UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State student group U-Belong, supported by the College of Liberal Arts Sustainability Council and Penn State Sustainability, will host Diandra Esparza, executive director of Intersectional Environmentalist, for a keynote talk on Wednesday, April 3, from 6:45 to 8:30 p.m. in 10 Sparks at the University Park campus.
Esparza will provide an overview of intersectional environmentalism, which recognizes that communities of color historically have been most impacted by environmental injustices and therefore need to be at the forefront of creating solutions and being involved in environmental decision-making, movements and educational systems.
“U-Belong sought a speaker who could address concerns at the forefront of students' minds — climate change and social justice, as well as their own place in this frenzied-pace world,” explained Alicia Drais-Parrillo, teaching professor of psychology, assistant director of diversity, equity, and inclusion for the department and adviser to U-Belong. “Today's undergraduates are more attuned to and aware of their physical and social worlds, yet they are also overwhelmed — sometimes pushed into anxiety — by the messaging from both the science community and media about the bleakness of the future. Intersectional Environmentalism, as a concept and an entity, provides a path to empowerment and hopefully toward a better future.”
In addition to serving as executive director and co-founder of Intersectional Environmentalist, Esparza is a published writer and poet and organizational development strategist. Her work seeks to help those working on sustainability to recognize culture as an expression of relationship to land and advocates for the accessibility of diverse stories in the environmental space. She is also a contributing author to "The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet."
“One of my favorite parts about psychology is that it is so all-encompassing it can be applied to anything to better understand where a problem may lie and what its solution may be,” explained Samantha Sibold, junior in psychology and president of U-Belong. “One of our main goals for bringing Diandra is to show how the concepts of psychology and Intersectional Environmentalism are interconnected. With the growing climate crisis, people in the field of psychology will have to be well-acquainted with the complex ways that people respond behaviorally, mentally and emotionally to our changing environment, and how people with intersecting identities are disproportionately affected by these problems.”
Jude Sullivan and Brianna Donaldson-Morton, graduate students in social psychology, will co-host the evening, which will also take an opportunity to recognize faculty/staff/students at Penn State who are doing social justice, intersectionality and/or sustainability work.
“I'm hoping that those who attend the event walk away inspired to explore intersectional environmentalism and the variety of ways it can be practiced,” explained Donaldson-Morton.
Besides her keynote, Esparza will spend April 3 and 4 meeting with various groups on the University Park campus, including the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, the Geography Department, Penn State Sustainability and the Student Farm. In addition, she will be talking to two psychology classes.
The keynote talk is free and open to all. Contact Samantha Sibold, sps6648@psu.edu, to learn more.