EmPower Hour: Fostering Civic Engagement and Dialogue in a Time of Political Polarization
Thu 9/12/2024 • 6PM PDT
Western Justice Center Foundation’s Maxwell House • Pasadena CA
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.
Co-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 the local, state and national level, and for engaging in dialogue and connection with others across lines of difference. Our featured speakers will describe their journeys to civic leadership and the lessons they have learned along the way for maintaining a sense of hope and possibility, particularly in relation to politics and public policy.
Featured speakers include:
Moderator: Natalie Samarjian’06, J.D. ’12, UCLA Alumni Association Board of Directors
Natalie is the President and CEO at Coro 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 together. Under Natalie’s leadership, Coro has expanded its programs, partnerships and impact, and cultivated a growing community of Coro alumni who are transforming teams, organizations and communities across the world.
Natalie comes to Coro Southern California from the California Women's Law 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 and Dickran Tevrizian Fellow at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLSLA), where she provided individual representation to victims of domestic violence, supported impact litigation, including a successful appeal in Montagner v. Montagner, engaged in public policy advocacy, and conducted extensive community outreach and legal education. Before joining 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 Homeland Security. Prior to embarking on her legal career, Natalie was a Human Capital Consultant in Deloitte & Touche LLP's Public Sector practice where she led the firm's National Public Sector Human Capital Community of Practice Initiative.
Natalie earned her Juris Doctorate from UCLA School of Law, her Master of Science at the Heinz School of Public Policy & Management at Carnegie Mellon University, and her Bachelor of Arts UCLA. Natalie 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. Natalie currently serves on the Boards of Public Counsel and the UCLA Alumni Association.
Panelist: Dr. Celia Lacayo ’01, M.A. ’03, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
Dr. Lacayo earned her PhD in ethnic studies at University of California, Berkeley. She is a former adjunct faculty in the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies and the Department of African American Studies.
Dr. Lacayo’s research and teaching expertise includes topics in race, ethnicity, and immigration studies. Her article “Perpetual Inferiority: Whites’ Racial Ideology toward Latinos,” published in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (vol. 3, no. 4, October 2017) interrogates how external racial ascription 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” contributed to the literature on Latino segregation in the US and was featured in The Guardian, OC Weekly, and CityLab Latino. Dr. Lacayo also established a three-course series reflecting Black and Brown Solidarity that are cross-listed with several departments and has contributed to many Spanish and English language media outlets, including PBS, where her research was featured in the documentary 187: The Rise of the Latino Vote (2020). Future research will focus on Latinx racial socialization and political behavior, as well as examining Afro-Latinx experience in California.
In her administrative capacity as the Assistant Director of the UCLA Chicano/a Studies Research Center (CSRC), Dr. Lacayo oversees staff operations and academic and public programming. Through her role at the CSRC, she also contributes to the campus-wide Latinx Infrastructure Initiative as UCLA pursues 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 collaborating with grassroots youth organizing groups across California.
Panelist: Dr. Claudia Sandoval'06, UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute
Dr. Claudia Sandoval earned her B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago with concentrations in American politics and race and politics. Her dissertation, “Conjuring Immigrant Racial Threat Narratives: Using Citizenship Status to Shape Black-Latino Relations in US Politics,” examines the plight of Blacks and Latinos for inclusion in the U.S. and analyzes how the contentious discourse around citizenship – particularly the anti-immigration narrative – has been used to strategically divide these two groups.
During the 2014-2015 school year, Dr. Sandoval was a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since her time at LMU, Professor Sandoval has dedicated her time to advocating for and working alongside undocumented students to create a more equitable community on campus. In the summer of 2020, Dr. Sandoval began working with students to create BoundlessLMU and is excited about the many opportunities this program will provide to our undocumented student population. She serves as an Assistant Professor in the Political Science and International Relations Department at Loyola Marymount University.
Panelist: Maia Ferdman, ’15, M.A. ’15, Deputy Director, UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute
Maia Ferdman is the incoming Deputy Director of the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, which was established to provide an interdisciplinary platform dedicated to the research, education, and practice of kindness. 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, and the UCLA Dialogue Across Difference Initiative (DaD), which aims to build a culture of empathy, active listening, and intellectual engagement on campus. As Staff Director of DaD, Maia oversees training programs to support students, staff, and faculty to build their capacity to have difficult conversations.
Maia is also the founder of Bridges Intergroup Relations Consulting, which supports organizations and communities to build vibrant spaces of belonging – spaces celebrating our complex identities, proactively exploring our differences, and building resilient relationships 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-Palestine, and more. She has worked with and consulted for agencies and organizations including the California State Water Boards, the City of Los Angeles, Pepperdine University, the Western Justice Center, Resetting the Table, the Museum of Tolerance, and NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change.
She was formerly the Assistant Director of the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy, a center dedicated to elevating the role of historical analysis in policy making, and the executive producer of its bi-weekly podcast Then & Now. Before coming to UCLA, she staffed The City of Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, a mayor-appointed advisory board tasked with fighting discrimination and promoting positive intergroup relations in Los Angeles. In this position Maia led numerous intentionally designed community engagement initiatives, including facilitated conversations about police-community relations and large-scale interfaith convenings. She was also trained as a mediator with the City Attorney’s Dispute 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 Studies and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from UCLA.
Panelist: Vincent Harris '78, Project Director Empowerment Congress
Vincent Harris brings decades of political, campaign, voter empowerment and public 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 “engage, 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 officials. 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 Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald.
As Deputy Chief of Staff for former California Governor Gray Davis and Undersecretary for Cabinet Affairs, he was liaison to various agencies and departments within the administration. Harris was Deputy State Director and Political Director for Barack Obama’s 2008 Democratic Presidential primary campaign in California. He was a regional coordinator for the 1998 and 1990 Democratic Coordinated Campaigns in South Los Angeles and Sacramento, respectively. Before entering into public service, Harris worked for several non-profit agencies, including the Sacramento Urban League and the Women’s Civic Improvement Club of Sacramento, Inc. where he managed a variety of workforce development, energy efficiency, health and human service projects. In 1991, he spearheaded the Sacramento African American community’s highly successful redistricting effort under the aegis of the Summit for African American Affairs 1991 Redistricting Project.