BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN PRODID:edu.community.ucla/1.1.0 METHOD:PUBLISH X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VEVENT UID:e54b663f-66c2-3951-2896-70967ff23ae8@community.ucla.edu SUMMARY:EmPower Hour: Fostering Civic Engagement and Dialogue in a Time of Political Polarization DTSTAMP:20240829T192700Z DTSTART:20240913T010000Z DTEND:20240913T010000Z DESCRIPTION:UCLA Alumni Diversity Programs & Initiatives (DPI) invites you to participate in our upcoming signature program\, EmPower Hour: Fostering Civic Engagement and Dialogue in a Time of Political Polarization.\n\nCo- hosted by DPI\, Coro Southern California and the Western Justice Center\, this program will include a panel discussion featuring alumni speakers who will offer insights and strategies for sustainable civic engagement at th e local\, state and national level\, and for engaging in dialogue and conn ection with others across lines of difference. Our featured speakers will describe their journeys to civic leadership and the lessons they have lear ned along the way for maintaining a sense of hope and possibility\, partic ularly in relation to politics and public policy.\nFeatured speakers inclu de: \n\n \nModerator: Natalie Samarjian’06\, J.D. ’12\, UCLA Alumni Associ ation Board of Directors\n\n \n\n\n\nNatalie is the President and CEO at C oro Southern California. Coro's mission is to activate civic leaders with the skills\, knowledge and networks they need to effect meaningful change\ , foster a thriving democracy and tackle society’s biggest challenges toge ther. Under Natalie’s leadership\, Coro has expanded its programs\, partne rships and impact\, and cultivated a growing community of Coro alumni who are transforming teams\, organizations and communities across the world.\n \nNatalie comes to Coro Southern California from the California Women's La w Center (CWLC)\, where she worked to address the comprehensive and unique legal needs of women and girls through impact litigation\, public policy advocacy and legal education. Prior to CWLC\, Natalie was Staff Attorney a nd Dickran Tevrizian Fellow at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLSLA)\, where she provided individual representation to victims o f domestic violence\, supported impact litigation\, including a successful appeal in Montagner v. Montagner\, engaged in public policy advocacy\, an d conducted extensive community outreach and legal education. Before joini ng NLSLA\, Natalie was a Labor and Employment litigator at Rutan & Tucker\ , LLP. While at Rutan\, Natalie was actively engaged in pro bono efforts\, successfully representing an asylum seeker before the Department of Homel and Security. Prior to embarking on her legal career\, Natalie was a Human Capital Consultant in Deloitte & Touche LLP's Public Sector practice wher e she led the firm's National Public Sector Human Capital Community of Pra ctice Initiative.\n\nNatalie earned her Juris Doctorate from UCLA School o f Law\, her Master of Science at the Heinz School of Public Policy & Manag ement at Carnegie Mellon University\, and her Bachelor of Arts UCLA. Natal ie is an alumnus of the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs and Emerge California. She is a recipient of the Empowerment Congress’ Emerging Civic Leaders 40 Under 40 award and a recipient of LA Impact-Makers to Watch. N atalie currently serves on the Boards of Public Counsel and the UCLA Alumn i Association.\n\n \nPanelist: Dr. Celia Lacayo ’01\, M.A. ’03\, UCLA Chic ano Studies Research Center\n\n \n\n\n\nDr. Lacayo earned her PhD in ethni c studies at University of California\, Berkeley. She is a former adjunct faculty in the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central Am erican Studies and the Department of African American Studies.\n\nDr. Laca yo’s research and teaching expertise includes topics in race\, ethnicity\, and immigration studies. Her article “Perpetual Inferiority: Whites’ Raci al Ideology toward Latinos\,” published in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (vol. 3\, no. 4\, October 2017) interrogates how external racial ascripti on affects the racial group formation process for Latinos. The article won the Distinguished Contribution to Research Article award by the American Sociological Association Latino/s Section. Her op-ed “Latinos Need to Stay in Their Place: Differential Segregation in a Multi-Ethnic Suburb” contri buted to the literature on Latino segregation in the US and was featured i n The Guardian\, OC Weekly\, and CityLab Latino. Dr. Lacayo also establish ed a three-course series reflecting Black and Brown Solidarity that are cr oss-listed with several departments and has contributed to many Spanish an d English language media outlets\, including PBS\, where her research was featured in the documentary 187: The Rise of the Latino Vote (2020). Futur e research will focus on Latinx racial socialization and political behavio r\, as well as examining Afro-Latinx experience in California.\n\nIn her a dministrative capacity as the Assistant Director of the UCLA Chicano/a Stu dies Research Center (CSRC)\, Dr. Lacayo oversees staff operations and aca demic and public programming. Through her role at the CSRC\, she also cont ributes to the campus-wide Latinx Infrastructure Initiative as UCLA pursue s federal designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). Dr. Lacayo is also working towards institutionalizing support for youth participatory action research at the University of California\, and helping coordinate a network of junior scholars from low-income BIPOC communities who are col laborating with grassroots youth organizing groups across California.\n\n  \nPanelist: Dr. Claudia Sandoval'06\, UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Inst itute\n\n \n\n\n\nDr. Claudia Sandoval earned her B.A. in Political Scienc e from the University of California\, Los Angeles. She received her M.A. a nd Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago with concentr ations in American politics and race and politics. Her dissertation\, “Con juring Immigrant Racial Threat Narratives: Using Citizenship Status to Sha pe Black-Latino Relations in US Politics\,” examines the plight of Blacks and Latinos for inclusion in the U.S. and analyzes how the contentious dis course around citizenship – particularly the anti-immigration narrative – has been used to strategically divide these two groups.\n\nDuring the 2014 -2015 school year\, Dr. Sandoval was a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since her tim e at LMU\, Professor Sandoval has dedicated her time to advocating for and working alongside undocumented students to create a more equitable commun ity on campus. In the summer of 2020\, Dr. Sandoval began working with stu dents to create BoundlessLMU and is excited about the many opportunities t his program will provide to our undocumented student population. She serve s as an Assistant Professor in the Political Science and International Rel ations Department at Loyola Marymount University.\n\n \nPanelist: Maia Fer dman\, ’15\, M.A. ’15\, Deputy Director\, UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute\n \n \n\n\n\nMaia Ferdman is the incoming Deputy Director of the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute\, which was established to provide an interdisciplinar y platform dedicated to the research\, education\, and practice of kindnes s. BKI is home to two other initiatives: The UCLA Initiative to Study Hate \, a 3-year pilot initiative to understand mitigate hate in the world\, an d the UCLA Dialogue Across Difference Initiative (DaD)\, which aims to bui ld a culture of empathy\, active listening\, and intellectual engagement o n campus. As Staff Director of DaD\, Maia oversees training programs to su pport students\, staff\, and faculty to build their capacity to have diffi cult conversations.\n\nMaia is also the founder of Bridges Intergroup Rela tions Consulting\, which supports organizations and communities to build v ibrant spaces of belonging – spaces celebrating our complex identities\, p roactively exploring our differences\, and building resilient relationship s between groups. She has developed numerous interfaith programs\, trained government and nonprofit groups in cultural competency\, and facilitated conversations across differences about policing\, homelessness\, Israel-Pa lestine\, and more. She has worked with and consulted for agencies and org anizations including the California State Water Boards\, the City of Los A ngeles\, Pepperdine University\, the Western Justice Center\, Resetting th e Table\, the Museum of Tolerance\, and NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partner ship for Change.\n\nShe was formerly the Assistant Director of the UCLA Lu skin Center for History and Policy\, a center dedicated to elevating the r ole of historical analysis in policy making\, and the executive producer o f its bi-weekly podcast Then & Now. Before coming to UCLA\, she staffed Th e City of Los Angeles Human Relations Commission\, a mayor-appointed advis ory board tasked with fighting discrimination and promoting positive inter group relations in Los Angeles. In this position Maia led numerous intenti onally designed community engagement initiatives\, including facilitated c onversations about police-community relations and large-scale interfaith c onvenings. She was also trained as a mediator with the City Attorney’s Dis pute Resolution Program. Maia has lived in Bulgaria and Argentina and has spent extensive time in India and Israel. She holds a B.A. in Global Studi es and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from UCLA.\n\n \nPanelist: Vincen t Harris '78\, Project Director Empowerment Congress\n\n \n\n\n\nVincent H arris brings decades of political\, campaign\, voter empowerment and publi c policy experience across a broad spectrum of issues at various levels of government. He serves as project director for the Empowerment Congress\, a Los Angeles-based civic engagement organization whose mission is the “en gage\, educate and empower” participants in pursuit of social justice and community betterment through civic activism. He is currently retired after serving in a variety of senior staff and advisory positions for elected o fficials. He served as chief of staff and policy advisor for the Honorable Mark Ridley-Thomas during his tenure in the State Assembly\, State Senate and Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors a well as the late Congresswo man Juanita Millender-McDonald.\n\nAs Deputy Chief of Staff for former Cal ifornia Governor Gray Davis and Undersecretary for Cabinet Affairs\, he wa s liaison to various agencies and departments within the administration. H arris was Deputy State Director and Political Director for Barack Obama’s 2008 Democratic Presidential primary campaign in California. He was a regi onal coordinator for the 1998 and 1990 Democratic Coordinated Campaigns in South Los Angeles and Sacramento\, respectively. Before entering into pub lic service\, Harris worked for several non-profit agencies\, including th e Sacramento Urban League and the Women’s Civic Improvement Club of Sacram ento\, Inc. where he managed a variety of workforce development\, energy e fficiency\, health and human service projects. In 1991\, he spearheaded th e Sacramento African American community’s highly successful redistricting effort under the aegis of the Summit for African American Affairs 1991 Red istricting Project.\n\nEvent Website: https://alumni.ucla.edu/event/empowe r-hour-fostering-civic-engagement-and-dialogue-in-a-time-of-political-pola rization/\n\nEvent Website: https://alumni.ucla.edu/wp-json/tribe/events/v 1/events/141919\n\nSource: https://community.ucla.edu/event/e54b663f-66c2- 3951-2896-70967ff23ae8 LOCATION:Western Justice Center Foundation’s Maxwell House • Pasadena CA STATUS:CONFIRMED TRANSP:TRANSPARENT X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:FREE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR