This professional development workshop will focus on enhancing faculty and staff's ability to recognize, address, and resolve racially stressful encounters, using frameworks from Dr. Howard C. Stevenson's work on racial literacy and racial stress reduction. The workshop will provide tools for navigating “Elephant in the Room” scenarios, where sensitive racial issues may be unaddressed, and the discussion will explore how these strategies align with the development of an Institutional Anti-Racism Action Plan (IARAP).

Dr. Deborah J. Johnson

Dr. Deborah J. Johnson's research explores racially and culturally related development, parental racial socialization and coping, cultural adjustment from early childhood through emerging adulthood, in both domestic and international children and youth.  Current work focuses on the influence of early bias preparation and coping at the intersection of gender and race among African American and Latina College women, and the impact on their well-being and school performance. Additionally, she studies cultural adjustment and identity development among unaccompanied Sudanese refugee minors and majors, and in international settings with Indigenous Australian youth and, core collaboration on Roma youth in Europe. She is also Director of the Diversity Research Network, a faculty serving entity under the auspices of MSU’s Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives.