Board members Stephanie Sparling Williams and Kaily Heitz represented Mixed Roots Stories at the UC Berkeley Mixed Student Union’s (MSU) annual fall conference, Saturday, November 21, 2015. This year’s theme focused on our use of language around mixed race identity.
MSU members, Laila and Biatris, greet attendees outside the Berkeley YWCA.
Stephanie was invited to present a workshop on mixed media and representation of mixed race artists. A number of other mixed race scholars, many of whom presented at CMRS ‘14, were also invited to present panels and keynote presentations, including Marc Johnston Guerrero, who discussed the concept of monoracism for the morning plenary. Present at the conference were approximately 50-60 attendees, mostly students from other mixed student organizations; there were large contingents from UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz and UC Los Angeles.
Mixed Roots board member, Stephanie Sparling-Williams, presents her workshop on mixed media.
In the afternoon, Kaily presented a keynote workshop, Both, All, And: Creating Communities to Support Mixed Student Organizing. Breakout sessions were designed to help students refine the purpose of their clubs and to understand how the language one uses in a mission statement is important to communicating a club’s goals to other, key partner departments, organizations, and regional networks. Attendees were also provided with toolkits and ideas for maintaining the integrity of a club across graduating classes.
Mixed Roots board member, Kaily Heitz, presents keynote workshop in the afternoon, about sustaining mixed race student communities.
We had a great time presenting at Berkeley and found the conference to be a great source of inspiration; we can’t wait to continue the discussions we began with MSU and other student union representatives!
For more information about the UCB MSU, contact mixedstudentunion@gmail.com