Embodying DEI: Trauma-informed and Mindfulness-based Approaches to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Higher Education

The past year has renewed higher education’s urgency to address historical racial violence. Yet the outpouring of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts we have seen over the course of the past year have often neglected the demands of people of color to oppose racism not only intellectually or semantically, but to address historical racialized trauma and oppose structural imbalances of power within universities. According to leading figures in the field of anti-racist organizing, trauma-informed, mindfulness-based, and contemplative practices are key to cultivating anti-oppressive environments and addressing historical and contemporary racialized trauma. This Think Tank will gather practitioners, scholars, and administrators in the field to create a trauma-informed, DEI curriculum and resource hub to implement embodied DEI work in higher education. Participants will include a diverse group of experts and university administrators in the fields of trauma-informed pedagogy, embodied social justice, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Black and Indigenous mindfulness, and decolonization.