The Presidential Taskforce for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is sponsoring a four-session workshop series that promotes deeper understanding about how whiteness gets centered as the cultural norm in higher education. These collegewide sessions will utilize storytelling and other methods to examine anti-racist work on personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural levels focusing on pathways for reflection, action, and institutional change. The workshop series is shaped around the forementioned levels of anti-racist work and as a reflection of SUNY Empire’s mission statement. <br> <br>Description of Session 1 <br>Our first session will introduce a framework and key concepts for this four-part series on de-centering whiteness as anti-racist work in the university. The presenter will lead attendees in identifying their own intersectional identity through self-reflection and small-group discussion. He will also introduce the concepts of embodied racial trauma and healing, using visual art to examine these themes. We will explore multiple levels of learning and action for anti-racist work and begin to define whiteness and white supremacy at each level. <br> <br>The speaker for the series is Michael Klein Ed.D., associate professor of justice and peace studies, University of St. Thomas.