Conferences

Brief Networking Session

In this session, we will address the myriad ways that Black academics have been trained and disciplined into not trusting and often abandoning their authentic voice.  This seminar will help you recover your voice and use that voice and vision to transform your scholarship, your service to the public, and your broader relationship to the university.  Using Willie Jennings’ category of “After Whiteness,” you will learn theoretical and practical strategies to design and maintain a “soul-ful” and intentional scholarly journey.

Dr. Joseph Tucker Edmonds

The Underrepresented Professional and Graduate Student Organization (UPnGO) IUPUI serves to create an open community of diversity and equity through academic support, collaboration, events, and networks. UPnGO embraces and empowers underrepresented students to become top scholars, researchers, and professionals in the world. UPnGO has hosted the “Your Voice Matters: Engaging in Activism in Graduate and Professional School” sessions to promote candid conversation surrounding making an impact in our on- and off- campus communities. UPnGO recognizes the challenges students face from being minoritized and systemically marginalized and navigating graduate and professional school. Racial and ethnic demographics on campus often leave students feeling isolated and at a disadvantage from using their collective voice. This discussion hopes to revitalize students’ individual voices, identify their mission statements, reflect on roadblocks, and discuss how they can engage in a daily practice of activism.
Facilitated by

This session will highlight the benefits of lasting connections to communities beyond your interactions with them during research.

Graduate students will present their research within 5 minutes and receive peer feedback.

This session will discuss the importance and development of advisory and dissertation committees.

This session is a dare to tell AND listen to the stories of adults discussing ways they care for their social, emotional, and spiritual selves transitioning toxic environments while pursuing a doctorate. As testimonies are heard, others encourage or challenge us with restorative practices that support authoritative voice, knowledge, and experiences in the academy. The implications extend beyond supporting individual and collective growth to hopeful expectations of building relationships with other like-minded Black students.

This is a working strategy session that will help early doctoral students define research topics and crafting research questions that work.

Attendees will engage in a conversation on the process of turning academic research into a grant funded project. This will be a working session for doctoral students with interests to position their research toward community engaged projects.

This session will explore the process of locating an academic career as a Black applicant. Participants will receive pointers on identifying careers, organizational fit, identifying and combating imposter syndrome, and more.