There has been an increase in alternative paths of earning a teaching license in Virginia, particularly in special education. Through the increased need and options, an opportunity to diversify the teaching profession has been created. In this session, the Special Education Concentration of the Bachelors of Individualized Studies will be presented. The presentation will include a discussion with participants about identifying profession adjacent workers who, with support, could benefit from the alternative route to licensure and bring diversity to their profession. We will discuss how the faculty worked to maintain quality within the alternative program that reflected the standard program

Session Full

Members of the Native American and Indigenous Awareness, Relations, and Action Working Group will lead discussions of the group's charge and evolution in the context of rapid changes in Virginia's Native American Tribal communities and increased national awareness of Indigenous issues. The responsibilities of higher education institutions are sharpened through activism by Tribal citizens and allies, and this session provides the opportunity to consider JMU's role in this work. Topics to be addressed include land acknowledgment, access to higher education by Tribal students, curriculum, and supporting programming.

Session Full

Students of Color Succeeding in School Psychology (SoCs), a student created and program supported mentoring program, intentionally pairs program alumni and current graduate students who share racial and/or ethnic identities for a professional mentoring experience that is fueled by the needs and hopes of the mentee and mentor. Join this session to learn more about the creation, implementation, and current evaluation of SoCs as we strive to sustain a learning community where all students thrive. As founding students of SoCs proclaimed, "things go better in pairs!"

Utilizing Halberstam's (2022) concept of the prestige property as a metaphor, this presentation compares formal educational spaces in the U.S. as "prestige properties", created for political and social desires of oppression and control and not for LIVING--and therefore spaces destined/designed for collapse. We continue by discussing education's destiny with collapse (or collapsing) and the semiotic shift from an understanding of collapse as an ending point TO A *refusal*: a refusal of spaces as uninhabitable. This refusal requires radical imagination--and the presentation concludes with a look towards the arts to signal pathways through the challenges of collapse.

Two departments at JMU running diversity peer-education programs saw an opportunity to transcend boundaries. Staff worked to improve the experience of students by redefining our peer-education programs to be one collaboratively run program through the Diversity Education Empowerment Program (DEEP Impact). Come learn about what we have gained as we built intersectional curriculum and trained one team, together.

Session Full

What comes to mind when you hear the word diversity? Join us to learn more about working with the world's largest minority- individuals with disabilities. What differentiates this group? It is the only minority group that anyone can become a member of without notice. We will look at assumptions, numbers, and trends at JMU, our Commonwealth and nationally, and we will provide resources to help you work with individuals with disabilities both in the classroom and at the workplace. We will also have some fun as we pair up into teams to use Vevox, a platform for real time interaction.