Faculty and students from UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School participate in the 2009 National Multicultural Conference and Summit

Faculty and students from UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School will participate in the 2009 National Multicultural Conference and Summit (NMCS), which takes place January 15-16, 2009 in New Orleans. Tania Israel of the Gevirtz School’s Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology is Lead Coordinator for NMCS. This is the 10 year anniversary of the bi-annual conference, and the theme will be “Advancing Our Communities: The Role of Social Justice in Multicultural Psychology.”

Gevirtz School participants include Professor Manny Casas, who will chair the round-table symposium “Immigration: An Integrative Path Towards Knowledge, Action and Justice,” which will feature Assistant Professor Melissa Morgan as a speaker; Professor Collie Conoley will present the poster “Evaluating Counseling Techniques in Cross Cultural Counseling with Mexican Americans;” and graduate students Yen-Jui (Ray) Lin will present the poster “Psychological Sense of Community among LGBT individuals in Santa Barbara,” Michael N. Rogers will present “Perceptions of LGBT Community Strengths, Challenges, and Important Issues: Results from a CBPR Developed Community Survey,” and Sholeh I. Mireshghi (with Tania Israel) will present “An Underrepresented Population: The Case of Iranian Immigrants.”

NMCS is co-hosted by four divisions of the American Psychological Association (Division 17, Society of Counseling Psychology, Division 35, Society for the Psychology of Women, Division 44, Society for the Psychology Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues , and Division 45, Society for the Psychology Study of Ethnic Minority Issues) thus deals with a broad range of diversity issues.

The mission of the National Multicultural Conference and Summit is to convene students, practitioners, and scholars in psychology and related fields to inform and inspire multicultural theory, research, and practice. We envision multiculturalism as inclusive of experiences related to ethnicity/race, sexual orientation, gender, physical ability, social class, age, and other social identities. The objective of the 2009 NMCS is to promote social justice and psychological wellbeing for historically marginalized communities, as well as to explore links and tensions between social justice and multicultural psychology. To this end, participants will exchange knowledge, engage in dialogue, develop skills, and honor the wisdom within our fields and cultures.

“Since the first NMCS in 1999, the Summit has been a unique opportunity for learning, skills-building, dialogue, and celebration in multicultural psychology,” Tania Israel says. “I’m thrilled that the 2009 NMCS will be in New Orleans, where we can put social justice principles into action through community service.”

[Tania Israel is available for interviews; contact George Yatchisin at 805 893 5789]
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Faculty and students from UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School participate in the 2009 National Multicultural Conference and Summit