Welcome to Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Alliance for Diversity and Inclusion Retreat. Please take a name tag and write your name on it.

This is our agenda for this afternoon. First, introductions and establishing norms will go from 1 to 2. During this time, I will guide you through two getting to know you activities and discussion of norms. After we will dive into agenda items that need to produce a product at the end of the retreat: 1) definition of diversity, 2) the purpose of this alliance, and 3) our priorities. We will end at 5 pm​.

This is our agenda for this afternoon. First, introductions and establishing norms will go from 1 to 2. During this time, I will guide you through two getting to know you activities and discussion of norms. After we will dive into agenda items that need to produce a product at the end of the retreat: 1) definition of diversity, 2) the purpose of this alliance, and 3) our priorities. We will end at 5 pm​.

I am going to read a poem, My Name from Sandra Cisneros book The House on Mango Street. After I read the poem, I want you to talk about the uniqueness or the history or tell a story about your name to the people at your table. By the end,​ people at your table should know your name and something unique about you.
“My Name”
by Sandra Cisneros
excerpted from The House on Mango Street
In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.
It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse--which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong.
My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild, horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it.
And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window.
At school, they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish,​ my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name Magdalena--which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least- -can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.

These norms are from Glen Singleton (2015) Courageous Conversations.
KG will quickly go through each norm and ask if there are any other norms that should be added to this list to help us to work towards our goals for this afternoon.

At this moment we will engage in one other getting to know you activity. We all have stories that connect to other people stories. For this activity, one person at each table will begin to tell a quick story about themselves. As soon as someone else at the table has a connection to the story that person shows the connection symbol ( it looks like this) and begin telling their story right at that point. I hope that everyone gets to share a story about themselves to help others get to know you more. We will move on to the next activity at 2 pm.

Your task for this portion of the retreat is to come up with your working definition of diversity. You were asked to define diversity. This is the data that was collected via google forms. Now the task is to come up with one definition.

Your task for this portion of the retreat is to come up with the purpose of this alliance. You were asked to list the purpose of this alliance. This is the data that was collected via google forms. Now the task is to come up with the primary purpose(s) for this alliance.

Your task for this portion of the retreat is to come up with a list of priorities for this alliance. You were asked to list some priorities. This is the data that was collected via google forms. Now the task is to streamline your list of priorities.