Washburn University to Celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jan. 16 with Discussion on Community and Belonging

Topeka, Kan. – Washburn University invites the public to join the Washburn community as they remember and continue to explore the legacy of “community and belonging” inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The university will host a Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration 6 – 8 p.m. Jan. 16 in the Washburn Room in the Memorial Union on campus. This event will feature keynote speaker Amri Johnson and dessert will be served. The event is free, but registration is required at https://WashburnMLKCelebration.eventbrite.com

“Dr. King helped inspire the world to reimagine what ‘community and belonging’ really mean,” said Isaiah Bryant-Collier, director of student involvement and development, Washburn University. “We want to discuss the progress we've made and the journey we still have together to fully realize his vision.”

About Amri Johnson

For more than 20 years, Amri B. Johnson has been instrumental in helping organizations and their people create extraordinary business outcomes.

He is a social capitalist, epidemiologist, entrepreneur and inclusion strategist. Johnson's dialogic approach to engaging all people as leaders and change agents (previously at the research division of Novartis, as Global Head of Cultural Intelligence and Inclusion) has fostered the opening of minds and deepening of skillsets with organizational leaders and citizens enabling them to thrive and optimally contribute to one another and their respective organizations.

As CEO/Founder of Inclusion Wins, Johnson and a virtual collective of partners converge organizational purpose to create global impact with a lens of inclusion.

His theory of change is focused on building ‘Inclusion Systems.’ Inclusion systems provide direction and momentum in the complexity of organizations that allow them to be antifragile — leaning into and engaging with resistance, stressors, disruptions and disequilibrium - and being stronger as a result of such engagement.

His book, "Reconstructing Inclusion: Making DEI Accessible, Actionable, and Sustainable" outlines how organizations can create inclusion-normative cultures and build approaches to DEI that are designed for and with everyone, unambiguously prioritized, and purpose aligned.

Born in Topeka, Kan., Johnson has worked and lived in the U.S., Brazil and currently lives in Basel, Switzerland, with his wife Martina and their three children.

WUMester

WUmester is intended to foster a university-wide conversation on a topic related to social justice that will change each spring semester. The goal of the program is to engage the entire Washburn community in a cross-disciplinary learning experience on timely subjects and help students see the connections between the subjects they study in the classroom and real-world debates and problems.

In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the landmark 1954 United States Supreme Court decision “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,” WUmester 2024 will examine community and belonging from the perspectives of academic disciplines across campus and through a variety of co-curricular programming. It will consider how community and belonging contribute to our safety, well-being, and, ultimately, happiness and empowerment.

By dismantling the legal basis for segregation, “Brown v. Board” aimed to create a more inclusive society where all individuals could access the same opportunities and experiences. The case’s ruling emphasized that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal, implying that belonging and equal participation cannot be achieved if certain groups are excluded or isolated from mainstream institutions.

- 30 -