Building Allyship Series
Initiated by the GPSA Diversity and International Students Committee, the Building Allyship Series is a collaboration of the Graduate and Professional Student Diversity Council and the Graduate School Office of Inclusion and Student Engagement (OISE).
This series provides an opportunity for members of the Cornell community to engage in productive dialogue focused on fostering a greater understanding of the many aspects of allyship and how we can better support one another through active, informed, and critical allyship.
Each event seeks to create a safe space for critical dialogue where we can bridge gaps in knowledge, learn from each other, and create understanding without fear of judgment.
View Understanding the Fundamentals of Allyship with Luca Maurer, founding Director of the Center for LGBT Education, Outreach, and Services at Ithaca College.
2020-21 Building Allyship Series
October 2020: The Dangers of Performative Allyship – Understanding Intent versus Impact
This session focused on developing an understanding of performative allyship and its dangerous impacts. The featured speaker and panelists provided insights on their experiences with performative allyship and share strategies for demonstrating critical allyship.
- Featured Speaker and Moderator: Chelsea Stephens, Ph.D. Student, Biomedical Engineering
- Panelist: Tiffany Agard, M.P.A. Student, Cornell Institute for Public Affairs
- Panelist: Elvisha Dhamala, Ph.D. Candidate, Neuroscience
- Panelist: Jesse Goldberg, Ph.D. ‘18, African American Literature, Visiting Research Fellow, Auburn University
- Panelist: Kelly Zamudio, Ph.D., Goldwin Smith Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Faculty Curator of Herpetology, Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates
View a recording of the October session.
November 2020: Combating Anti-Blackness: A Virtual “Fireside Chat” with Cornell Bouchet Scholars
November 12, 2020 | 12:00 to 1:30 pm ET
This session will focus on developing an understanding of Anti-Blackness and the many forms in which it can manifest. It will also center on sharing strategies on how those seeking to serve as allies can actively help combat Anti-Blackness.
- Moderator: Brianna Tate, Ph.D. Student, Animal Science; President of the Black Graduate & Professional Student Association
- Discussant: Danielle Fuentes Morgan, ‘16 Ph.D., Cornell Bouchet Scholar, Assistant Professor of English, Santa Clara University
- Discussant: Monet Roberts, ’17 M.S., ’19 Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, Cornell Bouchet Scholar, Postdoctoral Associate, Virginia Tech University
View a recording of the November session.
About the Discussants
Dr. Danielle Fuentes Morgan, ’14 M.A., ’16 Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of English and specializes in African American literature in the 20th and 21st centuries. She is interested in the ways that literature, popular culture, and humor shape identity formation. In particular, her research and teaching reflect her interests in African American satire and comedy, literature and the arts as activism, and the continuing influence of history on contemporary articulations of Black selfhood. Her writing has been published on Racialicious and Al Jazeera, in Post-Soul Satire: Black Identity after Civil Rights, Humanities, Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, Pre/Text: A Journal of Rhetorical Theory, and Journal of Science Fiction. Her writing is forthcoming in College Literature. She has served as the Frank Sinatra Faculty Fellow for the Center for the Arts and Humanities working with W. Kamau Bell (2017-2018) and Taye Diggs (2018-2019). Her book, Laughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century, is forthcoming Fall 2020 with University of Illinois Press as a part of the New Black Studies Series. Dr. Morgan received an M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from Cornell University where was a Bouchet Scholar, an M.A.T. in secondary English education from Duke University, and a B.A. in English and African American Studies (minor) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Monét Roberts, ’17 M.S., ’19, Ph.D., is from Newnan, Georgia and received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2014 where her interest in pursuing a Ph.D. stemmed from working as an undergraduate researcher in Dr. Manu Platt’s lab studying HIV-mediated CVD. Monét received her Ph.D. from the Nancy E. & Peter C. Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, with Dr. Matthew Paszek’s lab on the role of the cancer glycocalyx in microvesicle shedding in the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. During her Ph.D., she was recognized as a Graduate School Dean’s Scholar, received the Ford Foundation Pre-doctoral and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, and was inducted into the Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. As a postdoctoral research associate, she aims to understand and harness the tumor microenvironment to study and treat triple negative breast cancer and glioblastoma. Outside of lab, Monét enjoys cooking, video chatting with her younger sister (who is 16 years younger than her) to and help her with her homework, playing with her Yorkie, BJ, playing video games, hanging out with friends, and all things fashion and natural hair.February 2021: Coming Out for Allyship with the LGBTQ+ Community
February 24, 2021 | 12:00 to 1:30 pm ET
Register:http://bit.ly/BAlly-LGBTQ
This session will provide us with an opportunity to understand the experiences of LGBTQ+ community members as they navigate academic spaces that often do not validate their identities and what they bring to the table. We will discuss what it means to be an ally to members of this community and how to build more inclusive cultures in our labs, classrooms, departments, and more.
March 2021: Existing and Acting at the Crossroads: Understanding Intersectionality to be Better Allies
March 17, 2021 | 12:00 to 1:30 pm ET
Register: http://bit.ly/BAlly-Intersectionality
This session will focus on developing an understanding of intersectionality and how an intersectional lens can be used as a tool for advancing social justice.
Accommodations
We strive to make our events accessible to all community members. Individuals who would like to request accessibility accommodations should contact al546@cornell.edu. We ask that requests be made at least one week in advance to help ensure they can be met.