches “Epistemologies and the Process of Inquiry: Antiracism in Educational and Professional Settings” at Kilachand College. Her research focuses on decolonial pedagogies, indigenous perspectives on global issues, and antiracism.
• Edgardo Tormos Bigles (CAS Romance Studies): Edgardo Tormos was born and raised in Puerto Rico. His interests include 20th-century Mexican Literature and Film, as well as Caribbean Literature and film. He is a Lecturer of Spanish in the Department of Romance Studies, where he teaches all levels of the language, including a course for Spanish heritage speakers.
• Fernanda Alves Dos Santos (CAS Romance Studies): Fernanda Alves dos Santos is a PhD student in the Romance Studies Department. She also holds degrees in Social Sciences and Portuguese and Spanish Language and Literature from the Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil. Her research focuses on 19th—and 21st-century Latin American literature, exploring gender, race, performance, and sociopolitical dialogues.
• Jose Quispe Coronel (CAS Romance Studies): Jose Quispe Coronel is a fourth-year graduate student in the doctoral program of Hispanic Language and Literatures at Boston University. He has taught all levels of Spanish at BU and is currently writing his thesis on the poetry of Spanish writers exiled in the US due to the Spanish Civil War.

Palestinian Dabke Dance Workshop

• Aisha Ghorashian, Man Nguyen, & Samia Ismail (SPH): Coming from BU MPH program, Aisha, Samia, and Alex study how to improve population health and are allies to the Palestinian liberation / decolonization cause. They learn about a history of how desire for power and money fuels colonialism, how colonial empires generate power and profit by marginalizing, subjugating & exploiting human beings, and how current empires use empty diversity and inclusion to mask their systemic lack of equity and justice. Acknowledging their complicity as brown settlers on indigenous land belonging to the people of First Nations, Aisha, Samia, and Alex are interested in centering indigenous people and supporting landback movements.

Navajo Obsidian Organizational Landscapes Project [ NOOLyínii]

• Wade Campbell (CAS Anthropology): Wade Campbell, PhD is a Diné (Navajo) historical archaeologist whose research examines the relationships between Diné communities and other local groups in the U.S. Southwest from the 17th century to the present day. Wade is engaged with a range of questions related to longer-term patterns of Navajo settlement and economic activity across the greater Four Corners region, with a particular focus on incipient Indigenous pastoralism and related shifts in land-use, social organization, & diet/subsistence practices.
• Gabriel Vicencio Castellanos (CAS Anthropology): Gabriel Vicencio is a Mexican archaeologist and BU PhD student whose research has focused primarily on Central Mexico. His interests lie in understanding political economy and regional systems of exchange identified through the analysis of obsidian. He has worked in several sites throughout Central Mexico, including Cuauhtinchan Viejo, Cholula, Cacaxtla-Xochitecatl, Teotihuacan, and Tepeticpac.
• Thatcher Seltzer-Rogers (CAS Anthropolog): Thatcher Seltzer-Rogers, PhD is the Director of Business Operations for the New Mexico Office of Archaeological Studies (OAS). He has extensive experience conducting academic and cultural resource management-related work across in southern Arizona and New Mexico, as well as northwest Mexico, with specialized analytical expertise in ceramic analysis and quantitative analysis.

Supporting Northern Pomo Community Efforts in Language Reclamation

• Mary Catherine O’Connor (CAS & WHE Language and Literacy Education): Dr. Catherine O’Connor is a Professor of Education and Linguistics at Boston University. Beginning in 1979, as a doctoral student at UC Berkeley, she worked with the few remaining fluent speakers of Northern Pomo, an indigenous language of California, to document the grammar and lexicon of the language. After the death of the last speaker, she continued the work by creating online resources using recordings. She is currently working with members of Northern Pomo tribal communities to create curriculum for tribal revitalization efforts, including a sequence of high school courses being taught in Ukiah, CA.
• Tyler Lee-Wynant (CAS & WHE Language and Literacy Education): I am an incoming doctoral student in the Linguistics PhD program at UC Berkeley and a heritage learner of Northern Pomo, one of the many Indigenous languages of California. As a linguist and heritage learner, I find it paramount to bridge the gap between linguistic insight, language documentation, and community language learning efforts. With the opportunity provided by the Learn More Research Grant, I am beyond thrilled to collaborate with Andre Batchelder-Schwab, Brady Dailey, and Catherine O’Connor—one of whose Northern Pomo consultants was my great-great aunt Edna Guerrero—on working closely with Catherine’s extensive documentation of Northern Pomo as it informs language learning efforts, both personally and communally.
• Brady Dailey (CAS & WHE Language & Literacy Education): My name is Brady Dailey and I am a 4th year PhD student in Linguistics at Boston University. I started working on the Northern Pomo Language Documentation and Revitalization project in 2017 and have worked digitizing, transcribing, and translating audio data stored on cassette tapes from fieldwork carried out by Dr. O’Connor. My current work focuses on Northern Pomo’s phonology with special attention to its systems of lexical tone and word-level prosody, and on leveraging computational tools to make the data in the corpus more accessible.
• Andre Batchelder-Schwab (CAS & WHE Language and Literacy Education): André Batchelder-Schwab is a PhD candidate in linguistics at Boston University specializing in documentation of the phonetics and phonologies of underdescribed languages. He has worked with Dr. O’Connor to help develop learning materials and a curriculum for Northern Pomo courses taught at Ukiah High School in California. His dissertation examines whistled languages and how they might be able to help teach tone to second-language learners of tonal languages like Northern Pomo.

Art and Indigenous Social Justice in Morocco: Filmmaker Nadir Bouhmouch

• Cynthia Becker (CAS History of Art & Architecture)

Bridging the Gap Between Indigenous Ways of Knowing and the Scientific Method

• Noelle Henderson (SPH Environmental Health)

Palestinian Feminisms

• Ruofei Shang (CAS Anthropology ’25): Ruofei Shang is a senior studying Sociocultural Anthropology with minors in Film and Arabic. Originally from China, Ruofei spent 4 years living in the Middle East, where her interests in social justice and cultural interaction grew. While staying actively involved on campus, in her free time, Ruofei enjoys cooking and photography.

Bridging Cultures, Fostering Understanding: Amplifying Indigenous Voices in Healthcare Education

• María Datel (CAS Romance Studies): María Datel is a Master Lecturer and the head of the Spanish Language Program in the Romance Studies Department. She teaches all levels of Spanish, has developed the program for Spanish heritage learners, and co-teaches “Epistemologies and the Process of Inquiry: Antiracism in Educational and Professional Settings” at Kilachand College. Her research focuses on decolonial pedagogies, indigenous perspectives on global issues, and antiracism.
• Christina Michaud (CAS Writing Program): Christina Michaud is the Associate Director of English Language Learning in the Writing Program. She studies linguistic imperialism, linguistic justice, equitable approaches to grading, and antiracist pedagogies and teaches in CAS and KHC.
• Ashley Davis (SSW): Ashley Davis is a researcher interested in anti-racism in social work practice as well as teaching and learning in social work education. Her scholarship has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Social Work Education, Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work and Advances in Social Work.

Lecture on Legal and Social Movements for Indigenous Liberation

• Caitlin Glass (BU Law): Caitlin Glass is a Visiting Lecturer and Clinical Instructor at BU School of Law, where she directs the Antiracism and Community Lawyering Practicum and co-teaches the Legislative Policy & Drafting Clinic. Her teaching and research interests include movement lawyering, racial justice and the law, abolition theory and praxis, and participatory methods. Caitlin was previously an appellate public defender and a Marvin M. Karpatkin Fellow with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program.

Healing Nation: Decolonization and Disability Through an Indigenous Lens

• Ruchi Khanna (WHE Special Education): Ruchi Mendiratta Khanna is a Ph.D. student at the Wheelock School of Education and Human Development at Boston University. As a researcher in Special Education, she is interested in studying how students’ social-emotional well-being can be improved through the adoption of culturally relevant practices that support students’ ethnic-racial identities and celebrate their cultures of origin. Ruchi’s interest in her research is informed by her lived experience as an immigrant mother and public school educator.

New Growths: A Cross-Institutional Conversation on Land, Integrity & Ecologies

• Parren Fountain (BU Sustainability): As the Engagement Manager at BU Sustainability, Parren is responsible for developing and delivering sustainability outreach programs and initiatives across all BU campuses, supporting the university’s climate action and zero waste plans. He is deeply dedicated to exploring the complexities and intersections of sustainability challenges, including gaps in Indigenous curriculum, cultural activities, and spaces at Boston University. During his time at BU, Parren has collaborated with students, faculty, and staff to explore this arena through research and program development.

Native American Law Student Association

• Tamara Buitrago (BU Law): The Boston University Native American Law Students Association was founded to support law students who are interested in the study of Federal Indian Law, Tribal Law, and traditional forms of governance. We hope to increase the Native American law student population and promote indigenous legal issues that affect Native communities. We encourage Native Americans to pursue a legal education and advocate for tribal communities.

• Indigenous Curricular and Cultural Exchange Gaps in Higher Education (Parren Fountain, Nathan Phillips, Elizabeth Kostina, Selby Vaughn, Delaney Foster)
• • Presentation Slides
  • Report
• POV: We’re Missing Indigenous Knowledge in Higher Education
• Library Guide on Indigenous and Native American Studies (BU Libraries)

September

To kick off the year, we’re excited to welcome Porsha Olayiwola, the City of Boston Poet Laureate, as our first featured speaker of the year for There Will Be Queer People in the Future. Join us on Charles River Campus on September 22, 12-1 pm in the GSU Small Ballroom (775 Commonwealth Ave, floor 2). This event is co-sponsored by the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff.

On Wednesdays from 6:30-7:30 pm, September 14 through November 16, LGBTQIA+ students are invited to join Overcoming Family Challenges: A Student Support Group led in partnership by BU Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Center (SARP), the student organization Together Estranged (TE), and the Queer Activist Collective. Supported in part by BU D&I’s Learn More Programming Grant, these sessions will be led by clinician Mae Petti, who will create a space for processing experiences of estrangement and share tactics to build resilience.

October

If the silencing of queer voices in school curricula tells us anything, it is this: History matters. On October 7, 12-1:45 pm, tune into Queer History IS American History: Historical Perspectives on LGBTQIA+ Identity and Experience, a Zoom panel discussion about the erasure of queer histories featuring scholars and authors Kai Pyle (University of Illinois), Greta LaFleur (Yale University), Khary Polk (Amherst College), and Michal Bronski (Harvard University).

Activists have described it as civil rights whiplash: Despite the progress in LGBTQIA+ rights, visibility, and acceptance in this new century, a wave of transphobia and homophobia is sweeping the nation, with more than 200 pieces of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation have been introduced in 36 states. On October 26, 12-1:45 pm, join us for the panel discussion “We’re Not Going Back”: Protecting and Advancing LGBTQIA+ Rights in 2022, where leading voices in LGBTQIA+ activism will unpack the current state of LGBTQIA+ laws and rights, and share what we can do to protect and advance those rights in the future. This event is co-sponsored by the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff.

November

On November 10, 12-1:45 pm, “A” is for Asexual Liberation: Centering Ace & Aro Identities, Deconstructing Compulsory Sexuality, and Creating a Movement brings together two thought leaders, activist David Jay, and journalist Angela Chen, for a Learn More Series In Conversation event about asexual and aromantic identity, history, movements, and culture. This event is co-sponsored by the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff.

Join us for another Learn More Series In Conversation event, Queerfolk, Transfolk, Fatfolk, Blackfolk: Intersections of Queer and Black Identities on November 30 at 12:30 pm. The conversation will focus on intersections of queerness and Blackness, with two visionaries who are pushing the boundaries of queer Black activism: Sean Saifa Wall, co-founder of the Intersex Justice Project, and Da’Shaun L. Harrison, author of Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness. This event is co-sponsored by the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff.

January

Join us for a powerhouse kickoff to the second semester of the Learn More Series, as we welcome trans-Black Hollywood star lea robinson for a keynote luncheon on Queering Higher Ed, Queering Hollywood. From their leading role supporting queer college students to their leading role in the Amazon hit series A League of Their Own, lea robinson (they/them) has been at the forefront of disrupting gender binaries and pushing for visibility in spaces that historically have erased queer and trans people of color. A rising star who identifies as a trans, queer, non-binary, butch, and multi-racial actor, lea (pronounced “lee”) burst on the Hollywood scene playing A League of Their Own’s Bertie Hart, a trans-Black man living in the 1940s. But long before lea’s rise in Hollywood, they championed QTBIPOC students as a higher ed administrator at Columbia University and UC Berkeley. Sponsored by BU Diversity & Inclusion and the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff.

February

On February 2, 12 – 1:30pm, What’s So Dangerous About a Picture Book?: Book Bans and Queer Resistance in Children’s and YA Literature takes a deep dive into the attack on LGBTQIA-affirming books with a star panel of queer and trans book creators. Ten years ago, children’s and YA literature with queer or trans themes accounted for less than 20% of banned or challenged books in the US. Today they make up more than 75%. This noon-time panel is the first of a two-part celebration of LGBTQIA+ themes in the kid-lit world. Sponsored by BU Diversity & Inclusion and the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff. Click here to register for this event. 

Also on the same day at 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM, Banned Books Storytime Marathon will rejoice in banned picture books and YA fiction featuring LGBTQIA+ voices. We’ll have cookies, tea, hot chocolate (with marshmallows, obv), then end it all with a pizza party dinner. All readers will get a free copy of either the YA bestseller Flamer or the eye-catching board book The Pronoun Book. Sponsored by BU Diversity & Inclusion, the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff, and the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground. Click here to register for this event. 

From juvenile detention to arrest rates to incarceration, the LGBTQIA+ population is overrepresented at every stage of the criminal justice system. This is especially true for queer and trans women of color, immigrants, and disabled people. On February 28, 12–1:45 pm, join us for At Every Stage of the System: The Criminalization and Over-Incarceration of LGBTQIA+ People for a hard-hitting, intersectionality-focused conversation on the queer and trans prison abolition movement. Sponsored by BU Diversity & Inclusion and the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff. Click here to register for this event. 

March

In October 2022, the Portraits of Pride project was launched to commemorate LGBTQ History Month, with an installation of larger-than-life photo portraits highlighting 19 remarkable Boston leaders. Now, four months after the portraits were vandalized, a special edition of the installation is headed to BU. Join us on March 28, 4:30–6:30 pm, for Portraits of Pride: A Celebration of Queer and Trans Lives in Boston, to celebrate an exhibition of Portraits of Pride in the GSU 2nd-floor exhibition space. The event will include a reception and a panel with Portraits of Pride honorees, moderated by WBUR Arts Engagement Producer Arielle Gray. Sponsored by BU Diversity & Inclusion and the LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff. Click here to register for this event. 

April

Fragmentos will be a night of queer BIPOC storytelling through photography hosted by Charcoal magazine. The event will take place at the Howard Thurman Center on April 6, 2023, 7—9 pm, and it will consist of an exhibition of portraits of queer BIPOC students, with special pop-up performances by queer local artists. The event aims at highlighting our students’ unique experiences and perspectives through photography and writing: stories of discovering and embracing who they are; growing up in different environments; finding their own community; and asserting their multiple identities and their voices at Boston University and beyond.