TRAILBLAZERS OF COLOR LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE: Building Bridges...Maintaining Our Communities and Wellness
Registration
Details
Registration Fees
•Free for all MHC and Five College students, faculty, and staff
•$15 for non Five College attendees
•$8 per person for groups with 10 or more attendees
*Keynote speaker is FREE and open to non conference attendees
Contact toclc-g@mtholyoke.edu or call 413-538-2550 to take advantage of the group discount.
The registration fee includes breakfast, lunch, conference swag, entrance to the POC Business Expo and a ticket to the VIP meet-and-greet with the keynote speakers.
Where
Mary Woolley Hall, Chapin Auditorium
Accessible Building.
Speakers
Carmen Yulín Cruz
Harriet L. Weissman and Paul M. Weissman Distinguished Fellow in Leadership
Mount Holyoke College
Carmen Yulín Cruz is the author of El Poder está en la Calle (Power is in the Street). In it, she writes about the struggles and experiences of the people, and how rewarding it can be to find their own power to change society and to change the country. For Carmen Yulín Cruz, the principles of justice and equality are her ultimate passion and commitment in life.
Yulín, as she likes to be called, left San Juan and attended the University of Boston, Massachusetts, graduating Cum Laude in Political Science. Afterwards, she received a full scholarship from the Sloan Foundation to complete her master’s degree in public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
At Carnegie Mellon, she was the first student to receive the Spirit Award, now known as the Barbara Jenkins Award, an honor bestowed upon the student who elicited a positive impact on the quality of life of other students, in and out of the classroom.
After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, Yulín was hired by Westinghouse to be part of their highly selective program for the development of managers in human resources. She subsequently worked as the human resources director for the Office of Thrift Supervision in the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
In 1992, she moved back to Puerto Rico and served as manager and director of human resources for various companies in the private sector, such as Colgate-Palmolive, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Cellular One (now AT&T) and Scotiabank.
However, her true passion called her and she decided to return to the public sector. First, she became an advisor to the then-Mayor of San Juan, Sila María Calderón, and then went on to advise the Speaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, until finding her own path and deciding to run for office.
In 2008 she was elected Representative At-Large for the Puerto Rico House of Representatives. Yulín enjoyed her time in the House and was poised to return for another term as Representative, having received the most votes for re-election in the primary of March 2012. Destiny, however, had other plans for her. At the end of March 2012, she accepted the nomination to run for Mayor of San Juan, an aspiration she had held since childhood. In November 2012, after a historic seven month long campaign, she won the election and became Mayor. In November 2016, she was reelected by an even wider margin.
Yulín is an active advocate for equality, fighting for the LGBTQ community, the deaf community and children with functional diversity as well as those who have struggled with gender-based violence. She is also a champion for the rights of immigrants.
Her vision of public service is one of governing not for the people, but with the people. She believes a better society is built by having strong student organizations, labor unions, and by implementing programs such as participatory budgets, wherein the people in each community decide how to best develop sustainable plans for themselves.
On September 20, 2017, Hurricane María completely devastated Puerto Rico. Mayor Cruz became a strong advocate for getting much needed help and dignified care for the people of Puerto Rico.
Cruz has received numerous recognitions and awards, including the Martin Luther King Centre Justice, Peace and Freedom Award and Humanitarian Leadership Award in 2018, the Antonio Villaraigosa Leadership Award in 2018, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation Humanitarian Award in 2017 and the Puerto Rico Arts Alliance Felisa Rincón Legacy Public Service Award. In 2018, she was on the TIME Magazine list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World for her leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. In the past two years, she has been awarded the CORE Foundation’s Gary Shandling Humanitarian Award, the Dolores Huerta Woman of Courage Medallion from United States Hispanic Leadership Institute and an award from the Blue Card for those aiding needy Holocaust survivors.
Angelica Castro
Revolutionary Love
https://www.revolutionarylovecoach.com/about
Ysabel Garcia
Estoy Aqui
https://www.estoy-aqui.org/meet-the-founder
Devon Moody-Graham
CEOMom Empire LLC
https://ceomomempire.com/
Katherine Lo
Founder and President
Eaton Worksohp
Raised between Hong Kong and the United States, Katherine studied Sociocultural Anthropology at Yale, and earned her MFA in Directing & Screenwriting from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She also studied Engaged Buddhism at The Evergreen State College, visual art at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, acting at The Stella Adler Conservatory, and studied abroad at Beijing Normal University. Katherine has had a lifelong commitment to the arts, social justice, and wellness.
Throughout the 2000s, she was an advocate for social and environmental impact. She was a Student Delegate for Greenpeace at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the predecessor to the Paris Climate Accords) in 2000 and 2001, cycled cross country for Habitat for Humanity, was an anti-war spokesperson during the War on Iraq, and organized for the global justice and environmental movements.
Alongside her social change work, Katherine has always been passionate about art, culture, and wellness. She reported as the Hong Kong Arts & Culture correspondent for Shift Magazine in the 2000s, sang to the whales with her Seattle choir, released an album with her band, worked in the Hong Kong film industry in 2010s, chaired Yale in Hollywood's Hong Kong chapter in 2011, was a judge for Sundance London Film Festival in 2014, and supported the Sundance Institute in launching an initiative to cultivate new forms of nonfiction filmmaking in 2015. From the late 1990s to the present day, Katherine has trained in Buddhism and holistic wellness with residencies and retreats at Insight Meditation Society, Green Gulch Farm / Green Dragon Temple, New Haven Zen Center, Kadampa Meditation Centre of Hong Kong, Dharma Punx New York, Garrison Institute,Kripalu Center, Esalen Institute, Against the Stream Santa Monica, the San Francisco Zen Center, and Spirit Rock.
In 2011, Katherine unexpectedly joined her family business in hospitality. Under her creative and design direction, the iconic IBM building housing The Langham Chicago opened in 2013 and has consistently been voted No. 1 Hotel in Chicago by Travel + Leisure. Her father, Dr KS Lo, appointed her President of Eaton in 2014, entrusting her with the challenge of imagining the next step in the evolution of hospitality. She has led Eaton Workshop since, leading teams around the world and opening two pilot Eaton concepts in DC and Hong Kong in 2018, advancing Eaton’s core values of inclusivity, integrity, and imagination to deliver on its triple bottom line of respecting people, planet, and profit. Building upon her life experiences in art, wellness, and social change,Katherine designed Eaton hotels as community centers - with the purpose of fostering physical and digital spaces as platforms for creativity and collective change. Eatons support, incubate, and exhibit art and culture, music and radio, and cinema, while offering a holistic wellness center, members workspace, live music venues, art galleries, coffee shops, food halls, and more. In 2020, Katherine and her team launched Another World is Possible, an online multimedia impact festival featuring original short films produced by Eaton and panels with activists, artists, and thought leaders.food halls, and more. In 2020, Katherine and her team launched Another World is Possible, an online multimedia impact festival featuring original short films produced by Eaton and panels with activists, artists, and thought leaders.food halls, and more. In 2020, Katherine and her team launched Another World is Possible, an online multimedia impact festival featuring original short films produced by Eaton and panels with activists, artists, and thought leaders.
Katherine has spoken about Eaton at the New York Times Sustainable Travel Forum, the Vogue Magazine editors summit, the 1882 Foundation Symposium on “Innovative Practices in Museums and Beyond for Commemoration and Healing”, the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Sexualities Research Program and Transgender Resource Center’s “Excluded Lives” press conference, Regenerative Travel’s summit on “Travel and Social Movements”, the Boutique Lifestyle Leadership Conference, and on Current Movement’s Insurgent Imagination podcast. In addition to Katherine receiving the “Start Something” award from the Indie Lodging Congress in 2018 and Eaton DC being named one of TIME Magazine’s Worlds Greatest Places in 2019, Eaton Workshop received an honorable mention in Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards in 2019, among other accolades.She sat on the Board of Neuehouse in 2015 during its founding years and was a judge for the 11th Annual Hospitality Design Awards in 2013.
With her passion for art, culture, wellness, and social impact, Katherine is a next generation leader with a moral compass and a deep understanding of culture, steering the hospitality industry into uncharted territory.
Katrina Kincade
News Reporter and Miss Camber
WBZ/CBS Boston News
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrinakincade
Katrina is an award-winning reporter who reports and produces stories in a wide range of topics. She currently works at WBZ/CBS Boston in Boston, MA. She previously worked at 22News in Springfield as a reporter and fill-in anchor. Katrina was recently crowned Miss Cambridge 2022. In 2021 she placed top 10 at Miss Massachusetts. Katrina graduated from American University with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism with a minor in sociology.
Originally from Boston, MA, Katrina’s passion for local journalism began while watching her father produce and host his own television show for community media. She believes that there’s always a story to tell and people stories that need to be heard.
During the pandemic, Katrina started an Instagram live series highlighting the stories of diverse women who are breaking b
Katrina is an award-winning reporter who reports and produces stories in a wide range of topics. She currently works at WBZ/CBS Boston in Boston, MA. She previously worked at 22News in Springfield as a reporter and fill-in anchor. Katrina was recently crowned Miss Cambridge 2022. In 2021 she placed top 10 at Miss Massachusetts. Katrina graduated from American University with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism with a minor in sociology.
Originally from Boston, MA, Katrina’s passion for local journalism began while watching her father produce and host his own television show for community media. She believes that there’s always a story to tell and people stories that need to be heard.
During the pandemic, Katrina started an Instagram live series highlighting the stories of diverse women who are breaking barriers in their field or making a change in their community and on mental health.
Hosted By
Co-hosted with: Student Government Association (SGA)
Contact the organizers