Social Justice Week

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." – John A. Shedd

Social Justice Week 2025 is an opportunity to explore, challenge, and act—to map out new possibilities for creating a more inclusive and equitable future. As UW-La Crosse undergoes transformation with new leadership and strategic planning, this year’s Social Justice Week will reflect the university’s core mission of fostering equity and inclusive excellence while engaging in critical conversations about belonging, action, and change.

"Navigating New Horizons: Mapping Future Action" | UWL’s Social Justice Week set for April 1-3, 2025 | UW-La Crosse will celebrate its ninth annual Social Justice Week with the theme "Navigating New Horizons: Mapping Future Action."

The celebration will feature workshops, speaker series, and processing spaces designed to foster dialogue, learning, and collective action. Faculty, staff, and students will share research and lived experiences, exploring how systemic change can be achieved through collaboration, innovation, and a commitment to social justice.

Grounded in the Wisconsin Idea and UWL’s mission, vision, and values, Social Justice Week 2025 will connect campus and community members to critically examine the ways we navigate, shape, and reimagine the future of belonging, equity, and justice at UWL and beyond. This week-long event will challenge participants to build strategies for real impact, ensuring that UWL remains a place of opportunity, expression, and shared progress for all.

This year’s keynote speakers are: 

• Tuesday | Henry Greengrass, a citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation, is the Center Director for the Ho-Chunk Nation Youth Services Division at Nį Tąnį Hocira (Three Rivers House) in La Crosse. With over 15 years in the area, he is a dedicated advocate for Indigenous representation, history, and community building. He plays a key role in organizing events like the La Crosse MMIW 5K and Indigenous People’s Day Celebration and has contributed to the Dark La Crosse Stories podcast. His couch conversation at Social Justice Week 2025 will explore Indigenous resilience, storytelling, and ways to foster a more inclusive and educated community.
• Wednesday | Amanda Florence Garcia Goodenough (she/her), is a dedicated educator operating from a cultural humility framework to center and elevate historically marginalized voices, promote belongingness and mattering, disrupt structural inequities, and advance intersectional social and racial justice. A practitioner leaning on 20 years of professional experience in justice, equity, decolonization, and interconnectedness efforts, and decades of critically-examined lived experience as a Black and Mexican multiracial woman of the global majority, Amanda engages in systems-change work and strives to speak truth to power as an act of love and liberation. She is the Founder and LEO of Goodenough Consulting and previously worked in higher education for 17 years, where she served as the Director of the Research & Resource Center for Campus Climate (now Center for Civil Dialogue & Civic Engagement) at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
• Thursday | Yevgeniy Fiks(b. 1972) is a Moscow-born New York-based artist, author, and organizer of art exhibitions. Yevgeniy has produced many projects on the subject of the Post-Soviet dialog in the West. Fiks’ work has been shown internationally. This includes exhibitions in the United States at Winkleman and Postmasters galleries (both in New York) Mass MoCA, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and Marat Guelman Gallery in Moscow; Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros in Mexico City, and the Museu Colecção Berardo in Lisbon. His work has been included in the Biennale of Sydney (2008), Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2011), and Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art (2015). Fiks’ books include Moscow (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2013), Soviet Moscow’s Yiddish-Gay Dictionary (Cicada Press, 2016), and Mother Tongue (Pleshka Presse, 2018).

Faculty are encouraged to bring their classes to one of their sessions.
The event is free and open to the community, although guests are asked to register. 

UWL’s Social Justice Week is proudly sponsored by the College of Business Administration, College of Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities, School of Education, College of Science & Health, Center for Civil Dialogue & Civic Engagement, and the Office of Multicultural Student Services.

If you or your organization are interested in becoming a sponsor, please reach out to Transformative@uwlax.edu for more information.

Register for the event here!

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