All Events
Self-Expression in Community: Trauma-Informed Care at UCSB
Aili Pettersson Peeker, Julie Carlson, Sowon Park, and Tara Jones
MCC Lounge
Join UCSB’s Trauma-Informed Pedagogy project and the Coordinator of the African diasporic Cultural Resource Center for an interactive discussion about how we can work towards belonging at UCSB through trauma-informed modes of expression in the classroom, in liberation work, and on our campus. This event will grapple with questions about how persons can express their individuality within diverse groups and communities and will be led by Drs. Julie Carlson, Sowon Park, Tara Jones, and Aili Pettersson Peeker. The event will allow you to learn about somatic experiencing techniques as ways of releasing energy, writing as a tool for expression, and trauma-informed activism with a focus on developing strategies for personally sustainable activism. Food will be provided after the event.
Guest Bios:
Julie Carlson is a Professor of English and Associate Dean and Faculty Equity Advisor in the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts. She is co-PI of the Trauma-Informed Pedagogy project, and her current research project is "Anxious to Read: Trauma-Informed Reflections by a British Romanticist on the Contemporary Literature Classroom.
Tara Jones, a proud UCSB alumna, is the Coordinator of the African diasporic Cultural Resource Center at UCSB and Academic Achievement Counselor for UCSB’s Educational Opportunity Program, supporting first-generation, and income eligible students’ retention and matriculation. She co-facilitates the Sister Circle Black Womxn’s support group at UCSB and is a co-founder of annual UCSB Black Womxn’s Wellness conference. She holds a Ph.D. in Depth Psychology, specializing in Community, Liberation, & Eco-Psychologies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, a Masters in the Science of Teaching from Fordham University, a Masters of Arts in Counseling Psychology and a Master’s of Arts in Depth Psychology from PGI, and a Bachelors of Arts degree in Sociology and Black Studies from UCSB.
Dr. Sowon Park is Associate Professor of English at UCSB. She specializes in Cognitive Literary Criticism and is Director of the Center for Literature and Mind. Her current research projects include a five-year investigation on ‘Trauma-Informed Pedagogy’ (2021- 2026) and the ongoing neuro-literary research forum on ‘Unconscious Memory’ (https://unconsciousmemory.english.ucsb.edu/)
Aili Pettersson Peeker is a lecturer in the Writing Program at UCSB. She is the Research Coordinator for UCSB’s Trauma-Informed Pedagogy project and holds PhD in English with an emphasis in Cognitive Science. Her current research project brings together cognitive science and literary studies to rethink the relationship between empathy and literature.
Co-Sponsors: UCSB’s Trauma-Informed Pedagogy Project and AdCRC
HSP Community Progress Meeting
MCC Lounge
Join us for the MCC’s Community Progress Meeting, where we’ll reflect on the journey since our Community Forum earlier this quarter. Together, we’ll share updates on the progress made in addressing the themes and concerns raised – diversity, belonging, and empowerment – through community care and collective action.
This meeting is an opportunity to highlight the steps taken, the challenges encountered, and the solutions implemented as part of the MCC’s Holistic Safety Plan. We’ll discuss how feedback and collaboration have shaped our efforts to create supportive spaces that address campus climate and foster connection, resilience, and equity, as well as some of the next steps for the spring quarter.
Your voice remains vital in this process, and we invite you to join us as we celebrate strides made, share lessons learned, and explore the next steps in building a more inclusive and empowering community at UCSB.
(NEW DATE 3/7/25) - Mixed in America
Meagan Smith & Jazmine Jarvis
MCC Theater and Lounge
(NEW DATE MARCH 7*) – Begin your mixed healing journey with Mixed Identity Specialists and Founders of Mixed in America – Meagan Smith & Jazmine Jarvis. Join the Office of Black Student Development and MCC, for a trauma-informed workshop designed to help you explore and embrace your mixed-race identity with authenticity and truth. Gain practical tools for healing identity wounds in a safe, supportive, and judgment-free space. Don’t miss the opportunity to connect, reflect, and grow.
Co-Sponsors: MCC, OBSD, BWHC
* New date March 7, rescheduled from January 24
The Maverick Poetics of Juan Felipe Herrera: A Conversation and Reading
Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera
MCC Theater
Join us in an engaging panel with Professor Prof. Juan Casillas-Núñez, Prof. Jorge Omar Ramírez-Pimienta, and Prof. Francisco Lomelí, and Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera at the MCC theater. Some examples of Herrera's books will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.
In 2015-2017, Juan Felipe Herrera served as the 21st U.S. Poet Laureate, the first Latino appointed to that most distinguished position. In 2012-2014 he also served as the California Poet Laureate. He has produced 37 books, exhibiting a penchant for creative experimentations through language, themes, and styles in the broadest sense of the word. His trajectory spans over half a century with numerous landmark works on mixed media and a dogged avant-garde poetics, ranging from memoirs, travelogues, unofficial epics, manifestoes of resistance, theatrical pieces, neo-indigenist incantations, (im)migration treatises, chronicles or documentaries, ethno-biographies, visual renditions (i.e. "mud drawings"), transborder crossings, "undocuments", revolutionary discourse, calligraphy, poetry interfaced with collages and murals, barrio-centric profiles, young adult novels, children's literature, linguistic rendezvous, intertextual soirees, justice re-articulated, and of course multiple incursions into mixing or remixing aesthetic forms--a kind of literary synthesizer, including transgeneric writings. Some of his writings echo Whitman-esque lyrics, Allen Ginsberg's unconventional poetics, Dylan Thomas' sentiments, Alurista's Spanglish, Pablo Neruda's artful politics, Federico Garcia Lorca's rural imagery, Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, the Beat Generation's anarchism, Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism, Gloria Anzaldua's border consciousness, Teatro Campesino's agitprop representations, and of course many others. He can adeptly meander between philosophical riddles and sardonic commentaries, cathartic tongue-in-cheek humor and syllogisms, uplifting children's books and the role of (im)migration. He has a way of transcending his humble migrant roots as a "people's poet" by also capturing the big picture of transnational social movements. He is both personal and universal. He has won most of the major awards and recognitions that an American can receive: the PEN/Beyond Margins award, the American Book Award from Before Columbus Foundation, America's Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, and MacArthur "Genius" Award, among others.
Co-Sponsors: Chicana/o Studies Department, Chicano Studies Institute, Comparative Literature Department, Dean of Social Sciences, English Department, Global Latinidades Center, Luis Leal Endowed Chair, MultiCultural Center, Spanish & Portuguese Department, and Vice Chancellor of DEI
