UND LGBTQ+ Day-long Institute

Reimagining Community: Possibility, Purpose, Belonging, and Joy.

November 17, 2025

This in-person day-long institute is open to all students, faculty, staff, and community members to come together and envision expansive and creative ways of forming and sustaining LGBTQIA2S+ communities in higher education beyond traditional models. This institute will explore the ways in which we celebrate, advocate, and promote well-being.

Registration closes November 1, 2025

Register

Schedule

Schedule is subject to change. All times listed in Central Time.

MU = Memorial Union

Speaker Sessions

Dr. Roman Christiaens

Imaginative Acts of Student Support: Transfeminist Praxis and Queer Rural Belonging in Higher Education

In the midst of our current socio-political climate, what does it mean to imagine and build queer and trans community in places where such belonging is often considered impossible? In this keynote, Dr. Roman Christiaens draws from their work on transfeminist praxis, queer rural students, and the limits and liberatory possibilities of institutionalized diversity work to offer a vision for reimagining campus communities grounded in desire, joy, refusal, and worldbuilding. Weaving together personal story, critical theory, and LGBTQ+ scholarship, this keynote invites participants to reimagine how they might build community and student support within their own unique campus contexts.

Biography

Dr. Roman Christiaens (she/they) is an advocate, scholar and student affairs practitioner with over ten years of experience on college campuses, including programs and policies supporting trans and nonbinary students, staff and faculty. Their work and research highlights the experiences of transfemmes at colleges and universities, the role of community & belonging efforts in higher education and the intersections between rurality and queerness. Roman earned their doctorate in Higher Education from the Center for the Study in Higher Education at the University of Arizona with a minor in Race and Gender in Education. Roman recently served as the Internal Relations Director for the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals and as the Managing Editor for About Campus, ACPA's scholarly magazine. 

Contact

Contact Dr. Jeff Maliskey for more information.