Intersectionality Symposium
When: Friday, March 10, 2023, 9 AM – 4 PM
Where: Science Collaborative Space (ST 142) (hybrid option available via Zoom)
What: Three panel discussions on Intersectionality in Academia, Disability Awareness, Black Mental Health
Price: free (registration required for lunch)
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is a crucial part of our conversations in the present moment where our society recognizes the need to build an environment where everyone feels safe and equal to any other member of their community. The term “Intersectionality” was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to identify a framework that considers that a collection of factors coexists to affect an individual’s social identity. These intersecting identities must be considered as a whole when we attempt to understand the experiences of those that are marginalized.
The Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) acknowledges the imperative for understanding intersectionality issues to prompt action and change within and outside of UCalgary community. Intersectional issues remain largely unappreciated, within our graduate education and at the broader campus level. To truly realize EDI so that no one is excluded from this discourse, it is important to closely understand the experiences of people who are placed at the intersection of multiple minority identities. As such, three different GSA committees (EDI, Gender and Sexuality Alliance, Mental Health and Wellness) are collaboratively organizing the inaugural Intersectionality Symposium funded by the Quality Money program in which panelists shared their professional and lived experiences through semi-structured interviews. This symposium will contribute to creating a more inclusive and safer environment for graduate students who are placed at divergent intersections. This event will also provide an opportunity for UCalgary graduate students to educate themselves to enable them to act towards making a change.
Attendees can add the symposium to their co-curricular trackers (must sign in on the day of).
Register Here
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Meeting ID: 965 9301 8624
Passcode: GSA2023
Tonya Callaghan is an Associate Professor with 
Erin Novakowski is a 21-year-old Calgary-based disability justice advocate, writer, and university student. They are a full-time power wheelchair user, service dog handler, and self proclaimed “professional oversharer." Erin creates online content made with her disabled audience in mind, in an effort to offer the disability representation she felt she lacked as a teenager and young adult.
Dr. Patrina Duhaney is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. Her research is informed by critical race theory and focuses on race, crime, victimization, and criminalization. Specifically, she examines domestic violence in Black communities, Black people’s experiences with the police and racialized people’s experiences in academia and the broader society. Dr. Duhaney has over 14 years of experience working with various racialized and marginalized populations, including women and children exposed to domestic violence, youth in conflict with the law, young parents and children, youth, and adults with multiple mental and physical and disabilities.
Bio to come
