View the recording of "Beyond #BlackoutTuesday" on YouTube.

On June 2, 2020 many individuals and institutions posted a black square on social media with the #blackouttuesday as a statement protesting racism and police brutality. What steps, if any, followed this protest for racial equity? How can your workplace continue striving toward diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion?

This program offered by Cultural Connections presents a DEAI workshop that allows for discussion and concrete connections with panelists and participants. The goal of this program is to come away with tangible actions to enact in an effort to maintain the work of DEAI. These steps will push to foster a continual and long-term effort by institutions and individuals. Panelists will share five-minute flash talks, followed by break out groups and guided discussion. Each panelist will share their expertise and speak on projects that advanced their organizations' ability to respond to societal inequities.

Panelists:

Christine Lashaw (she/her)

Christine Lashaw has worked at the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) for 21 years, developing exhibits with community members. As a member of OMCA’s collaborative exhibit development team, she leads conversations and designs activities with diverse, local communities. She is committed to engaging museum visitors with exhibits built around voices and stories that reflect their own experiences. In 2017, Lashaw co-authored a chapter in the MASS Action (Museums as Sites for Social Action) Toolkit about sharing authority when creating content and experiences. She has a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design.

Christine Lashaw will talk about the MASS Action Accountability Campaign, which aims to hold our institutions accountable to the public statements made committing to racial justice.

Triana Patel (she/her)

Triana Patel is an arts and museum educator with a decade of experience focusing on informal arts education for youth and families in cultural institutions. She is a passionate advocate for youth development and opportunity within the arts, museums and alternative learning environments. Triana received her BA in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles and her MA in Museum Studies and MBA with a focus on Education and Interpretation from John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley. She wrote her master’s thesis on engaging teens in social justice through art and programming in museums. She is currently the Manager for Youth and Family Public Programs at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco where she also serves as a leader on the museum’s DEAI Taskforce.

Triana Patel will be discussing how racial equity and DEAI work can be at the core of museum teen programming.

Dr. Caroline Jean Fernald (she/her)

Caroline Jean Fernald serves as Executive Director of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.  She has previously worked as director of the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, New Mexico and in multiple museums focusing on Native American art and culture. She holds a PhD in Native American Art History from the University of Oklahoma and specializes in the history of collecting in anthropological museums.

Caroline Fernald will be discussing how institutional trauma can impact DEAI work.

Dr. Desiré Whitmore (she/her)

A Blaxican American and Southern California native, Dr. Desiré Whitmore, aka “Laserchick”, began her education in Community College and holds degrees in Physical Sciences, Chemical Engineering, and Chemical and Material Physics. Her PhD and Postdoctoral research focus was in the development of very fast laser systems to study single molecules vibrating, electrons travelling across the surface of metals, and the fluorescence of semiconducting Quantum Dots. After her postdoc, Desiré has held positions as a science curriculum specialist with Amplify Science, a professor of Laser and Photonics Technology at Irvine Valley College, and is now the Senior Physics Educator in the Teacher Institute at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Her current work is focused on providing support and professional development to middle and high school science teachers to help them teach through inquiry. She is also a founding board member and Mentorship Advisor of the Council for the Advancement of Black Engineers, a non-profit organization whose mission is to increase the number of culturally responsible Black Engineers with PhD’s, post-doctoral training and professional engineering registrations.

Links: 

Website: tinyurl.com/laserchick

Twitter: @DarthScience

Instagram: @dr.laserchick

LinkedIn: @desirewhitmore

Desiré Whitmore, Senior Physics Educator at the Exploratorium, will be sharing about her work as part of the Teacher Institute and the staff Union DEIA committee.