Hi everyone!
Tiffin and I are pleased to announce that we have secured Melissa Harris, Deputy Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for GLAAD to join us for a moderated session on Thursday, December 8th (North America)!
Melissa is a dynamic speaker, an experienced non-profit leader, and a champion for LGBTQIA+ issues on the national and international scene.
During this moderated session, Melissa would like to speak about LGBTQIA+ focused legislation, including the Respect for Marriage Act and Equality Act, as well as update us on her discussions with Senator Chuck Schumer on the future of LGBTQIA+ legislation. She will also speak about next steps on the national scene to cultivate belonging and inclusion in the workplace. Lastly, she has agreed to a Q&A at the end of the session, should we have time.
We will be working with Tessitura's DEAI committee to put together some questions for her, but we would also love to hear what kind of questions you might have. Please add yours to the discussion for this event below, and invite your friends and colleagues to join us. We want to make this event a success, and have a good turnout so that we can hope to have additional guests like Melissa in the future.
For more information about Melissa, GLAAD, or the great work they do for our community, please check out glaad.org.
For full event details and to register, please visit: https://community.tessituranetwork.com/affinity-tessitura-community-groups/tessitura-lgbtq/c/e/1114
To suggest a future event or topic, please message or email Jordan Edwards (jedwards@kera.org) or Tiffin Feltner (tfeltner@waltonartscenter.org). We would love to hear from you!
In case you missed it - Tessitura Network has published a statement regarding TLCC 2023 as well as a page to house their Inclusivity Plan to allow us transparency into their process and plans. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to contact Jordan, Tiffin, or DEAI@Tessituranetwork.org.
Please let us know what questions you have for Melissa! Sound off in the comments, and please also let us know what you are most excited about for this event. We hope to see you there!
This is such an exciting speaker, I am looking forward to hearing her. If she has already been told about some of the concerns around TLCC 2023, I would love to hear her perspective or advice for making it as inclusive and safe as possible. Personally, this decision has been and continues to be a tumultuous one for me and any advice or guidance on how to move forward would be appreciated.
That is an excellent idea. We had planned on making sure she was aware of everything going on around TLCC 2023, so we will be sure to ask her to prepare to respond to this. Thanks Ragan!