Virtual Cultural Health Conference

University of Minnesota President Joan Gabel invites community members, scholars, and students to explore what cultural health is and how we practice it, study it, and promote it.

From Cultural Mismatch to Cultural Health

Learn how to transform your organizations, institutions, and lives in ways that move away from cultural mismatch toward cultural health.

Date: Friday, March 31, 2023

Time: 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

This event is endorsed by the University of Minnesota’s President’s Initiative for Student Mental Health (PRISMH) and is supported by the College of Education and Human Development.

To request disability-related accommodations, please contact Doneila McIntosh jacks413@umn.edu by the registration deadline of March 22nd.

Learn more

Cultural mismatch: The clash between cultures of minoritized groups and the institutions that erase or devalue the cultural assets they bring. It is a form of epistemic injustice, in which minoritized ways-of-being are subjugated, hidden, and erased, while minoritized people are delegitimized as trustworthy knowledge-holders and reinscribed as “maladaptive,” “crazy,” or “superstitious.”

Cultural health: A source of pride and resilience stemming from one’s cultural background. When organizations focus on cultural health, they make space for cultural transmission of minoritized knowledges and practices, and reject dehumanizing narratives that frame the minoritized person as the “problem.” The ultimate goal: institutional change.

2023 Keynote speakers

BraVada Garrett-Akinsanya, PhD, LP is a licensed clinical psychologist with over 40 years of experience.

She has written, presented, and consulted extensively about diversity, developmental psychology, multiculturalism, severe psychopathology, childhood abuse, trauma, sexual assault, community/domestic violence and African-American mental health.

She believes everyone has a right to wellness and uses strategies that promote humor, hard work, experiential learning and resilience.

There is a saying: "You do not have to teach a cut how to heal, you just have to create the best environment for healing to take place." Using an African Centered Wellness Model, Dr. Garrett-Akinsanya’s goal is to create a loving space for healing to take place.

Karen Diver is the inaugural Senior Adviser to the President for Native American Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Ms. Diver served as a faculty member at the University of Minnesota, Duluth (UMD) and The College of St. Scholastica, where she supported Native American affairs in general while also teaching in the Masters of Tribal Administration and Governance Program. She was appointed by President Barack Obama to be the Special Assistant to the President on Native American Affairs issues, a job she held from November 2015 to January 2017. Prior to that she was Chairwoman of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. As Chairwoman she expanded the land base of the Fond du Lac Band, increased the workforce from 1,600 to 2,200, and led the investment of over $13 million in Duluth’s Center for American Indian Resources.

She earned her undergraduate degree in economics with a minor in communications from UMD, and a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.