Agenda

A continental breakfast will be provided during check-in.  

• Jesse Scinto ('12 SPS) (emcee), Deputy Program Director and Lecturer, Strategic Communication
• Kristine Billmyer, Ph.D., Program Director, Strategic Communication; Professor of Professional Practice and Dean Emerita of the Faculty of Professional Studies

Noted sociologist Dana R. Fisher shows how social movements and mass mobilization give us the power to confront entrenched interests, cultivate resilience, and create meaningful change.

• Dana R. Fisher, Ph.D., Director, Center for Environment, Community, & Equity
  Professor, School of International Service, American University
  Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Coffee and tea will be provided during the break. 

Hear from ​digital media experts who have successfully built online audiences to ​advance urgent social and political causes. Discover the advantages and drawbacks of online organizing as well as the affordances that make rapid mobilization possible.

• Devo Probol (moderator, ’20SPS), Presidential Ph.D. Fellow, Fontaine Fellow, and Joint Doctoral Candidate in Communication and Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

• Jeremy Heimans, Co-founder and Chairman at Purpose; Co-author, New Power: How Anyone Can Persuade, Mobilize, and Succeed in Our Chaotic, Connected Age

• Taufiq Rahim, Curator and Principal, 2040 World; Senior Fellow, International Security Program, New America

• Gabriella Zutrau, Digital Strategy Advisor, MoveOn, Zohran for New York City

Lunch will be provided for all conference attendees. 

This panel explores the importance of framing and storytelling in engaging audiences and gaining media attention. What role does rhetoric play in social and political movements? How do we leverage cultural currencies? What kinds of narratives enable collective action?

• Andy Whitehouse (moderator), Lecturer, Strategic Communication

• Shanelle Matthews, Distinguished Lecturer, The City College of New York; Editor and co-author, Liberation Stories: Building Narrative Power for 21st-Century Social Movements

• Lee Carter, President and Partner, maslansky + partners; Author, Persuasion: Convincing Others When Facts Don’t Seem to Matter

Coffee and tea will be provided during the break. 

Learn about grassroots organizing and coalition-building from people who have done it.

Almost immediately following the inauguration of the Trump administration, a coordinated attack on the nonprofit sector was launched that started with efforts to cut off funding and accuse the sector of defrauding Americans. This session will unpack the crisis communications strategy that Andrea Hagelgans, partner at the strategic comms firm, Avoq, crafted with the National Council of Nonprofits to push back against this false and misleading narrative.

• Jason Cone, Chief Public Policy Officer, Robin Hood; Strategic Communication Advisory Board

• Jaclyn Rothenberg, Senior Vice President, Reputation Management, Avoq

Learn the fundamentals of grassroots organizing and how to mobilize your community to get out the vote. This interactive session covers building coalitions around shared purpose, crafting compelling stories that move people to action, and developing effective communication strategies across digital channels. You'll explore practical mobilization tactics—from email and SMS campaigns to phone banking and social media outreach. Whether you're a first-time volunteer or looking to sharpen your organizing skills, you'll leave with actionable tools to become an effective community organizer in your own neighborhood.

• DJ Koessler (’14SPS), Founder, Koessler Strategies; Capstone Advisor, Strategic Communication

This session explores how spiritual worldviews and values-based frameworks can catalyze meaningful social transformation. Drawing on real-world examples from philanthropy, movement-building, and faith-based organizing, it invites communicators to think beyond persuasion and consider how meaning, belonging, and moral imagination can strengthen trust, solidarity, and long-term impact across ideological spectrums. Attendees will leave with practical insights for integrating spiritual and ethical approaches into strategic communication and advocacy work aimed at lasting social change.

• Roberto Lara Aranda (’22SPS), Director of Communications, Global Outreach, Fetzer Institute; Lecturer, Strategic Communication

This session will provide an overview of the steps to form a union and engage in collective bargaining with an employer. Special attention will be given to the vital role communications plays in elevating workers’ voices and building power. The lessons from this session will be applicable to other contexts where a group of people seek change through collective action.

• Zoe Carey, Servicing Representative, Higher Education Department, UAW

Coffee and tea will be provided during the break. 

Explore creative approaches to consciousness-raising, group solidarity, and self-expression.

There is a countless and endlessly growing number of collective action problems. This is the nature of life. In addressing these types of problems, modern, diverse democracies must continuously negotiate fundamentally different moral and political belief systems. Public spheres and counterpublics are perhaps the most important mechanisms for the discourse and conversation that complex communities need for these negotiations. “Community” and “communication” share a linguistic root, and this workshop explores ways in which human social and psychological mechanisms can and should interact with technology and media to bring us closer together.

• Eric Chen, Ph.D., Director, Media and Community Lab, Columbia Journalism School

Directors and actors share the way this rapid response performance technique is raising money for non-profits and building community through performing verbatim stories recorded with US immigrants.

• Scott Illingworth, Associate Arts Professor, New York University

• Dela Meskienyar, Producer, The Verbatim Salon

• Raquel Chavez, Producer, The Verbatim Salon

A hands-on workshop where participants will learn about the history of political graphics while producing new posters out of elements of political posters of the past.

• Josh MacPhee, Founder, Justseeds Artists' Cooperative and Interference Archive; Author, Graphic Liberation

The book Design Social Change was born out of applying the action research method, Critical Utopian Action Research (CUAR). In this workshop, participants will learn to apply fundamental principles of the book Design Social Change and Noel's version of the CUAR method to societal gaps.  

• Lesley-Ann Noel, Ph.D., Dean, Faculty of Design, OCAD University; Author, Design Social Change

Coffee and tea will be provided during the break. 

Strategic Communication students have 5 minutes to make an appeal for a social cause, community initiative, or membership organization they care about.

• Skye Cleary, Ph.D. (emcee), Lecturer, Strategic Communication

• Katherine Ma (’26SPS)

• Anthony Jeanmarie IV (’26SPS)

• Keyao (Bella) Du (’27SPS)

• Vedika Vinaik (’27SPS)

• Frisca Christabella (’27SPS)

• Troy Blackwell Jr. (’27SPS)

• Christelle El-Drouby (’27SPS)

Attendees are invited to join the networking cocktail reception.