Beginning the Journey: Exploring Foundational Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Concepts

*This event will be run as a webinar. You will receive confirmation and be added to the calendar invite prior to the date of the session.*

Join Alumni Affairs for an introductory session around core diversity, equity, and inclusion concepts. This session serves as a critical building block for developing a vocabulary and framework of understanding that supports ongoing exploration, conversations, and learning necessary for 2020 workplace culture and relationship-building. This is a two-hour session.

Participants will:

• Learn foundational DEI concepts

• Have greater understand of shared experiences

• Gain familiarity with vocabulary and strategies to navigate everyday issues

• Understand the structures and staff within Berklee that support and guide DEI goals

Jasmine Parker is the Associate Director for Diversity and Inclusion.Prior to joining the Berklee community, Jasmine Parker created, designed, implemented, led, and strategically assessed a groundbreaking diversity, equity, and inclusion professional development series held at Texas Tech University entitled Race, Racism, and Public Spaces. She was the 2019 President's Excellence Award in Diversity and Equity recipient as a result of her leadership and vision. While at Texas Tech, she also served on the honors college faculty as a dissertation coach and on the College of Education faculty.

She earned her Ph.D. in the history of education/education policy from the Department of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her Master of Arts in social sciences and education policy from the same university, and a Bachelor of Arts in history with a minor in sociology summa cum laude from Prairie View A&M University. She also completed a year of law school as a Decoudreaux Fellow at Indiana University Bloomington's Maurer School of Law.

As associate director for diversity and inclusion, she assists Lacretia Flash, assistant vice president for diversity and inclusion, in implementing the diversity and inclusion strategy across Berklee through the Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. She also assumes major responsibility for coordinating and providing expertise in the development and implementation of diversity-related professional development for Berklee's faculty, staff, and other affiliates. She's instrumental in strategic institutional engagement through supporting Berklee's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Framework, DEI council, and DEI workgroups, which address the following areas: campus climate; curriculum and pedagogy; equity; an inclusive and accessible campus; recruitment, hiring, promotion, and retention; student access, engagement, and success; and training, dialogue, and practice.

Outside Berklee, she enjoys traveling, reading, frequenting museums, symphonies, libraries, and skydiving.