DEI Symposium Series - Concluding 2025 and Looking Ahead to 2026

This episode closes a podcast series from the DEI symposium at NCDA’s 2025 Conference in Atlanta. Dr. Cheryl Love, who highlights the NCDA Diversity Initiatives and Cultural Inclusion Committee (DICI), encourages listeners to access symposium workshops via the podcast, and invites participation amid efforts to minimize DEI work. Dr. Natasha Barnes-Gwynn, DICI co-chair, previews the fourth annual DEI symposium in Minneapolis, including content on ethics, multicultural competence, supervision, working with diverse populations, a State of the Union, and mentoring. She describes DICI’s subcommittees, resources, publications, a new group for new professionals and students, a membership meeting, and a reception. Dr. Frank Gorritz FitzSimons issues a call to action to join DICI for support, impact, and community.

Dr. Cheryl Love is a Career Counselor and a College Specialist for the Arts, Humanities, School of Education and School of Public Policy in the Career Center at the University of California, Riverside. In this role she also serves as the Liaison to the African Student Programs, the Black Student Success Initiative, Basic Needs, UCR Transfer Work Group, and the Kessler Scholar Program.

Dr. Natasha Barnes-Gwynn, CCC, NCC, FCD-I is a Clinical Professor at Southern New Hampshire University. She also serves as a career consultant through her private practice, Increasing Our Understanding (I.O.U.) Consultation, LLC. Dr. Barnes-Gwynn is a newly appointed board member for the Council of Accreditation and Related Educational Programs.

Dr. Frank Gorritz FitzSimons, LPC, is a counselor educator in Florida. He is a nationally recognized scholar and counselor educator on topics including providing affirmative counseling care to queer and transgender communities of color, providing multicultural supervision, utilizing diverse approaches to counseling work, as well as addressing and disrupting white supremacy in counselor education. 

Resources:

• NCDA Committees
• NCDA 2026 Global Career Development Conference - Minneapolis

Transcript

Career Practitioner Conversations

National Career Development Association

DEI Symposium – Concluding the 2025 Series and Looking Ahead to 2026

April 7, 2026

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Melissa Venable, NCDA, director of Professional Development, and this episode concludes a series of episodes that originated at the DEI symposium held at NC DA's 2025 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. It is my pleasure once again to introduce Dr. Cheryl Love, who will lead this conversation.

Thank you, Dr. Love, for being here. Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Venable. And  I just wanna say  welcome to all who are going to hear this closing ceremony. I'm Dr. Cheryl Love. I am a proud member of the Diversity Initiative and Cultural Inclusion Committee for NCDA. DICI is making Magic happen and that's including this amazing, amazing symposium.

 Podcast series. This is the second series from our amazing DEI symposium that is taking place  at the conference once again. We are now going into year four and  in Minneapolis is going to be a good time. So mark your calendar, save your pennies, and make sure you show up to, um, the DEI symposium.

Fourth annual, and there's going to be some amazing content around DEI throughout the entire conference, including a state of the union talking about what's going on in our world and as it relates to DEI. The work we do as career service professionals. So it promises to be an amazing time in Minneapolis.

I hope to see you there and again, the DICI committee we're doing amazing things  around diversity, equity, and inclusion, and I am just so proud to be a part of it as the training. Subcommittee co-chair, uh, with my  partner, Dr. Frank Gorritz, and you're gonna get to hear from him in a moment, but just want you to know there's lots of opportunities to be involved.

And if nothing else, to listen to the rich content that we have put forth in the second DEI Symposium podcast series. So if you weren't in Atlanta. You can listen to all of the workshops that took place through the podcast series, so we are really hoping that you take advantage of that. But we also want you to learn a little bit more about what we do, DICI, and how we continue to support and uplift NCDA members as they continue to do the most critical work around diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Because there's lots of stuff happening in our world trying to erase  take down  minimize the work that. Folks are doing around diversity, equity, inclusion, and so I'm just so glad that we are continuing to uplift and support our members in a variety of ways. And with that said, I'm going to turn it over to Dr.

Natasha Barnes Gwynn, our fearless co-chair of DICI for NCDA, so she can say a little bit more. Dr. Barnes Gwynn tell us. We need to know. Thank you, Dr. Love. So I, as Dr. Love said, I'm Dr. Natasha Barnes Gwynn, and I am one of the co-chairs for the DICI committee.  My other co-chair , Ruben Britt is not here with us today, but, uh, he's here with us in spirit and he has such a passion for the work that we do.

, And both of us are excited to be. Hosting the fourth annual DEI symposium, uh, some things that you all can expect to hear and see from this symposium. Uh, we wanna bring some discussion of ethics in because we know that many people, uh, need an understanding of how to. Ethically approach some of the situations that we are dealing with currently.

So we're gonna talk about ethics and multicultural competence. We're gonna also talk about supervision and what that looks like in this space and time because we know that what supervision looked like 10 years ago. It doesn't look like that now. It can't look like that now because the world is totally different.

Um, and we are experiencing some unconventional times. So we've gotta make the shift. So that's one of the things that you'll also be able to get information about and we'll be  just talking about different groups and populations that people are working with, that they may need some insight and some creative ways of working with these populations.

 Dr. Love mentioned our, . State of the Union and this year we are hoping to bring some information forward as it relates to mentoring and how mentoring can be beneficial during these times as we are working, trying to combat many of the things that are coming against us from A DEI perspective. So we're gonna have a great symposium.

We are very excited  as we are. Getting everything outlined, and we are looking so forward to bringing this to you all and giving you all a great product as we have done every year. Now, to give you just a little bit of information about the DICI committee before I pass this off to Dr. Frank Gorritz Fitzsimmons,  the DICI committee is comprised of  individuals that enjoy this work. We understand that it's tireless work  but it's also fearless work and it's wonderful work. And so we  pull together professionals that are engaged in the work in the field in many different areas. And we have subcommittees that put out information through online resources, through publications, and also through this wonderful DEI symposium.

We have recently started a new committee that focuses on new professionals and students. So we welcome all new professionals, old professional students, those who may want to be students. Um, we welcome all to not only come to this symposium, but to join our committee. We'll have a membership meeting. At the conference this year.

So more information will be sent out about that so that you all can join us for the membership meeting. And we have recently started having a D-I-C-I reception. Um, and so we are hoping to have that again this year. , So join us. In the fight. Join us at the symposium and join us on the committee, uh, Dr. Gorritz Fitzsimmons. I'll turn it over to you now. 

Thank you so much. , I'm a, you know, I think it's a big honor, you know, that I've been able to co-chair our diversity initiatives and cultural inclusion committee, uh, for the past couple of years, I think now.  I think we've done such amazing work around promoting awareness, but most importantly, promoting inclusion.

And so I want this to be a call to action for all of you who are listening, that if you're tired of what's going on, come join us. If you need support, come join us. If you wanna have some fun, join us. If you're able to meet just once a month, just join us. So with that, I mean. There's room for everybody here, and the more voices that we have together, the more that our chorus can carry.

Think about your favorite song that has the best chorus. That could be us right now if you join our committee. , So I hope that gives you some food for thought, and I hope that inspires you in a world that is gonna continue to change. Let's ride the waves and make the change happen in the other direction.

Love it. Love it. Thank you Dr. Gores again.  My partner in co-chairing the training subcommittee for the Diversity and Initiatives and Cultural Inclusion Committee. And then also thank you, Dr. Barnes Gwynn, for your fearless. Leadership for with the DICI committee, as you can see the DICI committee, we are doing things.

It's a movement. And so if you want to be part of the movement to really make sure that diversity, equity, and inclusion, that we can continue the critical, critical work regardless of what folks are doing in different places and spaces to try to shut DEI down. Be part of the movement. And so whether you're listening to the first two years of the DEI Symposium podcast series, so you can see the kind of critical work we're doing, whether you join the DICI committee, even if you can't come to every meeting.

Join so you can, , be a part of one of the subcommittees making a difference. We've got something for everyone as Dr. Barnes Gwynn mentioned, and then of course, we hope to see you in Minneapolis and taking part of the DEI symposium, at least parts of it. If you can't come to all of it, we understand there's lots of content to choose from, .  and we hope you will be part of this movement because diversity, equity, inclusion is here to stay. And so we want you to. Be allowed course with us as we continue to make sure that our students, our clients, not just survive, but thrive.

So we'll see you in Minneapolis. Take care.