MARCH 2023
Honoring the Life and Legacy of Dr. Autherine Lucy Foster
Wednesday, March 1 | Noon-1 p.m. | Intercultural Diversity Center, 2100 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement)
*Open to UA students, faculty and staff and UA System employees
The Intercultural Diversity Center honors the life and legacy of Dr. Autherine Lucy Foster offering an interactive program that focuses on her historical contributions. Participants will be offered virtual presentations and conversation starters and have an opportunity to share how Dr. Foster’s work has impacted their lives. Refreshments will be provided. For more information, contact the Intercultural Diversity Center at ua_idc@ua.edu.
Discerning Diverse Voices
Wednesday, March 1
The College of Communication and Information Sciences is hosting its 14th annual Discerning Diverse Voices Symposium with the theme “Under Observation: The Conditions of ‘Being Seen.”’ The symposium, which presents student and faculty creative and scholarly work that is related broadly to diversity topics in communication and information studies, is free and available in a hybrid format. View a PDF of the program.
Keynote speaker for the event is Dr. Melissa Villa-Nicholas from the University of Rhode Island. Her topic is “Data Borders: How Silicon Valley is Building an Industry to ‘Know’ Immigrants.” This lecture investigates the emerging state of borderland technology that brings all people into an intimate place of surveillance where data resides and defines inclusion and exclusion to citizenship. Detailing the new trend of biologically mapping undocumented people through biotechnologies, Villa-Nicholas shows how Latinx immigrants are the focus and driving force for surveillance and technology design by Silicon Valley’s emerging industry within defense technology manufacturing. A murky network is revealed that gathers data on marginalized communities for purposes of exploitation and control that implicates law enforcement, border patrol, and ICE, but that also pulls in public workers and the public, often without their knowledge or consent. Enriched by interviews of Latinx immigrants living in the borderlands on their daily use of technology, and their caution around surveillance, this work argues that to move beyond a heavily surveilled state that dehumanizes both immigrants and citizens, we must understand how the data is being collected, aggregated, and correlated with artificial intelligence, and push for immigrant and citizen privacy information rights along the border and throughout the United States.
Multicultural Coffee Hour
Friday, March 3, 24, 31 | 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. | Intercultural Diversity Center, 2100 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement/Social Enrichment)
*Open to UA students, faculty and staff and UA System employees
International Student and Scholar Services and the Intercultural Diversity Center will host weekly coffee hours for students, faculty and staff to enjoy free coffee, tea, snacks and conversation with others from around the world. For more information, contact International Student and Scholar Services’ Sonya Harwood-Johnson at sonya.harwood@ua.edu.
Michael C. Thorpe: Nonsensical Formalism
March 3-April 28 | Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; First Friday, noon-8 p.m. | Paul R. Jones Museum, 2308 Sixth St., Tuscaloosa
Artist’s Reception: April 7 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Brooklyn, New York-based textile artist Michael C. Thorpe creates art quilts and fabric collages of bright, dreamlike scenes and highly personal “meandering thoughts,” as one of his early solo shows was titled. For Thorpe, the quilt has become a canvas for dreaming up alternate pasts and exploring potential futures. The young artist sold all 18 pieces at his first solo exhibition in 2020. Daniel White, director of the Paul R. Jones Museum, who organized the exhibition, said, “Working from a deeply personal narrative, Thorpe brings a fresh voice to an age-old tradition, and he is breaking new ground visually with the medium. As the Gee’s Bend Quilters took their work to the Whitney Museum in 2003 and elevated quilts beyond their craft identity, a new generation of textile artist brings his work back to the Alabama Black Belt. Thorpe’s work brings the Southern quilt tradition full circle as we celebrate how that tradition inspires contemporary artists working today.” Thorpe is represented by LaiSun Keane Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts. Nonsensical Formalism has been made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Rainbow Connection
Friday, March 3, 10, 24, 31 | 2 p.m.-3 p.m. | Safe Zone Resource Center Lounge, 2418 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement/Social Enrichment)
*Open to UA students
The Safe Zone Resource Center hosts Rainbow Connection, its weekly support and dialogue group for LGBTQIA+ identified students and their allies. This group provides an opportunity to form supportive friendships with other group members, learn resilience skills and strategies for self-care, and set personal goals. For more information, contact the Safe Zone Resource Center at safezone@ua.edu.
Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration
Monday, March 6 | 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. | 356 Russell Hall
Over half a million people are released from prison each year. They join 20 million Americans who live with a felony record. They return to a new world, where over 44,000 laws and policies dictate where they may go, with whom they may live and how they spend their time. This is mass incarceration in America, where 40 percent of the people who are locked away are Black, 84 percent are poor, and half have no income at all. The United States is not alone. Scholars have warned us about mass supervision—the formal and informal sanctions that target people labeled criminal for years after their release. Professor Reuben Jonathan Miller, associate professor at the University of Chicago, was confronted by these brute facts as a chaplain at the Cook County Jail in Chicago during the height of mass incarceration, as the son and brother of formerly incarcerated men and as a sociologist studying mass incarceration’s afterlife. Miller, a writer, sociologist, criminologist and social worker, has spent a career walking alongside people we’ve learned to be afraid of and the families who suffer with them. His work reveals a simple, if overlooked, truth: mass incarceration has an afterlife, and that afterlife is its own form of prison. It has changed the social life of the city and altered the contours of democracy one (almost always) poor black family at a time. This is event is sponsored by the School of Social Work.
Cinnamon Rolls Not Gender Roles
Tuesday, March 7, 21, 28 | 1 p.m. | Safe Zone Lounge, 2418 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement/Social Enrichment)
*Open to UA students
The Safe Zone Resource Center hosts its weekly Cinnamon Rolls Not Gender Roles program for individuals of all identities to come together, eat pastries and discuss topics concerning gender identity in our current culture and climate. For more information, contact the Safe Zone Resource Center at safezone@ua.edu.
Diversity, Coffee and Conversations
Tuesday, March 7 | 8:30 a.m.-10 a.m. | Intercultural Diversity Center, 2100 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement/Social Enrichment)
*Open to UA students, faculty, staff and UA System employees
The topic for this month’s Diversity, Coffee and Conversations is Women’s History Month. In honor of this year’s theme, “Celebrating Women Who Can Tell Our Stories,” Dr. Jackie Northrup, director of operations and programs for the UA Women and Gender Resource Center, will discuss the ways in which individuals can support the rights of women from different races, ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and sexual orientations. Attendees will learn about the societal and cultural impact of the experiences of women of the present and past and ways to offer support to women of different cultural backgrounds. For more information, contact the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at ua_idc@ua.edu.
Study Abroad Pop-Up Advising
Tuesday, March 7 and March 21 | 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. | Intercultural Diversity Center, 2100 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement)
*Open to UA students
Capstone International Center hosts weekly information sessions on studying abroad. These information sessions provide advising about the overall process and timeline for studying abroad, dispelling myths about Education Abroad, and program searching. For more information, contact the Study Abroad office at studyabroad@ua.edu.
Ally Training Program
Tuesday, March 7 | 3 p.m.-5 p.m. | Zoom
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement)
*Open to UA dtudents, gaculty, dtaff and UA system employees
The UA Safe Zone Ally Training Program provides a visible network of allies for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) individuals. Safe Zone Allies distribute information regarding sexuality, gender identity, campus and community resources, and methods for reporting harassment and/or discrimination. The Safe Zone Ally Training Program is a two-hour training session that allows participants to: develop a working knowledge of appropriate and respectful LGBTQIA+ terminology; recognize the impact that campus climate has on individuals who identify as LGBTQIA+; and identify areas of personal growth as a member of the UA community. Following the training program, participants are invited to sign up to serve as UA Safe Zone Allies. Registration is required. For more information, contact the Safe Zone Resource Center at 205-348-7297 or safezone@ua.edu.
International Women’s Day Lunch & Learn
Wednesday, March 8 | Noon-1 p.m. | 3700 Student Center (Forum)
This lunch and learn, hosted by the Women and Gender Resource Center and Capstone International, will feature a panel of international students discussing their experiences as women. Lunch will be provided.
Tuscaloosa Takes on the World: History, Memory and Catastrophe
Wednesday, March 8 | 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. | Camellia Room, Gorgas Library
Continuing the ongoing discussion on History, Memory and Catastrophe and their commemoration, the group will watch “Karl Marx City” (2016), a documentary that explores nostalgia for lost pasts/homelands across generations: in this case, among adults who grew up in East Germany prior to German reunification in 1991. “Twenty-five years after the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, filmmaker Petra Epperlein returns to the proletarian Oz of her childhood to find the truth about her late father’s suicide and his rumored Stasi past. Had he been an informant for the secret police? Was her childhood an elaborate fiction? As she looks for answers in the Stasi’s extensive archives, she pulls back the curtain of her own nostalgia and enters the parallel world of the security state, seeing her former life through the lens of the oppressor.” This film replaces the previously advertised “Stolpersteine.” Pizza and soft drinks will be available via the UA Department of Political Science. For more information, email ttw@ua.edu. To join the mailing list for these events, email ttw@listserv.ua.edu.
TEDTalk Tuesday: ‘Women in Media’
Tuesday, March 21 | Noon-1 p.m. | Intercultural Diversity Center, 2100 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement)
*Open to UA students, faculty, staff and UA System employees
In support of the Women’s History Month theme “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories,” The Intercultural Diversity Center continues its TEDTalk Tuesday series by featuring Megan Kamerick. In this talk, participants will hear Kamerick’s perspective of how the news media underrepresents women as reporters and news sources, and because of that tells a bias story. For more information, contact the Intercultural Diversity Center at ua_idc@ua.edu.
Lavender Bingo: Bystander Intervention
Tuesday, March 21 | 6 p.m.-8 p.m. | 3115 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement/Social Enrichment)
*Open to UA students
The Safe Zone Resource Center will partner with the Women and Gender Resource Center as part of a multi-part sex education program. Participants will be provided education on bystander intervention. Participants will have the opportunity to play Bingo for prizes as an incentive for attending this event, and refreshments will be provided.
Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories: A Women’s History Month Read-In
Tuesday, March 21 | 6 p.m.-7 p.m. | Camellia Room, Gorgas Library
The Women and Gender Resource Center hosts this event where readers will perform poetry and monologues and read literature from women speakers and storytellers. Sign up to read.
Saying Yes to Saying No: Boundaries in the Workplace
Wednesday, March 22 | 4 p.m.-5 p.m. | 2408 Student Center
This event is a panel discussion with community and university members about the importance and challenges of women asserting themselves in the workplace. It is sponsored by the Women and Gender Resource Center and Manderson Women in Business.
Coffee & Mental Health
Wednesday, March 22 | 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. | Intercultural Diversity Center, 2100 Student Center
(Educational Engagement/Social Enrichment)
*Open to UA students, faculty and staff and UA System employees
The Intercultural Diversity Center and UA Counseling Center host Coffee and Mental Health where participants have an opportunity to speak with therapists in a one-on-one setting. The program provides an environment for participants to ask questions, get to know UA therapists and learn about counseling as a student resource. In addition, the program will offer a space to learn about the many mental wellbeing resources at the counseling center and ways to connect with the counseling center. Coffee and Mental Health occurs every third Wednesday of the month. For more information, contact the Intercultural Diversity Center at ua_idc@ua.edu.
EveryStudent Book Club
Wednesday, March 22 | 1 p.m.-2 p.m. | HRC Office, Tutwiler Hall
This month’s book for discussion is “March” by Geraldine Brooks. EveryStudent Book Club is open to UA undergraduate students. The group meets monthly to discuss books written by women. Book themes often correspond to cultural heritage or awareness months. The WGRC’s Frances S. Summersell library has copies of each of these books available for checkout. No RSVP is needed, but questions can be directed to Elizabeth Lester, program coordinator.
EveryWoman Book Club
Thursday, March 23 | Noon-1 p.m. | Legend’s Bistro inside Hotel Capstone
This month’s featured book is “March,” a historical novel and love story by Geraldine Brooks. Set during the American Civil War, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book retells Louisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women” from the point of view of the husband and father of Alcott’s protagonists and details his life as a chaplain in the Union army.
EveryWoman Book Club is open to faculty, staff, community members and graduate students. Join the book club by emailing Elizabeth Lester at elester1@ua.edu.
Women’s History Month Keynote: Tina Tchen
Thursday, March 23 | 6 p.m. | Zoom | View a video of the presentation.
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement)
*Open to UA students, faculty and staff and UA System employees
In support of Women’s History Month, The University of Alabama Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in partnership with The University of Alabama at Birmingham Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and The University of Alabama in Huntsville Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will host Tina Tchen, an attorney, activist, and lifelong advocate for women and girls. She served in the Obama White House through both terms, and was an assistant to President Barack Obama, chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, and executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls. In honor of this year’s theme of “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories,” Tchen, now executive vice president and chief strategy and impact officer for the Obama Foundation, will share her personal stories and experiences. In 2017, she helped design and launch the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund, which is now housed at the National Women’s Law Center and has connected thousands of people with legal or PR support for sexual harassment across dozens of industries. From 2019-2021, Tchen also served as president and CEO of TIME’S UP Now and the TIME’S UP Foundation, as the organization worked to build safe, fair and dignified workplaces, and launched the TIME’S UP Care Economy Business Council. Participants also will have an opportunity to gain resources concerning allyship. Register to attend this virtual keynote. For more information, contact the Intercultural Diversity Center at ua_idc@ua.edu.
Women in Business Conference
Friday, March 24 | Noon-6 p.m. | Fitzpatrick Auditorium, Hewson Hall
The Culverhouse College of Business Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Women in Business Conference will feature women, including many UA alumnae, with positions in academia, corporations, the NFL, as well as entrepreneurial ventures. The conference will be followed by the alumni recognition dinner in the Hewson Atrium at 6:30 p.m. This year’s honorees are Tracy Croom and Kathy Loveless. Croom is a former city clerk for the City of Tuscaloosa and currently the director of procurement and purchasing for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Loveless has held various positions at The Coca-Cola Company over the last three decades, currently serving as vice president and controller. Purchase tickets. Access the student fee waiver form.
The Africa Ball 2023
Saturday, March 25 | 5 p.m.-9 p.m. (red carpet opens at 4 p.m.) | First Baptist Church, 721 Greensboro Ave., Tuscaloosa
The African Students Association will present The Africa Ball 2023: Nostalgia. The event showcases the rich and diverse cultures of the African continent through cuisines and a rich tapestry of music, dance and arts. The UA African Students Association seeks to foster fraternal relationships through friendly and mutual support among African students; better relationships and understanding among fellow African students; promote greater understanding of African traditions; foster unity among students regardless of race, ethnicity or religious orientation; encourage and support student involvement on the UA campus; welcome and embrace all incoming African students and students interested in African affairs; and last but not the least, to work closely with other organizations, staff and faculty to promote scholarship, fellowship and service through diversity and internationalism. Read more about the event. Purchase tickets for the event.
TEDTalk Tuesday: ‘A Seat at the Table Isn’t the Solution for Gender Equity’
Tuesday, March 28 | Noon-1 p.m. | Intercultural Diversity Center, 2100 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement)
*Open to UA students, faculty, staff and UA System employees
The Intercultural Diversity Center continues its TEDTalk Tuesday series by featuring Lilly Singh, creator, actress and author. Singh believes we need to build a better table. In this discussion, participants walk along with Singh as she traces the arc of her career from up-and-coming YouTuber to making history as a late-night talk show host, offers four ways to build a more inclusive society where girls are encouraged, and empowers women to do great things. For more information, contact the Intercultural Diversity Center at ua_idc@ua.edu.
LUNAFEST Film Festival
Tuesday, March 28 | 6 p.m.-8 p.m. | Student Center theater
LUNAFEST is a traveling film festival consisting of independent short films. The Women and Gender Resource Center hosts this event annually to raise funds for WGRC scholarships as well as to support Chicken and Egg Pictures, an organization that provides resources and funding to women who create films for the festival. View this year’s lineup of films.
Lunch and Learn: Romantic Friendships Among College Women in the Early 20th Century
Wednesday, March 29 | Noon-1 p.m. | 2408 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement)
*Open to faculty, students and staff
In support of Women’s History Month, the Safe Zone Resource Center will host a lecture about the existence and historical discussion surrounding romantic friendships between college women in the early 20th century. Participants will learn about the history of queer relationships between women and the political and social contexts surrounding them. A catered lunch will be provided. For more information, contact the Safe Zone Resource Center at safezone@ua.edu.
Pop Up Shop: Women’s History Month
Wednesday, March 29 | 1 p.m.-2 p.m. | Intercultural Diversity Center, 2100 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement/Social Enrichment)
*Open to UA students, faculty and staff and UA System employees
The Intercultural Diversity Center continues off its Pop-Up Shop series focusing on Women’s History Month and its theme of “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories.” Women’s History Month is a celebration of women’s contributions to history, culture and society and has been observed annually in the month of March in the United States since 1987. Participants will have the opportunity to recognize women, past and present, who have been active in all forms of media and storytelling including print, radio, TV, stage, screen, blogs, podcasts, news, and social media, through visual presentations and educational resources. Lunch will be provided. For more information, contact the Intercultural Diversity Center at ua_idc@ua.edu.
Feminist Wikipedia Edit-a-thon
Wednesday, March 29 | 4 p.m.-8 p.m. | 1005 Gorgas Library
The Women and Gender Resource Center and University Libraries invites people to help update Wikipedia pages to reflect the histories of Alabama women. Training will be provided, and no experience is required.
Pay Equity Week AAUW Start Smart
Wednesday, March 29 | 2 p.m.-4 p.m. | G10 Doster Hall
AAUW Start Smart is a salary negotiation workshop for college women. It is designed to empower them with the skills and confidence they need to successfully negotiate salary and benefits packages. The event is sponsored by the UA College of Human Environmental Sciences Committee on Diversity and Inclusivity and the UA Women and Gender Resource Center. For more information call 205-348-5040 or email elester1@ua.edu.
Transgender Day of Visibility
Friday, March 31 | 3 p.m.-4 p.m. | Safe Zone Student Lounge, 2418 Student Center
(Cultural Exploration/Educational Engagement)
*Open to UA students, faculty, staff and UA System employees
In support of Transgender Day of Visibility, the Safe Zone Resource Center will have Trans-inclusive resources and information available in the Student Lounge. Trans and Nonbinary pride flags and buttons will be available for participants in the Center while supplies last. That afternoon, students will be encouraged to meet representatives from The Knights and Orchids Society to learn about hormone replacement therapy resources and discuss strategies for pursuing gender affirming care in Alabama.