Harrisonburg Mayor Deanna Reed channeled her inner Oprah Winfrey for another installment of Mornings with the Mayor, a special edition of Convocation, on Friday morning at the University Commons Student Union.
This was the second time that Reed, director of alumni engagement and community connections at EMU, has hosted the event. Named among the Top 50 Women Leaders of Virginia for 2026 and a member of the America250 panel at the 2026 Congressional City Conference, she conceived the idea last year to celebrate March as Women’s History Month and highlight the trailblazing women leaders guiding the campus forward.
This year’s event celebrated Women’s History Month and explored the “queer-affirming, gender-expansive world of nature around us,” Reed said. It featured a conversation and Q&A with Pınar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd, a visionary artist, wildlife tracker, and Indigenous eco-philosopher whose work “lives at the intersection of sustainability, science, and deep connections to the natural world.”
Sinopoulos-Lloyd (they/them) shared their personal journey, moving from Turkey to the Bay Area of California at age eight. As a neurodivergent child, they spent a year of near silence carefully observing squirrels, pigeons, and other urban wildlife, noticing how these animals adapted to a city not designed for them. “That began and initiated my journey in wildlife observation, wildlife tracking, and pattern recognition as a tracker,” Sinopoulos-Lloyd said.
“I noticed they didn’t speak much and were highly observant,” they said. “I could relate to them and feel unmasked with them so easily.”
The wildlife tracker also spoke about community care. While trailing deer in the Scablands of eastern Washington about three years ago, Sinopoulos-Lloyd came across the leg bone of a beaver at the site of an ancient lake. On closer inspection, they saw that the bone had been broken but had healed. “That meant this being had survived,” they said.
“The reason I was so amazed was that this was a major fracture,” Sinopoulos-Lloyd said. “I don’t know how it happened, but it’s a sign of care. They must have been cared for and fed to recover and heal. As someone who’s disabled and chronically ill, seeing that sign of community care in the natural world touched me in such a profound way.”
Pınar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd (left) shares their experiences with Mayor Deanna Reed. Mukarabe (right), a conflict transformation student at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, performs djembe to close out Friday’s show.
Mornings with the Mayor also included a viewing of the trailer for Bloom, a documentary by filmmaker and Visual and Communication Arts professor Elizabeth Miller-Derstine. The 2024 film follows four birth workers making reproductive care safer and more accessible in their community. A screening of the film will be held at 8 p.m. on Monday, April 13, in Suter Science Center 106.
The event concluded with a djembe musical performance by Mukarabe, a conflict transformation student at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. She shared her life story, from escaping the genocide in Burundi and coming to the United States to enrolling at EMU. “Now I’m here for my third master’s degree,” she told the crowd. “Not just for the paper. I’m studying conflict transformation because where I come from, it is needed.”
Those attending Mornings with the Mayor were treated to a complimentary drink, the Sunrise Refresher (a dragonfruit, mango, and raspberry lemonade), crafted by the talented baristas at Common Grounds Coffeehouse.
Sinopoulos-Lloyd, one of the seven professionals featured on the Inclusivity in Science Mural inside Suter Science Center, spent the full day on campus. They joined students, faculty, and staff for a lunchtime discussion, then gave a talk and signed their portrait during the mural’s dedication ceremony later that afternoon.
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