Annual event will explore identity, power, and collective behavior through a queer and gender-expansive lens.
By Jesus Cortez, Staff Reporter
Cal State Dominguez Hills is set to host its annual “Leadership and Creative Expression” group relations conference next month. The three-day event, held Apr. 11-13, invites guests from across the nation to take part in an immersive learning environment focused on leadership, identity, and group behavior in pursuit of social and environmental justice.
The conference is co-sponsored by a handful of campus departments and organizations, including the Queer Culture and Resource Center, the Toro Psych Club, the Psychology Department and the Art and Design Department. This year’s theme—queering leadership and exploring gender expansiveness—is especially timely, said conference director Josh Desilva.
“What we’re really hoping to study is, what does the proliferation of trans, non-binary, gender-queer experiences in organizations—what does that do to leadership and authority?” asked Desilva in a welcome message posted to the Group Relations website. “How does that change how the workplace needs to operate, how do we need to all operate with each other in order to be supportive?”
Desilva, a queer-identifying Latinx psychologist based in Washington, D.C., told The Bulletin the theme was chosen after one of their mentors described other proposed topics as “too traditional.” They said the conferences feel timely in light of recent rollbacks of LGBTQ rights under the Trump administration.
“Things need to change,” Desilva explained. “It is time that we study the experiences of queer people in organizations using all available research methodologies.”
Group relations work dates back to the 1940s, when psychology scholars like Kurt Lewin and Wilfred Bion studied group dynamics in response to the aftermath of World War II.
At CSUDH, the conferences are co-led by psychology professor Tara Victor, who likens the experience to a biology lab—but one where the experiment is the group itself.
“We are basically temporarily constructing an organization with a purpose of studying itself, “ Victor said. “We want to study both the conscious, above-the-surface kinds of elements around boundaries, authority, role and task—but we also want to study the less visible, less conscious, more below-the-surface kinds of things … things that any one individual might not be aware of at any given time.”
Conference activities include what Victor called “institutional events,” where participants form self-selected groups, observe how those groups evolve, and compare their experiences with others. These sessions explore how individuals form collective identities and navigate power structures.
Other events examine how diverse individuals can come together to form something new and potentially greater than the sum of its parts.
“If you watch a group of fish get together to look like a bigger fish to scare off predators, that is a group level behavior for survival and the same thing happens with humans in groups in organizations,” Victor said.
The Group Relations conference launched in 2016 as a way to honor the legacy of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, an uprising against racial injustice and inequality in Los Angeles whose aftermath helped to establish CSUDH in the South Bay area. Victor said the focus on equity, identity, and social justice carries forward that legacy and continues to resonate with conference alumni.
“I just heard from another alumni today who wanted a referral for some work related thing in Pasadena,” Victor recalled. “He said thanks and that he still uses every day what he learned in the Group Relations conferences.”
Chelsea McElwee, a third-year PhD candidate in development psychology, recalled crying “once or twice” during the conference because of the emotions it brought up. As a former conference staff member, she encouraged attendees to allow themselves to be vulnerable to the experience.
“You have to be open-minded because you will be challenged,” McElwee said. “If you are not comfortable with being challenged then this experience is not for you. People have to be able to separate themselves from whatever they may be experiencing.”
The conference is open to the public, but attendees must register by Apr. 1: $50 for current CSUDH students, $150 for alumni, and $300 for community members.