Annual Diversity Conference

2024 Boundless Together: How Do We Move Forward When We Disagree?

October 15, 2024

The annual diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice conference aims to bring together leaders, practitioners, and social justice advocates within the University of Rochester, the Greater Rochester communities, and beyond. The conference offers opportunities for everyone to collaborate, learn, and engage around strategies, implementation, and application of bringing together diverse voices committed to transformative environments when DEIJ is ever-evolving.

This year, the conference endeavors to:

Generate meaningful and purposeful conversation around civil discourse, restorative practices, wellness, and DEIJ topics at our schools and in our community;
Explore equitable and sustainable compliance practices within higher education that align with DEIJ and our ever-changing world; and
Explore pathways forward when there is unrest and discourse within the higher education environment and our community.

All are welcome to attend, including students of all ages from UR and the community, the Greater Rochester community, and UR staff, faculty, and trainees.

REGISTRATION IS OPEN BELOW!

Conference Details

Schedule

8-9 am – Check-in and Light Refreshments

9-9:25 am – Welcome

9:30-10:45 am – Morning Breakout Sessions

11:00 am-12:00 pm – Fireside Chat followed by Q&A

12:00-1:00 pm – Lunch (boxed lunches will be provided)

1:00-2:15 pm – Afternoon Breakout Sessions

2:30-3:30 pm – Keynote Address with Isabel Wilkerson

3:45-4:45 pm – Reception (This is a time for networking and browsing local bookstores.)

To explore the list of available breakout sessions, click here.

For information about the six local bookstores being featured at the conference, click here.

Conference Location

Joseph A Floreano Riverside Convention Center

123 E. Main St, Rochester, NY 14604

Parking and Transportation

Paid parking – South Avenue Garage (attached to the convention center)

Free transportation from UR

River Campus: Continuous looping from Rush Rhees Library from 7:30-9:30
Medical Center: Continuous looping from Flaum Atrium from 7:30-9:30
Convention Center: Continuous looping from Convention Center from 3:30-5:30 pm back to River Campus/Medical Center

Accessibility

English ASL Interpreting
Closed Captioning
Large Print Material

In a good faith effort (up until the time of the event), we will make every attempt to provide ASL-English interpreters (and/or captioning service).

Keynote Speaker – Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson, is the author of the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Published in August 2020, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents rose to critical acclaim and became a Number 1 New York Times bestseller. Dwight Garner of The New York Times called it, “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.” Oprah Winfrey chose it as her 2020 Summer/Fall book club selection, declaring it “the most important book” she had ever selected.

While serving as Chicago Bureau Chief of The New York Times in 1994, Wilkerson won the Pulitzer Prize for her deeply humane narrative writing making her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African American to win for individual reporting. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Wilkerson the National Humanities Medal for “championing the stories of an unsung history.”

Registration

*The max capacity for the conference is 1,000 people. Registrants over the max limit will be waitlisted and provided a ticket as spots open.

For questions, please email equityandinclusion@rochester.edu.