Creating Critical Community through Conversation

Throughout the semester, as Community Engagement Associates we have focused on creating community on campus through the American Indian Studies Program Office. We have facilitated this through the practice of radical hospitality by creating a welcoming environment on campus where all are welcome to come sit, enjoy coffee or tea, conversation, and the aroma of incense. We have created a salon-like environment where students are free to talk about pressing issues surrounding equity, identity, their classes, and personal lives. In doing so, a welcoming space on campus for students, especially students from marginalized and indigenous communities, has been realized.