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The pain and hurt that created our rage are desperately searching for liberation.

-Ruth King

As a former Student Affairs Professional, Dr. Mullan infused her experiences and intersecting identities, within the walls of Higher Education to initiate healing amidst an innately colonial system of education. For over 12 years, she worked with countless colleagues and students to create new systems of wellness through Peer Education, healing centered therapy practices, and co-creating politicized relationships on and across campus. Dr. Mullan firmly believes in the power of creating a trauma conscious and healing engaged lens to dismantle internalized systems of violence within our mental health and educational structures. She desires for our histories to be places of honor and re-education, while co-creating a more just and healing-centered future.

This keynote will seek to sew together the intersections of student life, Historical and Ancestral Trauma, structural oppression, mental health, and the importance of reigniting and re-educating “where are our students are” amidst a global pandemic and intense violence for People of the Global Majority. Dr. Mullan will invite participants IN, allowing space for reflection and humanization within all systems, especially the education system. The keynote will highlight the deep need for the collective acknowledgement to “heal, feel and deal” with the grief, rage and disconnect present in our current realities, and how that is impacted by our lineages, and personal/ cultural trauma histories. Dr. Mullan will draw from the intersections of psychology/ mental health & wellness, the political/ social justice, and ancestral honoring.

The human experience of grief is always a difficult one yet additional challenges come with navigating grief in a society that struggles with both emotional expression and mortality. In addition, living through a pandemic has provided an abundance of losses, many of which are unacknowledged, which can further complicate one’s grief process. While grief is an often misunderstood process, at its core it is an extremely healthy one and one that can be integrated into one’s life in a way that allows for it to coexist with growth, joy, and gratitude. This keynote presentation will not only identify common misconceptions about grief, but also provide practical strategies for supporting a healthy grief process in oneself and others.