Activities and Events
CDJR activities and events support our mission through community building, advocacy, scholarship, and inclusive teaching. You can view and subscribe to our event calendar here.
Join us March 17-20, 2025 for Disability Justice Week!
All events are free and open to the community!
Please consider making a donation in any amount to help us continue offering events like this!
Monday, March 17 – Kick-Off Book Talk with Dr. Sunaura Taylor, author of Disabled Ecologies, from 2:00-3:30 pm in person in the South Student Union Multipurpose Room. Refreshments served. RSVP here. Thank you to all of the departments co-sponsoring this event: AGES (Anthropology, Geography, and Environmental Studies), Criminal Justice, Ethnic Studies, Human Development, Kinesiology, Public Health, and Social Work
Tuesday, March 18 - Disability Cultural Center Pop-Up - hybrid, all day, Core Building. Thank you to the Disability Justice Working Group for leading this event!
Wednesday, March 19 – Virtual Panel on Racial Justice, Human-Centered Design, and Disability Justice, 5:00-6:30 pm in zoom. Register here to get the zoom link.
Thursday, March 20 – Disability Justice Lightning Presentations & Happy Hour, 3:00-5:00 pm, Core Building Entrepreneurship Hub, 1st floor, room 179. Refreshments served! No RSVP needed.
Access a PDF version of the flyer above at this link.
Selected past events (scroll down for more information)
- CDJR Book Club/Collaborative Workshops in Spring 2023 and Spring 2024
- Celebration of the Anniversary of the ADA - July 27, 2023
- Accessibility and Inclusion Ideathon - February 25-March 18
- Tabling at Lovefest and the Centers and Institutes Celebration - February 17, 2023
- Disability Justice Proposal Brainstorming Session - December 5, 2022
- Universal Design for Learning Drop In Peer Support Office Hours - Fall 2022
- CDJR Kick Off Gathering - October 21, 2022
Past events: CDJR Book Club/Collaborative Workshop
CDJR, with support fromthe CSUEB Office of Faculty Development, offered two Book Club/Collaborative Workshops in Spring 2023 and Spring 2024.
Though most faculty understand that students with disabilities may receive accommodations, relatively few have had exposure to the principles of disability justice, an intersectional framework that goes far beyond accommodations. Disability justice calls on us to move towards collective liberation and envision “…a world in which every body and mind is known as beautiful.”
Books were provided to faculty by the Office of Faculty Development. Upon completion of the 4-week session participants received a $400 honorarium. Sarah Taylor (Social Work) and Sara McDaniel (Special Education) co-facilitated these workshops.
Spring 2024: Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life (Alice Wong, 2022)
This groundbreaking memoir offers a glimpse into a local activist's journey to finding and cultivating community and the continued fight for disability justice. The novel is 400 pages, composed of original essays, previously published work, conversations, graphics, photos, commissioned art by disabled and Asian American artists, and more. This workshop will assign readings for each collaborative meeting, and discussion will focus on applying Alice Wong’s teachings to our own instruction and activism.
SPRING 2023: Care work (Leah Laskshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018)
In their new collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award-winning writer and disability justice activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centers the lives and leadership of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people, with knowledge and gifts for all. Care Work is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled queer/people of color are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a toolkit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient communities of liberation where no one is left behind. Powerful and passionate, Care Work is a crucial and necessary call to arms.
Past event: Accessibility and Inclusion Ideathon
This year, as part of the Women in Leadership Forum, CDJR and the Smith Center collaborated on a joint initiative to bring awareness about the need for accessible, inclusive design and thinking in the workplace. Together, we ran an Accessibility and Inclusion Ideathon. Our first presenters, Executive Director Dr. Marina Vaserman and Transition Services Coordinator Mark Romoser from Open Mind School, lead an orientation on Feb 26th. Interdisciplinary teams then designed scalable solutions that organizations can implement to address barriers, increase access and promote inclusion for all in workplace settings. Learn more on the Women in Leadership page
A text-based version of the flyer image above is available here.
Past event: Info Tables at Lovefest and the Showcase of Centers and Institutes
CDJR team members shared information about our new center at two campus events on Friday, February 17. The first event was the Principal Investigators’
Image description: Collage photo with five images of the tabling events. From top left: 1. CDJR Governing Board Member Dr. Christina Chin-Newman and CDJR Co-Director Dr. Shubha Kashinath, standing and smiling near the information table; 2. CDJR table at Lovefest showing flyers and mini heart fidget poppers; 3. Inviting performance space at Lovefest with purple lights; 4. MSW Student Dorris Cheng, CDJR Co-Director Dr. Sarah Taylor, and CDJR Governing Board Member Professor Scott Hopkins at the table at Lovefest; 5. A pile of colorful mini heart fidget poppers with CDJR logo tags.
Past event: Disability Justice Proposal Brainstorming Session
Past event: Universal Design for Learning Office Hours
CDJR welcomed all faculty to come to our drop-in virtual Universal Design for Learning (UDL) peer support office hours! These office hours provided an informal opportunity for faculty to brainstorm ways to make their teaching more inclusive and accessible for all learners.Past Event: CDJR Kick Off Gathering
CDJR hosted a celebratory launch party on October 21, 2022. The event included performances by Axis Dance Company and the CSUEB Wandering Ensemble as well as speeches by the Center Co-Directors, CSUEB President Cathy Sandeen, Hayward City Council member and Mayor Pro Tem Sara Lamnin, community members, and CSUEB faculty, students, and alums. The event was part of the CSUEB Inclusive Performance Fest and coincided with Forever Pioneer Week.
Many thanks to everyone who contributed to or participated in this event, including Eric Kupers, Professor and Chair of Theatre and Dance; Haley Hayashi, Graduate Student Assistant; Travis Nelson, Director of Alumni Engagement; Bonnie Baskin, Master of Ceremonies; Axis Dance Company; The CSUEB Wandering Ensemble; and Center Co-Directors Shubha Kashinath and Sarah Taylor.
Image of the Wandering Ensemble performing at the Launch Party. Image shows eight dancers dressed in gold and white, some with arms raised above and others with arms outstretched. The dancers are diverse in many ways, including disability, age, gender, race, ethnicity, and more.
Image of Axis Dance Company performing at the Launch Party. Image shows five dancers dressed in black sme with their elbows out and hands on chest and others with the arms raised and bent at the elbows. The dancers are diverse in many ways, including disability, age, gender, race, ethnicity, and more.