UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — LEAADS@PSU, a network of women faculty committed to leading advocacy and action for a diverse leadership at Penn State, invites the University community to attend a two-day symposium, “Addressing Intersectionality to Transform Leadership at Penn State." The symposium will be held via Zoom, from 2 to 5 p.m. on Feb. 19 and 26.
Participants will engage in interdisciplinary dialogue to help build understanding of the effects of intersectionality on success and leadership in academia, with the goal of identifying pathways for transformational action and informing future initiatives.
All academic leaders, and faculty interested in academic leadership, who seek to broaden and deepen their understanding of intersectionality and its relationships to leadership within academia, are encouraged to attend.
Interested parties can register via this Zoom Meeting Registration form.
Symposium Overview
Intersectionality asks us to unveil the structures of privilege and power that maintain systems of discrimination and marginalization of minority groups, and to particularly examine how simple, one-dimensional categorization of discrimination and bias can hide these patterns.
By calling attention to the ways in which laws, policies, structures, and biases can focus on particular groups and ignore others, the concept of intersectionality is a call to action to identify how systemic barriers maintain systems of exclusion, marginalization or oppression.
Within academia, the interface among race, gender, economic class, sexuality and other categorizations is poorly examined yet continues to stifle calls for diversity, inclusion, and the advancement of historically marginalized groups.
Recent experiences with COVID-19 and anti-racist reckoning have concomitantly revealed and heightened some of these vulnerabilities. The symposium will pose these questions, and more:
- How do we address intersectionality while transforming institutional systems?
- How do we incorporate intersectionality into considerations of academic inclusion, advancement, and leadership?
About LEAADS@PSU
LEAADS@PSU is a network of women faculty committed to LEading Advocacy and Action for Diverse LeaderShip at Penn State. The network is exploring and acting on issues that impact willingness and preparedness of faculty to engage in leadership.