Faces of Michigan

Name: Jaya Kalra
Year: Class of 2007
Major: Sociology
Home: Illinois

I first became interested in diversity and social justice issues at U-M when I started at Michigan in the fall of 2004, in the thick of election activism, and immediately got involved with organizing efforts against the first proposal 2. Through this experience, I learned of other ways to get involved on campus, and linked into other LGBT and people of color activist groups.

Classes that sparked my interest in social justice issues and the law:

Fall 2004: Engineering 101 with Alex Bielajew (an amazing professor who incorporates so much more than you’d expect into the computer programming curriculum)
Winter 2005: Poor People’s Movements with Amit Ahuja, Human Sexuality & Gender Issues with Fran Mayes
Winter 2006: Sociology of Gender with PJ McGann, Gender & Globalization with Jayati Lal, Introduction to the Study of Latinas in the U.S. with Larry La Fountain
Fall 2006: Sociology of the Body with Luis Sfeir-Younis; Gender, Sexuality, and Consumer Citizenship in Post-Colonial India with Jayati Lal
Winter 2007: U.S. as Empire with Paul Kramer, History of Modern Africa with Mamadou Diouf

Co-curricular activities I’ve been involved with:

First year: Stonewall Democrats, Wolverine Coalition for Human Rights, LGBT Speakers’ Bureau, Women in Science & Engineering
Second Year: Stonewall Democrats, Wolverine Coalition for Human Rights, LGBT Speakers’ Bureau, Inter-Cooperative Council, Dean of Students Advisory Board, Organizing for Unity
Third Year: Stonewall Democrats, LGBT Speakers’ Bureau, Inter-Cooperative Council, and other ad hoc-type events. I got involved with Stonewall Democrats after learning about the group at Gayz Craze, a welcome week event for LGBT and Ally students put on by the LGBT Commission of MSA. Once I had an initial toehold, things built pretty quickly. I learned about the Speakers’ Bureau through friends in Stonewall Democrats and started meeting more people at events and programs from there.

Advice I would give to students who are trying to navigate their way around the social justice and diversity-related experiences at U-M:
Join a group that sounds interesting and exciting to you. If it doesn’t meet your needs, see how you can work with people either to change the group so you feel integrated, or reevaluate what you want to get out of it. Sometimes these differences are irreconcilable (in that case, go start something even cooler!), but a lot of times there’s work that can be done within an existing framework. There’s no need to feel restrained by organizational structure (you can change it!), but remember that sometimes structures exist for good reasons (changing it might not require reinventing the wheel).