CESP Sessions

Spring 2024 RAP Sessions


Decolonization Roundtable
Tuesday March 19, 3:00-4:30 p.m. | Online Event

Native American Tuition Waivers as Reparative Justice: More and more higher education institutions are implementing at least partial tuition relief for Native students, including the University of Minnesota through the Native American Promise Tuition Program. In this session of the University's Decolonization Roundtable, Monica Siems McKay will revisit the issue of tuition waivers for Native American students and explore the rationale behind several institutions' programs and models for determining student eligibility and the scope of the waiver. The discussion will include situating these waivers in the context of reparative justice rather than financial aid.

If you would like to attend this event and count it towards a specific reflection, please email [email protected] before attending. Please include the session you plan to attend, what reflection you'd like to use it for, and a brief explanation for why you think the session fits with that reflection. 

Click here to register


Leveraging Community-Engaged Learning to Explore and Build Your Career Skills 
Multiple dates:
Wednesday, March 20, 4:30-5:30pm | Lind Hall Room 302
Thursday, March 28, from 4:30-5:30pm | Tate Hall Room 110

Join the Center for Community-Engaged Learning and faculty who teach community-engaged learning (CEL) courses in a wide variety of departments across campus, both inside and outside the College of Liberal Arts. Each faculty member will talk about their course learning objectives and the types of community organizations they partner with, as well as the academic, personal, and professional benefits they have seen their students gain from CEL. These include opportunities to gain professional experience, practice networking, and developing skills in high demand with employers. Come learn more and start planning which CEL course(s) you’ll take in the future!

Click here to register for the Wednesday, March 20 session from 4:30-5:30pm in Lind Hall Room 302

Click here to register for the Thursday, March 28 session from 4:30-5: 30pm in Tate Hall Room 110


Paint to Express Workshop
Wednesday, March 20, 5:00pm-8:30pm | Liberal Arts Engagement Hub 120 Pillsbury Hall


Come paint with Memorialize the Movement and the Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence (MCAE). Although all are welcome, this is a Black, Indigenous, and People of Color centered workshop, as safe spaces to express ourselves are not always available. This space is for you to show up as you are and be your authentic self. We encourage folks to paint what they like and engage in conversation with fellow painters. MTM provides free painting supplies, snacks, music, and vibes. No experience necessary!

If you would like to attend this event and count it towards a specific reflection, please email [email protected] before attending. This session can be used for your Sense of Self Reflection.

Click here to register


Scholar and Poet Evie Shockley: "Black Graphics: Slavery and Black Women's Bodies (of Work)"
Thursday, March 28, 2:30-4:00pm CT | Online Event 

Dr. Evie Shockley, Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University, offers excerpts from her work-in-progress, a book of interlinked mini-essays titled Black Graphics: "Colorblindness" and the Survival of Black Being. The project investigates how Black cultural production between roughly 1990 and 2015 engaged, interrogated, or made use of the dominant racial logic of the period: the ideology of "colorblindness." Her research examines poetry and other artwork that situates itself at the intersection of text and image, or the verbal and the visual. This talk takes up work by Renee Gladman, Julie Patton, and Kamau Brathwaite, among others. Professor of English and Creative Writing Douglas Kearney will moderate. For questions about accessibility services, please email [email protected] or call 612-626-1528.

More information here: https://cla.umn.edu/english/news-events/events/evie-shockley-black-graphics-slavery-and-black-womens-bodies-work

If you would like to attend this event and count it towards a specific reflection, please email [email protected] before attending. Please include the session you plan to attend, what reflection you'd like to use it for, and a brief explanation for why you think the session fits with that reflection. 

Click here to register


Amplifying Equity Session: Complex Racial Identities: Navigating Intersectionality
NEW DATE
Friday, March 29, 1:30-2:30pm | 204 Appleby Hall

Hosted by Dylan Rogers, CCEL Equity Coordinator/Peer Advisor. A guided discussion for students to talk about multiracial identities. Open to all students. We will meet in room 204 in Appleby Hall just down the hall from the CCEL office.

Click here to register


Sustainability Symposium
Friday, April 12, 11:00am-4:30pm | Institute on the Environment UMN St. Paul Campus

The Sustainability Symposium will be held at the Institute on the Environment on the University of Minnesota, Saint Paul campus from on Friday, April 12, 2024. 

The Sustainability Symposium brings together diverse sustainability projects, artwork, research, and other ideas at one platform. This year’s Symposium will also celebrate and honor this year’s Student Impact Awardees. This year’s theme is Making Minnesota: Towards Equitable Urban Design. The theme centers Environmental Justice, the intersection of social justice and environmental issues, and for this event, particularly as topics relate to urban design.

If you would like to attend this event and count it towards a specific reflection, please email [email protected] before attending. Please include the session you plan to attend, what reflection you'd like to use it for, and a brief explanation for why you think the session fits with that reflection. 

Click here for more info and to register


CESP Processing Sessions and Community Meetings

This idea was developed by current Scholars and Peer Advisors working in the Center for Community-Engaged Learning in response to COVID-19, the uprising for racial equity, and recent political upheavals. CESP Processing Sessions and Community Meetings are different from CESP RAP Sessions in that they ask Scholars attending each session to bring their feelings, insights, and resources with them, as opposed to hearing from one or two Scholars about a topic of interest. Attending these sessions are meant to be more collaborative in nature. They will be largely unstructured, but will always be supported by a CESP staff member (either by a student staff member or full-time staff member).

We welcome you to sign up for sessions and meetings and also propose topics that you feel would be important for our community to discuss and take action on. These sessions can be counted towards the Collaboration & Community Building reflection and/or the Agency reflection (if you propose a topic and facilitate) for CESP. However, the goal here is not to offer something that will simply "meet a requirement", but to connect, process, build, and offer support to one another so that we can eventually take sustained action in and across our communities.

Lead a CESP Session

If you've already attended one CESP Session and are looking for more ways to build community with other Scholars, the next step is to lead a CESP Session! This is a great leadership and facilitation experience and it can fulfill the Agency reflection for CESP.

CESP staff are here to support you through planning and facilitation. Interested, but not sure what your topic will be? Please reach out to CCEL staff at [email protected]. Ready to start planning? Submit your ideas below!

CESP invites you to propose to lead a CESP Session during  Spring 2024.
CESP will support any and all who would like to facilitate an in-person, remote, or hybrid RAP Session or Processing Session this year. As a reminder, we recommend that you attend at least one RAP Session prior to facilitating, but it is not required. 

Submit a RAP Session Proposal