September Book Club - Friday: Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist
2025-09-19 12:30 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom Meeting
Join us for our September book club meeting on Friday 19th, at 12:30pm.
Authors: Judith Heumann and Kristen Joiner
From GoodReads:
One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy’s struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a “fire hazard” to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher’s license because of her paralysis, Judy’s actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people. Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann’s memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.

September Book Club - Tuesday: Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist
2025-09-23 19:00 - 20:00
Join us for our September book club meeting on Tuesday 23rd, at 7pm.
Authors: Judith Heumann and Kristen Joiner
From GoodReads:
One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy’s struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a “fire hazard” to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher’s license because of her paralysis, Judy’s actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people. Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann’s memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.

October Book Club - Friday: We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation
2025-10-17 12:30 - 13:30
Join us for our October book club meeting on Friday 17th, at 12:30pm.
Author: Eric Garcia
From GoodReads:
Autistic person and journalist Eric Garcia brings an insider’s perspective and a reporter’s eye to show that autism is a vital part of his community’s humanity, not a disease that needs to be cured.

October Book Club - Tuesday: We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation
2025-10-21 19:00 - 20:00
Join us for our October book club meeting on Tuesday 21st, at 7pm.
Author: Eric Garcia
From GoodReads:
Autistic person and journalist Eric Garcia brings an insider’s perspective and a reporter’s eye to show that autism is a vital part of his community’s humanity, not a disease that needs to be cured.

SNAP-Ed: A Vital Investment in Illinois Families and Communities
2025-11-11 19:00 - 20:00
Join us on November 11th at 7:00 pm via Zoom for this month’s Ideas Forum, “SNAP-Ed: A Vital Investment in Illinois Families and Communities.”
This event is free, but please register at https://rebrand.ly/nov11-ideasforum.
There is more to SNAP than the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP-Ed teaches SNAP participants how to use their food resources wisely to strengthen the health and well-being of their families. With the government shutdown still in effect at the time of this posting, and with SNAP funds unavailable, this is more important than ever.

In this Forum, you will hear how SNAP-Ed helps families make nutritious food choices, stretch their food dollars, and increase physical activity.

The session also explores partnerships with schools, food pantries and community organizations that create lasting, healthy changes—and demonstrates the strong return on investment SNAP-Ed provides to Illinois communities.
Our speaker, Christine Birns, is a SNAP-Ed educator with the University of Illinois Extension. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Development & Family Sciences from Northern Illinois University and a master’s degree in Social Work from University of Illinois at Chicago with an emphasis in child and family services.

Birns works with food pantries, K-12 schools, adult and youth community programs, and early childcare centers providing technical assistance at the systems and environmental levels. She provides assistance on nutrition education and obesity prevention to help make the healthy choice the easy choice.

November Book Club - Friday: Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine
2025-11-21 12:30 - 13:30
Join us for our November book club meeting on Friday 21st, at 12:30pm.
Author: Uché Blackstock
From GoodReads:
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, it never occurred to Uché Blackstock and her twin sister, Oni, that they would be anything but physicians. In the 1980s, their mother headed an organization of Black women physicians, and for years the girls watched these fiercely intelligent women in white coats tend to their patients and neighbors, host community health fairs, cure ills, and save lives. As an ER physician, and later as a professor in academic medicine, Dr. Blackstock became profoundly aware of the systemic barriers that Black patients and physicians continue to face. Legacy is a journey through the critical intersection of racism and healthcare. At once a searing indictment of our healthcare system, a generational family memoir, and a call to action, Legacy is Dr. Blackstock’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician—to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

November Book Club - Tuesday: Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine
2025-11-25 19:00 - 20:00
Join us for our November book club meeting on Tuesday 25th, at 7pm.
Author: Uché Blackstock
From GoodReads:
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, it never occurred to Uché Blackstock and her twin sister, Oni, that they would be anything but physicians. In the 1980s, their mother headed an organization of Black women physicians, and for years the girls watched these fiercely intelligent women in white coats tend to their patients and neighbors, host community health fairs, cure ills, and save lives. As an ER physician, and later as a professor in academic medicine, Dr. Blackstock became profoundly aware of the systemic barriers that Black patients and physicians continue to face. Legacy is a journey through the critical intersection of racism and healthcare. At once a searing indictment of our healthcare system, a generational family memoir, and a call to action, Legacy is Dr. Blackstock’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician—to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

How Are Federal Funding Cuts and Policies Affecting Research In Higher Education?
2025-12-10 19:00 - 20:00
Join us for our December Ideas Forum on Wednesday, December 10th, at 7:00 pm via Zoom.
In February, the government announced cuts to funding and grants to research institutions across the U.S. Around the same time, immigration raids in the Chicago metro area began in earnest. What happens to research and lab experiments when funding is revoked? How are student relations affected by the active presence of federal immigration agents in the community?
Dr. Timothy Koh, professor of kinesiology and nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Applied Health Sciences, and Dr. Jeni Hebert-Beirne, professor of community health sciences at UIC’s School of Public Health, have both been dealing with the impacts of these and other federal actions, including DEI mandates. They will discuss how they’re navigating the changes to their research, classes, and institution.
This event is free and open to the public.
Dr. Koh has been focused on the mechanisms that regulate tissue inflammation and healing, in the context of diabetes, where impaired healing can lead to amputation or death. Dr. Koh is also passionate about training students for their own research careers.

Dr. Hebert-Beirne is a community-based participatory researcher, doing qualitative research to promote health equity and justice, particularly in Chicago. Her scholarship focuses on people most impacted by health inequities.
