Wednesday, February 16th
10:30 am – 12:00 pm: Keynote: From Colorblind to Color-Conscious
Via Zoom:
- https://ufl.zoom.us/j/99839230446?pwd=QldzMmZVbTNhUngyRXdNZUE3Qk9JUT09
- Meeting ID: 998 3923 0446
- Passcode: 953149
Cindu Thomas-George is the Founder and Principal Trainer of Shakti Diversity and Equity Training. As a DEI practitioner, she designs and facilitates professional development experiences that promote equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and intercultural competence. As a nationally recognized speaker, Cindu’s speaking engagements are focused on encouraging cross-racial allyship, disrupting anti-Asian hate, moving beyond color-blindness to color consciousness, disrupting anti-Blackness in communities of color, and creating inclusion for women of color in the workplace. Cindu is also an award-winning tenured professor of Communication Studies at the College of Lake County specializing in Intercultural Communication and Public Speaking. In her seventeen years of working as a diversity educator, she has developed a mastery of creating and facilitating impactful learning experiences that equip individuals with the knowledge and skills necessary to be advocates of diversity and agents of change who are empowered to work towards cultivating an inclusive, equitable, and anti-racist society. Cindu is also very committed to cultivating inclusivity and anti-racism within her own South Indian-American community and is a co-founder of Malayalees for Social Justice and the South Asian Solidarity Project.
This interactive workshop will encourage participants to move beyond the colorblind approach to race relationships and embrace a color-conscious approach that can help promote racial inclusion and equity. Participants of this workshop will engage in experiential activities that will allow them to reflect on their own ideologies and personal histories of race and will walk away with a framework to approach future conversations regarding race, racism, and racial equality in professional and personal contexts.
Audience – all faculty, staff, and students