FIT Civility Initiative

Dubinsky Student Center, Room A734

Dr. Susan J. Breton, associate professor/development specialist, Enrollment Management and Student Success

Dr. Jay Choi, director, FIT Counseling Center

In today’s diverse world, the ability to engage in civil discourse with those we disagree with is critical. Join us during Civility Week as we explore effective communication strategies, active listening techniques, and conflict resolution skills. Led by two clinical psychologists, Dialogue Dynamics offers a safe and inclusive space to practice constructive dialogue and bridge divides.

Join our transformative workshop designed for students seeking to navigate challenging conversations with grace and respect. Don’t miss this opportunity to foster understanding, empathy, and meaningful connections. Embrace the art of respectful discourse. Stop by and embark on a journey of meaningful dialogue!

Register

John E. Reeves Great Hall

Elena Romero, professor, Marketing Communications

NEGRITA, the debut documentary film from director Magdalena Albizu, interrogates the cultural prejudice and presumptions surrounding the lives of Afro-Latina women in America. Albizu, a self-described negrita, explores an unconscious ideology of anti-Blackness in which both American and Latino cultures perpetuate a false narrative of Black as undesirable otherness. Through family pictures, childhood videos, and frank conversations with family members, scholars, and Latinas, NEGRITA uses the director’s own personal history to illuminate the larger tapestry of shared experiences throughout the Black and Latino community. Hand in hand with women from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Honduras, and Panama, Albizu and her subjects collectively confront their own Black identities, empowering themselves as Afro-Latinas.

This event is free and open to the public.

Katie Murphy Amphitheatre

Don Lemon, Journalist

Emil Wilbekin, Assistant Professor, Marketing Communications

In an unprecedented year of social upheaval and civil unrest, citizens around the country feel challenged by violence, xenophobia, bullying, and threats to our humanity and our democracy. This has been a lightning rod in the center of the 2024 election—and the heart of America. 

FIT invites Don Lemon, renowned journalist, to discuss the importance of civility while being a journalist of color during this intense and historic election cycle.

RSVP is required

Don Lemon

Don Lemon is host of The Don Lemon Show, which streams live daily on YouTube and podcast platforms. An outspoken truth-teller, Lemon brings three decades of award-winning journalism to the show, welcoming myriad guests and newsmakers to discuss the topics shaping lives and conversations, and offering his personal takes as well. Lemon anchored the long-running CNN primetime program Don Lemon Tonight as well as CNN This Morning, and was an anchor and correspondent at NBC, MSNBC, and local TV stations in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis. He has won distinguished awards for his work, including an Edward R. Murrow award, multiple Emmys, a Peabody, and others. He has also been honored for the social impact of his work: He was one of Ebony’s 150 most influential African Americans in 2009; was on The Advocate’s 2014 list of the 50 Most Influential LGBTQ People in Media; was recipient of a 2016 Native Son Award; was on Out’s 2017 Power 50 list; and in 2019, the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Queerty named him a Pride 50 LGBTQ trailblazer. Lemon revealed he was gay in his auto-biographical book, Transparent (2011); his second book, This is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism (2021), inspired by the murder of George Floyd, debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

 Lemon earned a BA in broadcast journalism from Brooklyn College. He and his husband live in New York City with their three dogs.

Emil Wilbekin

Emil Wilbekin is an associate professor of Journalism at the Fashion Institute of Technology and a multimedia maverick who contributes to The New York Times, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Vogue, The Cut, Architectural Digest, Time, Essence, Ebony, and Town & Country. He is the co-producer and co-writer of the documentary The Remix: Hip Hip X Fashion (Netflix).

He is also the founder of Native Son, a platform created to inspire and empower Black gay and queer men.

Wilbekin has served as chief content officer at Afropunk, editor-at-large at Essence, managing editor of Essence.com, editor-in-chief of Giant magazine and Giantmag.com, style guru at Complex media, VP of brand development at Marc Eckō Enterprises, editorial director/vice president of Vibe Ventures and editor-in-chief of Vibe magazine. Under Wilbekin’s leadership, Vibe won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2002.

He holds a B.S. in mass media arts from Hampton University and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University.

Gladys Marcus Library, MakerMinds Space, Sixth Floor, Room E620

Jenne Brady, library associate, Gladys Marcus Library

Rebecca Hoffman, counselor/assistant professor, Counseling Center

Come out in support of LGBTQ+ History Month and your First Amendment freedoms and sign up to make your voice count in the upcoming election. Featuring readings of banned books by performers Arteigh Fischel and Scarlet Foxx, with special guest Stonewall veteran Joe Negrelli. Students and members of Services and Advocacy for GLBTQ Elders (SAGE) will be on hand to help you register to vote. 

This event is sponsored by the FIT Library, along with the Counseling Center, Student Life, LGBTQ+ Student Alliance, Theatre Club, and SAGE.

Dubinsky Student Center, Room A734

Barbara Weinreich, Assistant Professor, Interior Design

Todd Brown, Assistant Professor, Social Sciences

Walls can separate us. Divide us. Prevent us from moving forward …because they block us. Words can separate us. Divide us. Prevent us from moving forward because they hold such emotional power. But what if we take the elements that build a divisive wall, and repurpose, reframe, reposition them? What if we take words that are negative, divisive, absolute and rephrase them … and build a bridge from that wall?

In this interactive exercise, we will physically “reframe the argument” and create a new, inclusive physical element. After our bridge is built, we will examine the word choices we made and the power of words to divide us or connect us. At the end of the session, we will share resources on conflict resolution, and on constructive dialogue strategies to carry into our everyday encounters.

Feldman Center, Robert Lagary Boardroom 

Daniel Levinson Wilk, professor, American History

Norman Hill is a legend of the Civil Rights Movement and a neighbor of FIT. A protégé of A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, Hill desegregated beaches in Chicago and restaurants along Route 40 between New York and Washington, D.C. He helped plan the March on Washington, where he stood on the stage with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Hill served for many years as president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, forging connections between the civil rights and labor movements and managing voter registration campaigns across the nation. Come learn from Hill about his lifetime of activism and his memoir, Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain, which he wrote with his wife and partner-in-activism, Velma Hill.