Events By Quarter
Welcome Back Marketplace
MCC Lounge/Lobby
Kick off the 2024-2025 school year with us at the MultiCultural Center’s Welcome Back Marketplace! Join us for an exciting evening of festivities featuring creative minds, local entrepreneurs, and campus resources. Enjoy FREE mouth-savoring food, self-care items, school supplies, and soak up the vibrant energy. Don’t miss the chance to start the year with great vibes and even greater connections.
Tabling Guest: Thrive Program, CARE, RCSGD, A.S. Trans and Queer Commission (TQCOMM), Queer Trans Community (QTC), Out in STEM (oSTEM), La Familia de Colores (LaFa), and Undergraduate Diversity in Physics (UDiP), CODE, EOP, DSP
Race & Literature
Advocating for Environmental Justice: A Conversation
Eddie Ahn
MCC Theater and Lounge
Eddie Ahn went to law school but never stopped drawing. The story of his scrappy transformation of an environmental justice organization comes in the form of a graphic memoir that was selected by the Washington Post as “Best Graphic Novel of the Year." Advocate pairs Ahn’s passions for art and community organizing. Join Asian American Studies Professor Lisa Park and Ahn as they engage in a discussion about racial and economic inequality in the face of rising environmental catastrophes, along with what it means to choose community service and activism in the world ahead.
Bios:
Eddie Ahn is the executive director of Brightline Defense, an environmental justice nonprofit that has been engaged in policy and legal advocacy since 2009. He is also the writer and artist of “Advocate,” a national bestseller and graphic memoir published by Penguin Random House on April 2024.
In addition to his work for Brightline, Eddie serves on three commissions for local and state government agencies related to environmental policymaking: the SF Commission on the Environment, Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), and Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). Prior to being a nonprofit attorney, he was an AmeriCorps member, teaching public speaking and arts workshops in Oakland’s Chinatown. In December 2021, Eddie was inducted into the State of California’s Clean Energy Hall of Fame for his work in equity and clean energy.
Lisa Sun-Hee Park is professor of Asian American Studies and director of the Health Justice & Community initiative at UCSB. She is the author of numerous journal articles and five books, including The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden (co-authored with David N. Pellow), which received the Outstanding Book Award from the American Sociological Association’s Environment and Technology Section in 2014. She also co-directs ÉXITO (https://exito.ucsb.edu/), an Ethnic and Feminist Studies teacher training program at UCSB; and was co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Asian American Studies.
Co-Sponsors: Asian American Studies, Department of English, Literature and the Environment, College of Creative Studies, Department of Environmental Studies
Livestreamed via Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/mw5xrdwu
Conscious Conversations Series
Student Movements and the Neoliberal University
Charmaine Chua
MCC Lounge
This discussion will take stock of the history of student movements in and against the University of California. Chua will cover a short history about the public university and its neo-liberalization over the last half-century, as well as how the university represses and seeks to discipline student movements. We will then have a discussion about student movements on campus using structured questions about ongoing campus campaigns for social justice.
Bio:
Professor Chua teaches courses on global political economy, social movements, and technological change in the Global Studies Department at UCSB.
Spiritual Care Club
MCC Lounge
1st Session on 10/24
Spiritual Care Club is a weekly space where members will learn how to use and trust divine and intuitive tools for their healing and care, identity development, and dreams and goals formation. It will be an intentional space where we can experience personal and collective growth, joy, and care in a safe and encouraging environment.