REPOST: Culture Builders Keynote featuring Valarie Kaur

REPOST from Community and Culture in the Division of Institutional Equity

What would it look like to approach institutional life not only through critique, but through curiosity, courage, relationship, and love?

The Office of Community and Culture invites the UMBC community to join us as we welcome civil rights lawyer, educator, and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project Valarie Kaur for a conversation about using Love as a practice for transforming ourselves, our relationships, and the institutions we inhabit. Drawing from her book See No Stranger, Kaur explores how wonder, grief, rage, and love can become sources of courage and possibility in moments of conflict and change.  

This campus-wide event invites students, staff, and faculty to consider what it means to truly see one another, to remain connected across difference and disagreement, how we care for one another and imagine new possibilities for community, belonging, and collective flourishing at UMBC and beyond.

The event also launches the 2026–27 Culture Builders cohort at UMBC, a year-long learning community for faculty and staff exploring the everyday practices, relationships, and systems that shape institutional culture. But the invitation extends beyond the cohort: this conversation is for anyone who is curious about what it takes to create cultures where people can belong, participate, and thrive.

Come ready to reflect, question, and imagine what might be possible when we treat love not simply as a feeling, but as a practice of change.