Honoring 50 Years of Student Organizing and Healing for WWU Ethnic Studies

VU 565 A/B/C,Bellingham WA 98225

19 May, 2022

Description

Honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Ethnic Student Occupation: Healing to Organize, Organizing to Heal with Dr. Farima Pour-Khorshid On Monday, May 15, 1972, Ethnic Studies (ES) students, faculty and staff began a three-day occupation of WWU's Old Main building. ES students and faculty successfully organized the takeover to urge the university president and board of trustees to honor WWU's commitment to staffing the growing College of Ethnic Studies. Over the course of 50 years – but especially after the elimination of the College of Ethnic Studies – many students groups organized for the college's reinstatement and support of BIPOC students, faculty and staff. This week's events honor over 5 decades of Ethnic Studies students, faculty and staff organizing, as well as the health and well-being of Ethnic Studies students now and into the future. Healing to Organize, Organizing to Heal with Dr. Farima Pour-Khorshid Tuesday, May 17th 3-5 (Individual)Wednesday, May 18th 11-3*, Gallery Retrospective, Know History, Know Self: Lessons from the WWU’s College of Ethnic Studies, including guest speaker, Bernie Thomas, Director of Lummi Nation School.Thursday, May 19th 3-5 (Interpersonal)Friday, May 20th 12-2 (Institutional)Participants are encouraged to attend all three workshops. All are welcome. Refreshments provided and a raffle for prizes. Dr. Pour-Khorshid centers healing within her grass roots community organizing. Building on collaborative and collective work with the Education for Liberation Network & Critical Resistance Editorial Collective, Dr. Pour-Khorshid will be engaging attendees in individual, interpersonal and institutional Lessons in Liberation: An Abolitionist Toolkit for Educators (2021). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *Title: Know History, Know Self: Lessons from the WWU’s College of Ethnic Studies Date: Wednesday, May 18, 2022 Time: 11am to 3pm Location: Miller Hall Collaborative Space with refreshments and raffle Since the elimination of the College of Ethnic Studies at Western Washington University in 1976, the call to reestablish Ethnic Studies on campus has been a consistent demand of student activists and concerned faculty and staff. With this history in mind, the Ethnic Studies Faculty Collective (ESFC) is organizing an event on Wednesday May 18, 2022, “Know History, Know Self”: Lessons from WWU’s College of Ethnic Studies,” which will allow our campus community to learn about the history of College of Ethnic Studies. During the event we will showcase 23 images from the College of Ethnic Studies archives that are organized around two themes: (1) struggles over resources and (2) transformative curriculum and community programs. We also have the pleasure of hosting a guest speaker during our event (11:45am to 12:45pm), a former College of Ethnic Studies student, Native American Student Union (NASU) Alumni, and current Lummi Nation Educational Director, Bernie Thomas. We hope you can join us as we honor the history of student struggles for Ethnic Studies and envision together what Ethnic Studies could look like at Western.