Social Justice Week

All events are taking place at the Student Union (521 east Avenue N, La Crosse, WI 54601) on the 3rd floor and welcome to all! 

Care is a shared practice, shaped by many forms of connection and commitment. Social Justice Week 2026 calls us to engage in the work of community healing. Through hands-on service, dialogue, and collaboration, we will explore radical care as both a practice and a strategy for justice. This year’s theme asks us to support one another, address harm together, and grow connections between the campus and community. We will learn, step into action, and build community networks that meet real needs while addressing the past , on our campus and in the La Crosse area, while strengthening the ties that hold our communities together. 

Tuesday 

The Work That Works: Collective Care in Action
SJW2026 Keynote: Dr. Carolyn Colleen
Join us for the opening keynote of Social Justice Week 2026 as we explore this year’s theme, Community Healing & Collective Care. This keynote will invite participants to reflect on what it means to practice care as a shared responsibility and to engage justice work in ways that strengthen relationships across campus and community.

Through story, insight, and practical reflection, this session will challenge us to consider how we show up for one another, how we address harm, and how we build sustainable communities rooted in belonging and accountability.

More details about the keynote focus and speaker framing will be announced soon.

Wednesday 

Who Belongs Here? Homelessness, Care, and the Struggle Over Place
A Social Justice Week 2026 Featured Event with Terrence Wooten, PhD
Terrance Wooten is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Davidson College. His interdisciplinary research examines structural inequality through sites such as homelessness, law, and higher education. Rooted in Black queer and feminist scholarship, his work explores how institutions govern poverty, vulnerability, and displacement through racialized forms of social control. He is the author of Registered: Homelessness, Sex Offense, and Carceral Sexuality (forthcoming, University of California Press), and his scholarship has appeared in differences, Feminist Formations, The Black Scholar, QED, American Psychologist, and Kalfou.

Justice in Action: Connect with Local Nonprofits
A Social Justice Week 2026 Featured Event: Board Match and Volunteer Fair with Great Rivers United Way

Thursday 

Creating Joy Together: The Story and Vision of JoyRise Art
A Social Justice Week 2026 Featured Event

In this session, Dr. Mai Chao Duddeck shares the story behind JoyRise Art and the inspiration that led her to create a community-centered approach to healing through creativity. Drawing from her work as an artist, educator, and community builder, she explores how art can create space for connection, reflection, and collective care. Participants will learn how creative practices can help communities process experiences, build belonging, and celebrate growth together.

We Bloom Together: A JoyRise Art Experience, a Social Justice Week Feature Event. Registration is Required for this event you can do so with this link (Upcoming). It is limited to the first 30 folks who register. 

This hands-on JoyRise Art workshop invites participants into a creative space focused on reflection, healing, and connection. Through a guided prompt, participants will explore what it means to bloom individually while contributing to a shared community canvas. No artistic experience is required. This session is intentionally limited in size to create a welcoming environment for shared creativity and conversation.

Social Practice: A Conduit for Sanctuary Building with CK Ledesma

“Social Practice: A Conduit for Sanctuary Building” is a presentation and participatory workshop that examines how the arts function at the intersection of civic responsibility and public space as sites of community care and collective power. Grounded in social practice art, this session traces a brief history of artistic traditions rooted in resistance, highlighting how creative work has long served as a tool for organizing and social transformation. Participants will explore the role of the artist as a community organizer and through collaborative art-making this session emphasizes process over product, inviting participants to engage art as a relational practice for sustaining communities and envisioning more just futures.

Ck Ledesma Borrero is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and curator originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, now living and working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for nearly two decades. Their artwork is rooted in community engagement and social practice, using performance, sculpture, and multimedia to create experiences that expand the definition of art beyond the object and into the realm of dialogue and collective meaning. Ledesma Borrero currently serves as the City of Green Bay’s Public Arts Coordinator and contributes their leadership to the field as an adjunct professor for the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and through service on boards including Woodland Pattern Book Center and co-chair of Walker’s Point Center for the Arts. They are a 2025 40 Under 40 honoree, the 2022 Mildred L. Harpole Milwaukee Artist of the Year, and a 2020 Established Artist Mary L. Nohl Fellow. They have held artist residencies with Milwaukee’s Cesar Chavez Drive Business Improvement District and Milwaukee Public Library. Their work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Milwaukee Art Museum, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Haggerty Museum of Art, Racine Art Museum, and through the Museums Association of the Caribbean--and, most notably, within our communities.

Tuesday, April 7

Wednesday, April 8

Thursday, April 9