The #GetWoke series is focused on bringing national issues/conversations/debates home and contextualizes them in an interactive setting so members of the campus community are educated on, and can engage with, pressing social justice issues. As an office that is committed to recognizing and valuing marginalized approaches to knowledge production and dissemination, the #GetWoke series is our way of bringing the liberal arts into practice.
Fall/Spring 19’-20’ - Climate Justice
The Fall and Spring #GetWoke series highlights current pressing issues surrounding the work of environmental justice and how students can engage in this work to promote equitable global practices. Climate justice is a term used for framing environmental justice as an ethical and political issue. This work is crucial for recognizing that those least responsible for climate change often suffer the worst consequences. Climate change and climate justice, in general, are an equity and human rights issue that must be immediately examined. This year #GetWoke will bring speakers, activists, and artists to speak on the importance of this work, how they use their skills and passions to impact change, and how students can use utilize their interests and assets to promote climate justice.
Previous Series
Since the election of the 45th President, the United States has seen a rise in the number of protests and organized forms of resistance to the current administration. Yet, protesting and organizing are not new. In the United States organizing and activism have been central to the expansion and demand of rights for marginalized populations - from the abolitionist movement in the 1800s to various women’s rights movement to the Civil Rights Movement and the Red and Black Power Movements of the 1960s-70s to Black Lives Matter and #NoDAPL in the present day, organizing and activism lie at the heart of what it means to sit at the margins of society. With the rise of various protests and marches since 2012, and in particular since the 2016 Presidential election, the question of what it means to protest and organize in the current administration is pressing and one The Office of Academic Diversity and Inclusiveness’ #GetWoke series will focus on for the ’17-’18 school year.
Our Spring 2017 #GetWoke series starts with a showing of AvaDuVernay’s groundbreaking documentary 13th. We will then spend the semester pulling the documentary apart, examining the ways state violence is enacted upon marginalized populations outside of policebrutality. Each session will be a panel discussion where we bring local and national experts together in an interactive format to discuss the various themes emerging from the documentary, and adding to areas that were left out. We start by showing the documentary 13th and the move into our first panel that examines the school to prison pipeline. From there we move into a discussion of #SayHerName and state violence against women and children. Next we focus on trans lives and state violence and then finish with a conversation on reproductive social justice.
Fall 2016 saw us engaging in two major issues - protesting and voting. Two #GetWoke sessions invited the campus to discuss ColinKaepernick and the place of protesting in athletics and then why voting is a complicated action.
Spring 2016 saw the start of the #GetWoke series. This semester we developed sessions that focused on pressing national social issues - the Flint water crisis, the primary elections in Wisconsin, and tackling Islamaphobia. The following pages give more details on each of these events.