The conference, the first of its kind on campus, discussed the growth and development of antiracism, inclusion, and equity at Haverford over the last year and a half.
THRIVE
In February 2021, a new campus-wide initiative called THRIVE: Truth, Healing, Resiliency, Inclusion, and Equity was announced.
Designed to build off progress made in Fall 2020, developed through collaborative work across the campus, and made possible through a $250,000 gift from a member of Haverford's Class of 1966, THRIVE will invest long-term in sustainable change that includes workshops and webinars as a means for the Haverford community to better understand one another, and ourselves. THRIVE, modeled on the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Program, is envisioned as a multi-year project that is firm in its commitment to change through constructive engagement.
THRIVE Thursdays
Please join the Institutional and Student Diversity, Equity, and Access team for THRIVE Thursdays Speaker Series! Typically scheduled on the third Typically scheduled on the third Thursday of the month, this speaker/workshop series is the new iteration of our annual THRIVE Conference, bringing you a diverse and impactful array of featured presenters to engage with over lunch (which will be provided). Speaker and registration information will be updated shortly. Email Diamond Howell-Shields (dhowellshi [at] haverford.edu) with any questions.
Campus Pride Month Speaker
Jasper Liem
Thursday, April 18, 12:30—1:30 p.m.
Stokes 106
Jasper Liem currently serves as the executive director of the Attic Youth Center, a 30-year-old Philadelphia community hub devoted to LGTBQ youth. This organization provides mental health counseling, after-school programs, HIV testing, sex education, housing and job assistance, and overall a safe space to express one's identity. He previously worked in behavioral health consultation at Philadelphia FIGHTS’s Y-HEP Adolescent and Young Adult Health Center. In addition, he was a team member who helped develop the gender-affirming healthcare program at Y-HEP. Liem is a Haverford College graduate with a background in social work, psychotherapy, and gender and sexuality studies. Liem, whose family roots trace back to Hong Kong, brings a nuanced perspective that embraces both their transmasculine identity and intersectional sensitivity, coupled with valuable experience.
Women's History Month Speaker
Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell
Wednesday, March 20, 5:30—7:00 p.m.
Founders Great Hall
Photo: Peter Pradto
Judge Cordell, the first African American woman to sit on the Superior Court of Northern California, knows firsthand how prejudice has permeated our legal system. And yet, she believes in the system. From ending school segregation to legalizing same-sex marriage, its progress relies on legal professionals and jurors who strive to make the imperfect system as fair as possible.
A book signing of her recently released memoir, Her Honor: My Life on the Bench...What Works, What's Broken, and How to Change It, will follow the talk. Books will be provided to a limited number of people!
Black History Month Speaker
Saudia Durrant
February 22, 12:30—1:30 p.m.
Saudia Durrant was born, raised, and educated in West Philadelphia. She has been an organizer on the Philadelphia Student Union‘s Alternatives to the School to Prison Pipeline (now Police Free Schools) campaign, at the Abolitionist Law Center as a racial justice organizer, and at the Gender Justice Fund as a program manager for formerly incarcerated communities impacted by gender based oppression. Currently, she is a senior campaign strategist at Advancement Project, working to build liberatory education through campaigns that seek to end the school to prison pipeline, and remove police from schools while helping young people to organize for non-carceral resources in education.
Past Events & Initiatives
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Fall 2023
November Speakers
Donna Fann-Boyle and Kelley Bova of Native Women and Allies Speak
Thursday, November 16
Kelley Bova
Kelley Bova was born on the Lake Traverse Reservation. She is Dakota. At the age of three months she was adopted by a white family from Glenside, PA and raised there. She was 50 before she ever met another Indigenous person and that is when she found her birth mother and 8 siblings in South Dakota. For ten years she has been reclaiming her Native identity and becoming a Sundancer. Hers is a story of being caught between two worlds.
Donna Fann-Boyle
Native Rights activist, mother of 2 sons, and beekeeper, Donna is a member of American Indian Movement Middletown Township Human Relations Commission and has been fighting the Neshaminy school district to change its racist redskins mascot since 2012.
October Speaker
Celena Morrison-McLean
Thursday, October 26
Originally from North Carolina, Celena Morrison-McLean has worked with many of Philadelphia’s top LGBTQ+ serving organizations, serving in roles from Recovery Specialist to Director of Programming.
During her years working with nonprofits Celena helped educate communities, businesses, agency boards, colleges, non-profit organizations, and religious establishments. Celena went on to become Director of Programming at the William Way LGBT Community Center where she was instrumental in opening the Arcila-Adams Trans Resource Center there. While serving on the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations from 2018 - 2020 she was honored as one of Philadelphia Pride’s 2019 Grand Marshalls.
In 2020, she became the first openly transgender person to ever lead a City office in Philadelphia. Celena is currently serving as the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of LGBT Affairs. Since becoming the Executive Director, Celena has developed and implemented policies that foster inclusivity . She also developed the Employee Self Identification Census that the City launched to finally collect data on the representation of our LGBTQ+ employees in the City’s workforce. Philadelphia Magazine named her one of the 76 Most Influential Philadelphians of 2020, 2021 and 22.
September Speaker
Nasheli Juliana Ortiz González
Thursday, September 21
Meet Nasheli Juliana Ortiz González, a multi-talented individual born in Caguas, Puerto Rico. She is a designer, academic, activist, creative worker, and entrepreneur currently serving as the Executive Director of Taller Puertorriqueño in North Philadelphia. Ortiz González is also the proud owner of her apparel company, Nasheli Juliana (NJ), which investigates the intersection of social justice and fashion. As a founding Board Member of the Philadelphia Fashion Garment and Industry Task Force, she has gained recognition for her work. She has been featured in prestigious publications like Vogue, Netflix, Harper’s Bazaar, GQ, and Forbes.
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Spring 2023
2023 THRIVE Conference
Our second annual THRIVE Conference at Haverford College will be held on Saturday, January 21st, 2023. This year, the theme is: Reclaiming Our Stories. THRIVE is a campus-wide initiative centered around Truth, Healing, Resiliency, Inclusion, and Equity. Our goal is to bring together people from Haverford, the local Ardmore community, and beyond to lift up voices of groups and individuals who have been marginalized and oppressed, helping us to better understand one another, and ourselves.
Schedule
9 a.m.-10 a.m.
Registration
Stokes 106, MCC10 a.m.-11 a.m.
Keynote Speaker, Michelle Angela Ortiz
The Art of Storytelling: Public Art and Community Engagement
Stokes Auditorium11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Workshop Block #1 - Please select from the following:
- Storytelling Matters - Nimisha Ladva
- The Stories We Tell Ourselves: If Our Social Identities Had The Mic - Ahyana King
- Making Home Movies, Burma and Bhutan to South Philadelphia Stories - Shira Walinsky
- RECLAIMING OUR STORIES: Activity - Michelle Angela Ortiz and Salina Almanzar
*offered throughout the day*
12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
Lunch in the Dining Center
1:45 p.m.-2:45 p.m.
Workshop Block #2 - Please select from the following:
- Writing in the Intersections as Critical and Creative Healing - Maya Pindyck & Claudine Thomas
- Undocumented in U.S. Higher Education: Status, Legislation, and Practices to Support Undocumented College Students - Leslie Castrejon
- Appreciating the Many Roles of Social Change - Walter Hjelt Sullivan
- RECLAIMING OUR STORIES: Activity - Michelle Angela Ortiz and Salina Almanzar
*offered throughout the day*
3 p.m.-4 p.m.
Workshop Block #3 - Please select from the following:
- Centering our stories: An ongoing struggle for a misunderstood people - Shimaa Eid
- Take It Back: Reclaiming Our Stories - Lenée Voss
- RECLAIMING OUR STORIES: Activity - Michelle Angela Ortiz and Salina Almanzar
*offered throughout the day*
4 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
Closing & Networking
Stokes 106, MCCKeynote Speaker - Michelle Angela Ortiz
Photo: Nathan Venzara Michelle Angela Ortiz is a visual artist, skilled muralist, community arts educator, and filmmaker who uses her art as a vehicle to represent people and communities whose histories are often lost or co-opted. Through community arts practices, painting, documentaries, and public art installations, she creates a safe space for dialogue around some of the most profound issues communities and individuals may face. Her work tells stories using richly crafted and emotive imagery to claim and transform spaces into a visual affirmation that reveals the strength and spirit of the community.
For over 20 years, Ortiz has designed and created over 50 large-scale public works nationally and internationally. Since 2008, Ortiz has led art for social change public art projects in Costa Rica & Ecuador and as a Cultural Envoy through the US Embassy in Fiji, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Venezuela, Honduras, and Cuba.
Ortiz is a 2021 Art is Essential Grantee, a 2020 Art For Justice Fund Grantee, a Pew Fellow, Rauschenberg Foundation Artist as Activist Fellow, and a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist National Fellow. In 2016, she received the Americans for the Arts' Public Art Year in Review Award which honors outstanding public art projects in the nation.