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Speakers for the 2022 Symposium

Speakers for the 2022 Symposium

Keynote

Beyond Theory: A Practical Approach to Trauma-Informed Teaching & Learning

with Mays Imad, Ph. D.

In this session we will consider the power of knowledge; how can understanding the neuroscience of toxic stress empower us to self-regulate and help our students, cope, engage, connect, and learn. How will we welcome our students and colleagues to our institutions and classrooms this year and beyond? What can we, educators, possibly do to help attend to their mental health and ameliorate their exhaustion and distress, while at the same time, intentionally engaging in self-care?

We will examine the principles and practical examples of equity-centered trauma-informed approaches and reflect on the connections between trauma-informed education, healing, and restorative justice. Participants will walk away with concrete strategies they can use in their own courses and contexts to help their students’ learning and success.

About Dr. Mays Imad

Mays Imad received her undergraduate training from the University of Michigan–Dearborn where she studied philosophy. She received her doctoral degree in Cellular and Clinical Neurobiology from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan. She then completed a National Institute of Health-Funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona in the Department of Neuroscience. She joined the department of life and physical sciences at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona as an adjunct faculty member in 2009 and later as a full-time faculty member in 2013. During her tenure at Pima, she taught Physiology, Pathophysiology, Genetics, Biotechnology, and Biomedical ethics. She also founded Pima’s Teaching and Learning Center (TLC).

Mays is a Gardner Institute Fellow and an AAC&U Senior Fellow within the Office of Undergraduate STEM Education. Dr. Imad’s research focuses on stress, self-awareness, advocacy, and classroom community, and how these impact student learning and success. Through her teaching and research, she seeks to provide her students with transformative opportunities that are grounded in the aesthetics of learning, truth-seeking, justice, and self-realization.

Outside of the classroom, Dr. Imad works with faculty members across disciplines at her own institution and across the country to promote inclusive, equitable, and contextual education–all rooted in the latest research on the neurobiology of learning. A nationally-recognized expert on trauma-informed teaching and learning, she passionately advocates for institutions to make mental health a top priority and to systematically support the education of the whole student.

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Panel Discussion

Best Practices in Multicultural Teaching

This moderated panel discussion features instructors from various institutions and disciplines who use multicultural and inclusive pedagogies that have improved learning and success for their students. Panelists will share examples of classroom scenarios that demonstrate multicultural teaching, discuss strategies for designing a class or a course that embodies multicultural teaching, and articulate challenging experiences encountered in their work and how they responded. You will have opportunities throughout the session to ask questions and share your own experiences with multicultural teaching.

Panelists

Kiesha Warren-Gordon, PhD

Kiesha Warren-Gordon is currently an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice/Criminology and the director of the African American studies program. She’s also an affiliate faculty member in the Gender and Women’s Studies program and teaches a variety of courses including Victimology; Race, Gender, and Crime; and Human Services in Criminal Justice at Ball State University where she recently completed her 14 ^th year.

Dr. Warren-Gordon’s substantive areas include community engagement, criminology, and a critical approach to examining race/ethnicity issues within the criminal justice system. Her research explores the intersection of race and class in the miscarriage of justice, violence, and intercultural conflict. Her work also centers on critical approaches of community engagement while working with marginalized communities. Currently, her research projects include critical pedagogical approaches to teaching positive community involvement outside of traditional criminal justice educational norms, violence against women in Belize, as well as media framing of social movements.

Dr. Warren-Gordon's research primarily focuses on qualitative research methodologies that focus on centering of the voices of those who participate in the research process. Dr. Warren-Gordon utilizes interviews, focus groups, and participatory action research as a means of highlighting critical approaches in addressing research questions. She has over 25 peer-reviewed publications. Her most recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education; Collaborations; Journal of Ethnicity and Crime, and International Journal of Rural Criminology.

Dr. Warren-Gordon’s service work includes serving as the Indiana Campus Compact Senior Faculty fellow, where she mentors faculty across the state of Indiana as they participate in community engagement and service-learning projects within their communities.

Thomas Foley, MPH, HP

Thomas Foley is a Lecturer and the Unit Lead of Health and Human Sciences at Indiana University Fort Wayne (IUFW). He serves on the IUFW Executive Committee and Faculty Council, Chairs the Student Affairs Committee, and is a Faculty Advisor of the IUFW Chapter of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Prior to IUFW, Thomas taught graduate epidemiology courses at Eastern Washington University. Before joining the faculty at EWU, he was part of a small inter-professional team that started a non-profit clinic serving people experiencing homelessness in Portland, OR, and was the clinic's founding co-director of the Training and Education.

Ivette Cruz-Kondrat, MSW, BSW

Ivette Cruz-Vallellanes, MSW is the Student Services Coordinator for the IU School of Social Work at IUPUI.

She is a native from the island of Puerto Rico where she grew up and completed her Bachelors and Masters Degree in the field of Social Work at the University of Puerto Rico. She was the recipient of the NASW Puerto Rican chapter scholarship to complete her studies. She joined the School of Social Work in January 2009 as the BSW Student Services Coordinator. Prior to her appointment, she taught in the BSW program as an associate faculty. Ivette moved to the city of Indianapolis in 1993 and has worked with the Hispanic/Latino population. She was part of the first task force that developed the Hispanic Health Project at Wishard Hospital. She developed several Hispanic projects and initiatives at other agencies including Healthy Families and Children's Bureau, Inc. She has provided training and presentations at different organizations and agencies on Hispanic/Latino matters and is an active member of the Latino community. She is currently a member of a National group that provide services and educational conferences on DACA and undocumented students in the US.

She became a Student Services Coordinator at IUPUI in 2008 and is very active in NACADA (the Global Community for Academic Advising) since 2010. Ivette was awarded the honor of becoming part of the Emerging Leaders program, class of 2017-2019. She is also a member of the Inclusion and Engagement Committee and the Professional Development Committee for 2018-2020. In March of 2018, she was also elected as a Liaison Representative for Indiana on the NACADA Region 5 and representing the state on academic advising matters.

Ivette was awarded the Chancellors Award for excellence in multicultural teaching in 2020.

Moderator

Jason M. Kelly, PhD

Jason M. Kelly is Director of the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute and Professor of History in the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Africana Studies and American Studies. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Dr. Kelly received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara and is the author of The Society of Dilettanti: Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment (Yale University Press and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2010), lead editor of Rivers of the Anthropocene (University of California Press, 2017), and co-editor of An Anthropocene Primer (2017).

As Director of the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, Dr. Kelly supports IUPUI’s research mission by directing the IAHI grant programs, identifying and fostering transdisciplinary research collaborations, and organizing research workshops and symposia. Additionally, he facilitates public arts and humanities partnerships, including research projects, performances, lectures, and exhibitions.

Dr. Kelly’s current research projects focus on the histories of the environment, sciences, and art and architecture . He is currently writing A History of the Anthropocene, a deep history of human-nature relations. He leads The Anthropocenes Network, an international, transdisciplinary, collaborative network committed to developing innovative interventions in environmental research, pedagogy, and policy. The Anthropocenes Network is home to several projects including 1) Rivers of the Anthropocene, a research project focused on global freshwater systems and policy; 2) Voices from the Waterways, an oral history project; 3) The Anthropocene Household, a community-based research project that uses the household as a way to understand the lived experiences, knowledges, and practices associated with environmental change; and 4) Museum of the Anthropocene, an experimental platform to develop multi-sited, synchronous, interactive, networked environmental installations.

Dr. Kelly directs The Cultural Ecologies Project, a research program and PhD track that works with community stakeholders to study and design cultural interventions across multiple scales — from the personal to the neighborhood to the city level. Most recently, he founded The Covid-19 Oral History Project, a rapid-response research collaboration that archives the lived experience of the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Dr. Kelly has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Lilly Endowment Inc., and the Clowes Foundation. He is the recipient of the IUPUI Research Trailblazers Award (2013), two IU Trustees Teaching Awards (2011, 2008), and the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI Student Council Outstanding Academic Adviser Award (2010).