Spring 2021
Tuesday, February 2
Workshop: 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM CST
Dialogue: 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM CST
Registration form – Registration required to receive Zoom link.
Pride Camp is an event focused on community learning and building for LGBTQIA+ persons and their allies. Registration is required, but all students, faculty, staff, and community members are welcome to attend. You do not have to have attended any previous Pride Camps to participate.
This Spring 2021 Pride Camp will feature both a workshop and a dialogue event with professor, national speaker, freelance journalist, thought leader and media critic Dr. Jonathan P. Higgins (DoctorJonPaul).
Named Business Equality Magazine’s “Top 40 LGBTQ People Under 40”, DoctorJonPaul’s work has been featured on sites like NBC News, Vox, VICE, MTV News, Essence, Out Magazine, TedX and more. They have worked on several inclusion projects with top brands like Apple, Disney, Instagram and the NFL and currently teach about diversity and inclusion at the University of Redlands. They hold a doctorate in educational justice and often write and lecture about what liberation means for queer Black people and how we can help them not just survive, but thrive.
Zoom information will be emailed to participants closer to the day of the events. Participants are welcome to attend either one or both events.
For more information, including disability accommodations, please contact Cadence Pentheny at the Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement at cadence@olemiss.edu.
Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement
SarahTalk: Delta Chimera: Mary Cordelia Montgomery Booze
Thursday, February 18
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM CST
Dr. Shennette Garrett-Scott, associate professor of History and African American Studies, will discuss the life and impact of Mary Cordelia Montgomery Booze in our first Sarahtalk of the semester.
About Mary Cordelia Montgomery Booze:
Born Mary Montgomery in March 1878 to parents who had been enslaved when young, she grew up in the Mississippi Delta. Her father, Isaiah T. Montgomery (1847-1924), was a cotton producer politically allied with the famous Republican educator Booker T. Washington. In 1887, the Montgomerys moved to Bolivar County south of Clarksdale in the rich delta country of northwestern Mississippi. There Montgomery founded an all-black agricultural community, Mound Bayou, located along the Mississippi River. Mary was educated locally before going to New Orleans, Louisiana, where she studied for two years at the historically black Straight University. She returned to Mound Bayou and worked as a bookkeeper in the family business. She also taught at the teacher-training Mound Bayou Normal Institute.
Despite state restrictions that effectively disenfranchised most blacks, Booze joined the Republican Party. Beginning in 1924, she served as a committeewoman from Mississippi to the Republican National Committee, the first African-American woman to hold that position.
Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies
Wednesday, February 24
5:00 PM – 7:30 PM CST
Registration form – Registration required to receive Zoom link.
Allies Training is a Diversity Education Workshop that aims to encourage foundational understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity. Participants will be introduced to past and current issues and concerns that impact LGBTQIA+ individuals, as well as models on being effective and informed allies to the LGBTQIA+ community. All students, faculty, and staff are welcome to register and attend.
Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement
SarahTalk: Women Chairs of the College of Liberal Arts
Thursday, March 4
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM CST
Join us for a roundtable discussion with women chairs in the College of Liberal Arts as they discuss their own experiences and challenges. Those schedule to participate are:
- Nancy Maria Balach – Music
- Kirsten Dellinger – Sociology/College of Liberal Arts
- Katie McKee – Center for the Study of Southern Culture
- Molly Pasco-Pranger – Classics
- Rebekah Smith – Psychology
- Caroline Wigginton – English
- Noell Wilson – History
- Ethel Young-Scurlock – African American Studies
- Jaime Harker – Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies (moderator)
Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies
Women’s Empowerment Month – Virtual Writing Workshop with Alysia Harris
Thursday, March 11
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
As part of her virtual visit to UM for Women’s Empowerment Month 2021, poet and teaching-artist Alysia Harris will lead a writing workshop on Thursday, March 11, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM CST.
The workshop is free, and open to all UM undergraduate, graduate, and professional students – no previous creative writing experience needed.
Registration form – Registration required to receive Zoom link
Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement
Women’s Empowerment Keynote Address featuring Alysia Harris
Thursday, March 11
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
The 2021 Women’s Empowerment Keynote will feature poet, performer, linguist, and teaching-artist Alysia Harris for a virtual performance and Q&A.
Registration form – Registration required to receive Zoom link
Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement
SarahTalk: Perverting the Archives: Sex, Shame, and Intimacy in the Dorothy Allison Papers
Thursday, April 1
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM CST
Join Sarah Heying, Ph.D. Candidate in English, as she discusses the importance of confronting the entanglement of shame and intimacy as a queer research practice, using Dorothy Allison’s papers as a case study.
Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies
Winter 2021
Tuesday, January 12
1:00 PM – 3:30 PM CST
Registration form – Registration required to receive Zoom link.
Allies Training is a Diversity Education Workshop that aims to encourage foundational understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity. Participants will be introduced to past and current issues and concerns that impact LGBTQIA+ individuals, as well as models on being effective and informed allies to the LGBTQIA+ community. All students, faculty, and staff are welcome to register and attend.
Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement
Fall 2020
Pride Camp
Saturday, September 26
11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Registration form – Registration required to receive Zoom link.
Pride Camp is an event designed to provide community-building opportunities and exposure to campus resources to students who are members of and allies to the LGBTQIA+ community. Pride Camp is a place to meet like-minded people and form friendships to last a lifetime! All undergraduate, graduate, and professional students are invited to attend.
Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement
Sarahfest Presents: Jordan Occasionally
Saturday, October 3
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Join the Sarah Isom Center for Women & Gender Studies, the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council, and the Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement for Memphis singer Jordan Occasionally’s Sarahfest concert and Q&A.
Jordan Occasionally, or JD, (pronouns she/they) is a non-binary, bisexual, black neo-soul and R&B artist from Memphis, TN. JD is not just a performer, but a student majoring in Music Business with a minor in African American Studies, and a community organizer in Memphis, TN. Jordan Occasionally gained critical acclaim after their independent EP release entitled, “1998”. This five song EP is composed of themes strongly rooted in their identity, growing up in the south of the United States. JD’s creative intent stems from a space of empathy and understanding for poor black, lgbqtia+, women and non-binary folks, with hopes of bringing awareness and justice for all people, recognizing that historically it is past due. With JD’s ability to put into words direct action, then taking that spirit to the streets of her city, she hopes to inspire all people that their voices and experiences matter.
LGBTQ+ History Month Keynote: Invisible Histories Project
Thursday, October 8
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Registration form – Registration required to receive Zoom link.
The Invisible Histories Project seeks to support the collection, preservation, future research, and accessibility of living LGBTQ+ history in the Southeastern United States. Join us for this year’s LGBTQ+ History Month Keynote to hear from Dr. Jaime Harker, Dr. Amy McDowell, Dr. Eva Payne, and Danielle Buckingham, the team of IHP researchers for Mississippi based here at UM.
Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement and Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies
National Coming Out Day & LGBTQIA+ Identity Celebration
Friday, October 9
Story/Photo Submission Form Link
In celebration of LGBTQ+ History Month in October as well National Coming Out Day (annually recognized on October 11), The Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement would like to share stories and/or photos of LGBTQIA+ members of our campus and surrounding community. This submission form will be open Monday, September 28 until Tuesday, October 6.
Within this celebration, we also want to acknowledge the problematic elements of the concept of “coming out”. Some examples of this include:
- Seeing coming out as “required” is very “othering” for queer people – straight and cisgender folks don’t have to “come out” as such.
- Coming out is not safe for everyone to do. It should never be or feel forced.
- Coming out is almost never a big, one time, event – most queer folx have to come out many times throughout their lives.
- The idea that someone needs to come out could imply that their queer identity does need to be kept secret until a specific time.
Any and every LGBTQIA+ member of our community (students, faculty, staff, citizens of Oxford or LOU county, UM alumni, etc.) is welcome to submit. If you would like to share but do not feel safe or comfortable doing so, there will be place to mark that you would like your submission to be anonymous.
The final products, in text and graphic format, will be shared on the CICCE social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all @uminclusion) on Friday, October 9.
With any questions, needs, or concerns, please feel free to reach out to Cadence Pentheny, Coordinator for LGBTQ+ Programming & Initiatives, at cadence@olemiss.edu.
Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement
Sarahfest Screening: “All We’ve Got” and Q&A with Director Alexis Clements
Thursday, October 15
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Available on Facebook Live via Sarahfest
“All We’ve Got is a beautiful rumination on community, resilience, and resistance. Unlike so many laments about the disappearance of LGBTQ spaces for women, the film shows us a diverse range of ongoing spaces for queer women. In the end, it is a DIY call to action and a celebration of the creativity, moxie, and determination of LGBTQ women and the inclusive communities they insist upon creating and sharing.”
Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies
Allies Training
Tuesday, October 20
2:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Registration form – Registration required to receive Zoom link.
Allies Training is a Diversity Education Workshop that aims to encourage foundational understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity. Participants will be introduced to past and current issues and concerns that impact LGBTQIA+ individuals, as well as models on being effective and informed allies to the LGBTQIA+ community. All students, faculty, and staff are welcome to register and attend.
Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural Engagement
Queer Studies Lecture by Robert Fieseler: Tinderbox – The Untold Story of the Upstairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation
Thursday, October 22
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
The 2020 Lucy Somerville Howorth Lecture and Queer Studies Lecture will be presented by Robert W. Fieseler. Forty-three years before the Pulse nightclub shooting became the largest mass murder of gays in the United States, an arsonist set fire to the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans, killing 32 people. Author Robert W. Fieseler will lecture on the history revealed in his book Tinderbox, which recounts the tragic fire that happened on the night of June 24, 1973, with first person interviews and extensive research weaving a story of memorable people such as trans pioneer Regina Adams inhabiting in a closeted, but thriving, underground world. Fieseler’s story of this forgotten history also reports the political and societal change that followed the fire within a nascent “Gay Liberation” movement, which was not yet LGBTQ+.
Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies
SUMMER 2020
Virtual Dialogue: Centering Black Voices in Allyship Across Gender & Sexuality
Wednesday, July 15
6:00 PM CST
Click to Register (Zoom login information will be shared closer to event)
Join the Center for Inclusion & Cross Cultural for a dialogue on Centering Black Voices in Allyship Across Gender & Sexuality at the University of Mississippi and beyond.
Even as individual people, each one of us holds dozens of different identities, all of which are deeply interlaced to make us who we are. Race, sexual orientation, and gender are identities in particular that have deep and true impacts on how we navigate through social settings, the opportunities available to us, the difficulties we face, and more. In conversations about privilege, women and LGBTQ+ folx often focus on their marginalization as members of those communities, and leave out the role of race. It is essential to acknowledge these intersections to show up for all members of our own communities, as well as those we seek to be allies to, as we move continuously forward in creating safer, more equitable, and more inclusive spaces. Misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia are insidious, and feed from white supremacy in many different ways.
This dialogue will be focused on the key areas of healing, allyship, and action. We will reflect specifically on the ways that racial, sexual orientation, and gender identities impact our approaches to social injustice, using the structure set out by the Stronger Together series.
August Virtual Allies Training
Monday, August 17
3:00 PM – 5:30 PM CST
Click to Register (Zoom login information will be shared closer to the day of the event)
Allies Training is a Diversity Education Workshop that aims to encourage foundational understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity. Participants will be introduced to past and current issues and concerns that impact LGBTQIA+ individuals, as well as models on being effective and informed allies to the LGBTQIA+ community. All students, faculty, and staff are welcome to register and attend.
