Shifting Power & Resources: Practicing Equity and Justice Work in Community, Business, and the Environment

This multidisciplinary group of Yale graduate and professional school students will come together in a monthly discussion group to dig into real-world challenges and inspiring examples of intersectional equity, justice, and liberation practices in businesses, organizations, and communities - in order to adapt these learnings into their lives and work. 

Learnings from sessions are applicable across all sectors but many guest speakers and examples are drawn from food systems sectors. A primary focus will be placed on how to put these liberatory, regenerative, and anti-racist values and strategies into practice in real-world environments. We will learn from nature, global indigenous approaches, and movement and industry leaders, as well as each other -  about practices for redistributing  power and resources to address local and global inequities, injustices and the climate crisis. We will learn practices that center communities most impacted by systemic oppression to support justice and liberation for all peoples and life on our planet. 

The group will use engaging multi-media content including guest speakers, videos, podcasts, and social media, with not more than two hours of preparation materials per month. A diverse range of guest speakers will be drawn from the New Haven, national and international communities. Group sessions will be interactive with a mix of full group and small group discussions as well as student facilitated discussions. Each monthly session will include lunch from New Haven BIPOC-owned restaurants. Most months there will also be an optional social gathering time or occasional field trip to deepen cohort connections and learnings.  

Topics covered will include (order and specific guest speakers may change):

• Power, Intersectional Identities & Systemic Oppression (workshop)
• Power With vs Power Over & System Level Change (workshop)
• Values-based, Participatory + Community-driven Governance  w/ New Haven Based Practitioners
• Workers Rights & Organizing for Change w/ HEAL Food Alliance & Food Chain Workers Alliance
• LandBack, Sovereignty, Rights of Nature with Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
• Reparative Investing with Potlikker Capital/Black Farmer Fund
• Cooperatives & Alternatives to Extractive Capitalism with Brooklyn Packers & Cooperative Fund of Northeast
• Building Just Supply Chains & Economies Through Relationships w/ Sacred Seasonal

If you are a Yale professional school student from any school and are interested in engaging in peer discussions about these topics and examining how these perspectives and practices can help you address positive and effective social change in business, organization, municipal and community work, we encourage you to apply.

Application

The application for Shifting Power & Resources will open on Friday, August 1st.  

Applications Due by: Monday, September 8th, 2025 

Notified of acceptance by: September 12, 2025

The application for the Shifting Power and Resources Discussion Group is now closed.  Please consider applying in August/September 2026. 

All sessions are Fridays from 12:30 - 2:30PM.  Please check the schedule to ensure you can attend these sessions.

Primary Location is the Yale School of the Environment, 195 Prospect St

DATES for 2025/26

• September 26, 2025
• October 24, 2025
• November 7, 2025
• December 5, 2025
• January 30, 2026
• February 13, 2026
• March 27, 2026
• April 17, 2026
• April 29, 2026

Questions?  Contact: tagan.engel@yale.edu

Tagan Engel is a Resident Fellow with the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY) and brings more than 30 years of experience in cross-sector food systems and racial and economic justice work - as a chef, procurement specialist, entrepreneur, community builder, and grassroots organizer. She was born and raised in New Haven, is a Producer with WPKN and NPR, host of The Table Underground podcast, and is a founding board member of Soul Fire Farm. Tagan was the Food Systems Policy Director at CitySeed and Chair of the New Haven Food Policy Council for nearly a decade, establishing the first food policy and Director of Food System Policy for the city. She is a Lecturer at YSE and leads the Regenerative Agriculture and Just Food Systems Lab capstone. Through CBEY Tagan works on regenerative food systems, intersectional equity, and community-driven social change. . Full bio HERE.