Registration Open!
Registration Deadline August 18th
Location: UChicago’s Campus, Gordon Center for Integrative Science
General Attendees, Poster Presenters, and External Partners should all register using this form.
What is The Impact & Action Retreat?
Since the summer of 2021, the BSD Diversity Committee has hosted a biannual retreat to bring our division together in reflection and collective planning. These gatherings have served as important touchpoints for assessing how we are progressing toward a more inclusive academic community.
This year, we have renamed the event from the DEIJ Retreat to the Impact & Action Retreat to better reflect its purpose. Our goals remain clear: to maximize our collective impact on students, staff, faculty, and the communities we serve, and to plan strategic actions to advance our institutional mission.
The Schedule
The day will include three interactive workshops that offer actionable strategies for policy engagement, securing funding, and psychologically safe communication.
We are honored to feature a keynote lecture from Dr. John Schneider, Director of the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination, who exemplifies the BSD values of Commit to Excellence and Make a Difference
We are also excited to introduce a new session — the Inter-Institutional Strategy Exchange — designed to bring together peers across universities to share insights, discuss shared challenges, and spark new collaborations.
A poster session will highlight impactful work across our community since our last retreat in 2023, including student organizations, research, and community initiatives. If you lead a group or conduct related work, we invite you to submit an abstract as part of your registration.
Breakfast, Lunch, and Refreshments will be provided.
The 2025 Theme: Resilience Through Relationship Building
This year’s theme, Resilience Through Relationship Building, focuses on the power of community, creativity, and collective action to help us navigate increasingly complex academic and social landscapes.
Together, we will explore how we can build sustainable networks of support across roles and institutions, and how our research, teaching, and outreach can more fully reflect our values and respond to the realities of the communities we serve.
The Inter-Institutional Strategy Exchange
The Inter-Institutional Strategy Exchange is a new session designed to bring together mission-aligned scholars, professionals, and leaders from across programs, divisions, and universities throughout the Chicagoland area. Although many of our institutions are grappling with similar challenges, we rarely have opportunities to share insights and learn from one another across campuses.
This session is our first step toward building a small, solution-oriented think tank — a space for academic professionals to collaboratively address pressing issues and exchange best practices to advance a more inclusive and impactful healthcare and research ecosystem.
Over lunch, participants will gather at tables organized by discussion topic. Select the table most relevant to your interests and join a guided conversation with faculty, students, staff, and other attendees. Key ideas will be captured in digital notes, synthesized by the organizers, and shared back with participants to support continued collaboration.
The Strategy Exchange is also a chance to form new connections. We encourage you to invite colleagues from other institutions who would bring valuable perspectives to the conversation. Our academic community is broader than our day-to-day networks — now is the time to harness that collective wisdom.
Countdown to the 2025 Impact and Action Retreat.
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