February 5, 2026
(she/her)
Author and NIU alumna
Rita Dragonette is an author who, after a career telling the stories of others as a leading public relations and marketing executive, returned to her original creative path. Her award-winning debut novel, The Fourteenth of September, is based upon her personal experiences at Northern Illinois University during the Vietnam War. Her second novel, Last Sunset in San Miguel, is out on submission. She is currently working on Violating the Prime Directive, a memoir in essays, and Talkin’ Bout My Generation, a Substack.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English with an area of concentration in Creative writing from NIU, is the recipient of both the Distinguished Alumni and the Outstanding Alumni Awards from its college of Liberal Arts and Sciences and served on the Board of Executive Advisors of its College of Business. She also earned a Certificate in Creative Writing with a concentration in Novel from the University of Chicago.
Her business career included serving as a Senior Vice President at Edelman Worldwide, as President of Dragonette, Inc. Public Relations and Marketing Services and as principal of Dragonette Career Strategies, an executive career coaching consultancy.
(he/him)
Interdisciplinary researcher and a scholar-practitioner
Dr. Durryle Brooks (he/him) is a nationally recognized speaker, healer, and organizational development consultant whose work sits at the intersection of trauma recovery, systems change, and the transformative power of love. As the founder of Love and Justice Consulting, Dr. Brooks brings over 15 years of experience supporting communities, organizations, and leaders in navigating complex social dynamics with care, clarity, and courage.
His groundbreaking framework, the Critical Theory of Love (CToL), reimagines love as a political and justice-oriented practice. Born out of his lived experience as a Black queer man and his academic research, CToL challenges dominant narratives that often weaponize love for compliance or control. Instead, it offers a path toward liberation positioning love as a force that can disrupt harm, build trust, and support collective healing. Through this lens, Dr. Brooks helps people interrogate inherited relational scripts and imagine new, liberatory ways of being in relationship—with themselves and each other.
(he/him)
Onöndowa'ga:' (Seneca)
Aaron Golding is an Onöndowa'ga:' (Seneca) storyteller, writer, educator. He currently serves as the Senior Program Administrator for the Lab at Northwestern University and is also a co-Chair for the Education Committee of the Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative. He works to expand educational opportunities for Native Peoples across all stages of life. Aaron received a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. He is grateful to use his gifts to support community and the generations to come.
(he/him)
Sicangu Lakota artist, public speaker, artist-in-residence and professor
Frank Waln is an award‑winning Sicangu Lakota music artist, educator, and public speaker from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. A notable alumnus of Columbia College Chicago, he earned a B.A. in Audio Arts & Acoustics and received the Chicago Mayor’s Award for Civic Engagement. His work has been featured on MTV, CNN, NPR, ESPN, and The History Channel, and he has received multiple Native American Music Awards. Waln has performed and presented at major institutions including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Linden Museum in Germany, the Kennedy Center, and the Field Museum. His writing appears in academic publications, and he contributed to America Ferrera’s bestselling anthology American Like Me.
For more than a decade, Waln has shared his work with schools and universities worldwide. He was commissioned by Harvard University to curate arts programming and create music honoring his great‑grandmother’s survival of Indian boarding schools. He is currently an Artist‑in‑Residence and professor at Western Michigan University.