Three Diversity Advocacy Events Slated Post-Spring Break

Three programs that are part of the Dean of Students Diversity Initiative will presented on three consecutive days at Illinois State University.

Alumnus Drew Anastasia will speak on "Confessions of a Karaoke Junkie: How I Came to Narrate My Gender Transition by Losing My Voice" at 8 p.m. Monday, March 16, in Student Services Building room 375.  Admission is free and open to the public.  The event is co-sponsored by FLAME and MECCPAC.

Anastasia is a doctoral student and instructor in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  His talk will connect with discourses within the feminist, LGB and transgender communities through his research interests, which include philosophical investigations of the human voice, and transgender and queer studies.

At noon Tuesday, March 17, Jorge Chapa, director of the Center for Democracy in a Multiracial Society at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will speak about Latinos and the higher education pipeline.  His talk will be in Student Services Building room 375 and is free.  Chapa will talk about the opportunities and issues Latinos face in accessing higher education.

"Intersecting Beliefs: Christianity and Native American Religions" is the title of the 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 18, program in the Old Main Room of Bone Student Center.  Admission is free.  James Treat, associate professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Illinois, will give a lecture on native religious diversity in the contemporary period, especially the relationship between tribal and Christian traditions in reservation and urban communities.  Treat will address the broader theoretical and practical questions raised by the intersections of religion, culture, and politics in a diverse and conflicted world.