Jackson Katz, Ph.D., is an educator, author, filmmaker and cultural theorist who is internationally renowned for his pioneering scholarship and activism on issues of gender, race and violence. He has long been a major figure and thought leader in the growing global movement of men working to promote gender equality and prevent gender violence.

He is co-founder of Mentors in Violence Prevention, one of the longest-running and most widely influential gender violence prevention programs in North America, and the first major program of its kind in the sports culture and the military. In the 1990s, MVP introduced the “bystander” approach to the sexual assault and relationship abuse fields; Katz is a key architect of this broadly popular strategy. He has presented at over 2700 colleges and
universities, prep schools, high schools, professional conferences and military installations in 49 states, eight Canadian provinces, and on six continents, including multiple countries in Europe and Asia.

Selenis Leyva is one of the breakout stars of NETFLIX’s hit series “Orange Is The New Black,” which won the 2015 coveted Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble Cast in a Comedy Series. Leyva reprises her role as series regular and fan favorite Gloria Mendoza in Season 4 of OITNB and also made history as the first Latina Senator on HBO’s Emmy-winning series, “Veep,” starring opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Leyva recently wrapped production in the highly anticipated feature film “CUSTODY”, starring opposite Catalina Sandino Moreno, Viola Davis, and Raul Esparza with James Lapine directing.

Born and raised in New York City, Leyva is a proud Latina of Cuban and Dominican descent. In addition to being the first Hispanic Ambassador for the Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research (her brother is a 2x cancer survivor), Leyva is also the recipient of the 2015 HOLA “Jose Ferrer Tespis Award”, 2015 Cosmo For Latina’s Women of the Year Award”, and she was honored at the 2014 ALMA Awards with a “Special Achievement Award” for breaking barriers in the arts. She is also an advocate for LGBTQ rights and works closely with LGBTQ Human Rights Organizations and Anti-Bullying Campaigns.

This is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever, seen through the eyes of a 20 year old college student, Bernard Lafayette. From May until November, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment – for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow Laws, the Freedom Riders met bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.
Dr, Lafayette, Jr. co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960 with his college roommate, Rep. John Lewis, and was a core leader of the civil rights movement in Nashville, TN, and in Selma, AL, in 1965. As part of the May 17th Nashville Student Movement Ride, Lafayette endured jail time in Birmingham, riots and fire bombings in Montgomery, AL, and arrest in Jackson, MS, and jail time at Parchman State Prison Farm during June 1961. He directed the Alabama Voter Registration Project in 1962. He was appointed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to be National Program Administrator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and National Coordinator of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign.

Master language creator David J. Peterson offers a captivating overview of language creation, covering its history from Tolkien’s creations and Klingon to today’s thriving global community of conlangers. He presents the essential tools necessary for inventing and evolving new languages, using examples from a variety of languages including his creations, punctuated with references to everything from Star Wars to Michael Jackson.

Along the way, behind-the-scenes stories lift the curtain on how he built languages like Dothraki and Valyrian for HBO’s Game of Thrones and Shivaisith for Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World. His presentation is an inside look at a fascinating culture and an engaging entry into a flourishing art form-and it might be the most fun you’ll ever have with linguistics.

Savage is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington correspondent for the New York Times. Originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, Savage graduated from Harvard College and earned a master’s degree from Yale Law School as part of a Knight Foundation journalism fellowship.

He has been covering post-9/11 issues-including national security, individual rights and the rule of law-since 2003, when he was a reporter for the Miami Herald. Later that year, he joined the Washington bureau of the Boston Globe; he then moved to the Washington bureau of the New York Times in 2008. He has also co-taught a seminar on national security and the Constitution at Georgetown University’s political science department.

His first book, Takeover, chronicles the Bush-Cheney administration’s efforts to expand presidential power. His second book, Power Wars, is an investigative history of national- security legal policy during the Obama administration.

On February 26, 2012, unarmed Black teenager Trayvon Martin, was shot and killed by a neighborhood watchman in Stanford, Florida simply because he “looked suspicious.”

Barry is a co-founder and Executive Director of Million Hoodies Movement for Justice. Million Hoodies Movement for Justice formed in response to the media’s failure to adequately report on the events leading to Trayvon’s death.

The organization is committed to building a democracy where all Black and Brown People have social, political, and economic freedom. They are developing the next generation of human rights leaders to end racism and systemic violence.

In a time where we’re witnessing targeted attacks on the most vulnerable communities, Dante Barry, focuses on how young people of color are rising to the occasion to protect and defend the most marginalized and withstand the attacks on our humanity. His work has been featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, MSNBC, NPR, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ebony Magazine, and the Root.

Osita Nwanevu is a Political Staff Writer at SLATE Magazine. His writing has also appeared in Harper’s, the Chicago Reader, In These Times, and Mic. He is the former editor in chief of Chicago alt-weekly the South Side Weekly and a graduate of the University of Chicago.

Join Nwanevu for a balanced, sensationalism-free exploration of campus politics today. He’ll take a critical look at the college controversies that have captured the nation’s attention and examine the arguments being leveled by social justice activists and their critics.