Breakout Sessions – Please note that each breakout is offered at both breakout sessions.
Reflections in/on Place: A Practice for Honest Storytelling
Facilitators: Alyssa Melby (Svoboda Center for Civic Engagement) and Rehanna Kheshgi (Music)
Note: This session will begin a little before and end a little after the breakout session on the schedule and involve walking and standing. Details will be communicated about where to meet early for the breakout the day of. You will still be able to participate in two breakout sessions.
This experiential workshop will lead participants to four different places on the St. Olaf campus to examine the importance of deep reflection through different lenses to see, notice, and observe the stories that present themselves to us and to acknowledge those that remain hidden or inaccessible based on our unique life experiences. Participants will be invited to consider concepts of naturalization, vocation, critical community engagement, sustainability, and responsibility in this particular place and how those concepts might resonate on their home campus. Participants should bring a notebook and writing utensil, dress for the weather, and wear walking shoes!
The Challenges and Opportunities Of Honest Storytelling
Facilitator: TBD
Panelists: Jaden Janak (History), Martin Olague (Taylor Center for Equity and Inclusion), Nicole Yokum (Philosophy)
Description: Uncovering and telling stories that have not historically been told by institutions presents researchers and storytellers with opportunities to lift up new stories, and challenges in telling those stories. This panel discussion will explore both the opportunities and joys in telling untold and undertold stories as well as some of the challenges faced in finding and telling these stories. Panelists will look at the ways incomplete records, personal involvement, and unexpected results both make telling these stories exciting and challenging. This conversation will invite participants to think about the challenges they have faced or might face in telling honest stories so participants should come with questions and thoughts to share.
Telling Stories to Heal Generational Harms on College Campuses
Facilitators: Sara Pillatzki-Warzeha (Theater)
Description: Indigenous creators know that storytelling is our lifeblood; it carries our histories, our values, our sense of community, and our path to a good life. We also know that storytelling, with its deep cultural and human ties, can be a viable path forward for healing, repair, and restoration. In this session, Dakota theatre-maker and scholar Dr. Sara Pillatzki-Warzeha shares the ways storytelling has aided in her higher education journey, and offers practical and gentle means of storytelling that brings truth, healing, and joy to spaces that often reckon with challenging histories.
Modeling Authentic College Transition Narratives
Facilitators: Diane LeBLanc (English)
Long before they arrive, students consume the stories we tell about institutions and tell their own stories in admissions essays, surveys, and orientation questionnaires. What then happens when they arrive and begin to experience those stories in new ways? This session offers a model for helping first-year students explore purpose, identity, power, and privilege through authentic college transition narratives. Participants will engage with framing theory from Patrick Reyes’s “The Purpose Gap: Empowering Communities of Color to Find Meaning and Thrive” and with brief excerpts from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and Asao Inoue’s Above the Well. We will then experiment with honest storytelling prompts that invite reflection on our own purpose and pathways.