This year’s theme is “dis/connecting to reconnect – everyday rest, refusal, resistances.”
Launched in 1998, CDOR was inspired by President Bill Clinton’s Initiative on Race, which encouraged communities and universities nationwide to create safe spaces for dialogue on race and equity. The week-long series of events invites the campus and local community to engage in dialogue, reflection, and collective action. CDOR continues to serve as a space of learning, healing, and transformation, affirming cultural identities, uplifting historically marginalized voices, and fostering care-centered connection.
“This year’s theme is both a call to action and a call to pause,” says Frank Herrera, coordinator for the Social Justice, Equity, & Inclusion Center, which co-sponsors the event along with other campus partners. “It invites us to critically examine the systems and rhythms that shape our lives, and to create space for restoration, healing, and reconnection. Through reflection and community dialogue, CDOR encourages us to build healthier, more just communities grounded in care and purpose.”
This year’s CDOR will feature a dynamic lineup of keynote speakers whose work embodies the 2025 theme, dis/connecting to reconnect – everyday rest, refusal, resistances. Each speaker brings a unique perspective on healing, liberation, and reimagining community through their creative and scholarly work.
Robyn Magalit Rodriguez will present “Dis/connecting Asian/America: Reflections on Loss, Land and Liberation” in the Goodwin Forum (Nelson Hall East 102). A former professor and chair of Asian American Studies at UC Davis and founding director of the Bulosan Center for Filipinx Studies, Dr. Rodriguez left academia to become a regenerative farmer at Remagination Farm on Eastern Pomo/Lake Miwok land in Lake County. Her talk reflects on that journey, shaped by the loss of her son, Amado Khaya, and inspired by his work with climate-impacted Indigenous communities in the Philippines. Through deeply personal reflections, Dr. Rodriguez juxtaposes the “model minority” myth and techno-Orientalist tropes with stories of “unsettlement” and renewal among Asian Americans, offering an inspiring vision of reconnection rooted in land, community, and joy.
The week will also feature adrienne maree brown, whose transformative ideas have shaped social movements around the world. In her virtual keynote at Johns Great Hall, brown—author of Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, and Loving Corrections—will share insights drawn from decades of movement facilitation, science fiction scholarship, and doula work. A singer-songwriter, podcast host, and New York Times–bestselling author, brown’s work centers on collective care, imagination, and growth. Her presence invites the community to engage deeply with practices of rest, resistance, and radical transformation.
In “In the Horizon of Humanity: Trans/Queer/Crip Ecopoetics at the Tipping Point,” micha cárdenas, PhD, MFA, will deliver a virtual keynote streamed live from the College Creek Great Hall. An artist, author, and Professor of Critical Race & Ethnic Studies at UC Santa Cruz, cárdenas is known for blending art, theory, and activism to imagine trans and climate-just futures. Her acclaimed works include Poetic Operations: Trans of Color Art in Digital Media and the novel Atoms Never Touch, which explores trans Latina love across multiple quantum realities. Currently directing the Critical Realities Studio, she continues to create and write about the intersections of technology, ecology, and liberation.
This year’s theme emphasizes core ideas that encourage stepping back from the stress and urgency that often dominate daily life. It advocates for reclaiming intentionality in living and relationships while recognizing disconnection as resistance to toxic productivity and hustle culture.
The goal of CDOR 2025 is to create a space for reflection and reimagining the future, rebuilding healthier communities founded on care, purpose, and rest. True transformation begins when individuals disconnect from what harms them and reconnect with what heals.
CDOR 2025 is sponsored by the Department of Critical Agriculture Studies & Agroecology, the Office of Enrollment Management Dean of Students, Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, California State University Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Student Achievement Program, Earthseed Labs, the Social Justice, Equity & Inclusion Center, Department of Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Department of English, the Indian Tribal & Educational Personnel Program (ITEPP), and Equity Arcata.
For more information—including a calendar of events, and workshop details—visit humboldt.edu/campus-dialogue-on-race.