Understanding Your Trauma and Preparing for Backlashes: Confronting White Supremacy & White Fragility In PWI

Institutional and systemic racism is not only intricately woven into the fabric of higher education, but repeated and prolonged experiences of racism and microaggressions manifests into trauma for Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) faculty and staff. Such traumas often leads to mental and physical health implications for various BIPOC faculty and staff.

In this small workshop we will not only engage in discussing how repeated and harmful exposures to colonized disciplines, microaggressions, tokenization, and micro-invalidation impacts us, but using a trauma-informed lens, the co-facilitators will unpack how to recognize these harmful impacts of racism and differential treatments on BIPOC faculty and staff. After guided discussions and sensorial writing to identify sites of traumas, we will employ practical, effective tools to avoid and interrupt them, as well as process and heal from them by incorporating evidence-based tools for resilience and post-traumatic growth. The goal of this workshop  is to build a community of practice and academic well-being and to enhance the quality of life and sense of belongingness of BIPOC faculty and staff.

Bio: 

Dr. Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt is the Edith Green Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at Linfield University in Oregon and also co-coordinates the Gender Studies program.  She is the author of the monograph, The Postcolonial Citizen: The Intellectual Migrant and is also the lead editor with Dr. Kakali Bhattacharya of Civility, Free Speech and Academic Freedom in Higher Education: Faculty on the Margins. As a public intellectual Dutt-Ballerstadt writes frequently critiquing the university in various national publications along with writing more scholarly articles on the intersections of critical race theory, decolonization and transnational feminism. She also mentors both students and BIPOC/BIWOC faculty to navigate various barrier in higher ed. Dutt-Ballerstadt also serves as the editor for Inside Higher Ed’s column “Conditionally Accepted,” a column for marginalized faculty in higher education.

BIO

Andrea Redeau, MA, LPC, CADC-I, is a licensed mental therapist, drug and alcohol counselor and clinical supervisor for those seeking supervision in the state of Oregon. She currently stands as a newly appointed board member on the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists, fostering representation in all aspects of the mental health field. Her practice Uniquely You Counseling, LLC primarily serves BIPOC individuals and those desiring to explore the intersectionality between race, privilege and presenting mental health conditions. Andrea strives to use a lens of equity and social justice, ensuring that all clients are served from a place of understanding and healing. Through levity and a little humor, Andrea is focused on providing education in a collaborative and inviting approach.