Emancipatory Education Speaker Series

What should education look like post-COVID? How do we get there?

Many are looking forward to a time when we can go back to “normal” in education; however, that "normal" wasn't working for too many of our children, youth, families and communities. Join us for a series of live, online conversations with nationally recognized speakers and emerging voices who will share their visions for post-COVID education through an emancipatory lens and to identify steps to enact their visions.

This series is open to all at no cost. Live captions will be available.

• Register for our Upcoming Events
• Watch our Recordings

This speaker series has been sponsored by the SJSU Connie L. Lurie College of Education and Division of Student Affairs.

Register for our Upcoming Events

Friday, March 5, 3:30-5pm PST

• Secretary John King
• Dr. Leslie Gonzales

• Secretary John King's Bio

  • John B. King Jr. (Twitter: @JohnBKing) is the president and CEO of The Education Trust, a national nonprofit organization that seeks to identify and close opportunity and achievement gaps, from preschool through college. King served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet as the 10th U.S. Secretary of Education. In tapping him to lead the U.S. Department of Education, President Obama called King “an exceptionally talented educator,” citing his commitment to “preparing every child for success” and his lifelong dedication to education as a teacher, principal, and leader of schools and school systems.

• Dr. Leslie Gonzales' Bio

  • Leslie D. Gonzales is an associate professor in the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Learning unit at Michigan State University. She also serves as an affiliate faculty member in the Center for Gender in a Global Context and Chicano/Latinx studies. Since February 2020, Gonzales has served as the Faculty Excellence Advocate for her College—a role in which she brings research, theory, and practice together to advocate for a more just and inclusive academic culture.

     

    As a working-class-Latina-first-generation-college-student-turned academic, who earned all three of her academic degrees from Hispanic Serving Institutions, Gonzales is committed to building an academic profession that honors the contributions that scholars of Color bring to the academy. To this end, in her research, Gonzales focuses on the interplay of evaluation practices, departmental, disciplinary, and organizational cultures, and faculty experiences and outcomes. Mainly concerned with the evaluation of scholars' knowledge production, Gonzales studies how hiring, tenure, and promotion norms and practices can marginalize scholars of Color, especially scholars of Color educated in historically under-resourced institutions (e.g., community colleges, Minority Serving Institutions). Gonzales has published work in several venues, but in recent years, she has moved her research into action and often works with individual faculty members, departments, or entire colleges as they strive to unsettle exclusionary practices and norms to foster more inclusive workplace settings. Much of this work underpins Gonzales's research in Aspire, a multi-million-dollar project sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

     

    Gonzales is the daughter of Thomas W. Gonzales and Louise D. Gonzales, to whom she owes her love of learning. Gonzales is partnered with Ruben Flores, Jr., who is her best friend and greatest support. Finally, Gonzales is the mother of a fiercely smart and fun daughter, Sudeshna, who keeps her grounded and inspired to work towards a just future.

     

Register for our Friday, March 5, event

Friday, March 12, 3:30-5pm PST

• Latinas Leading Schools panel with Dr. Fabiola Bagula, Dr. Rebeca Burcaiga, Dr. Melissa Martinez, Dr. Sylvia Mendez-Morse, and Ana Tavares
• Dr. Tara Yosso

• Dr. Fabiola Bagula's bio

  • Fabiola (Twitter: @FabiBagulaPhD) is the Senior Director of the San Diego County Office of Education's Equity Department, which has designed a one-year model of partnership and support for equity teams from school sites and districts to learn, explore, and lead through issues of equity. We believe that leadership comes from the inside out, and we pay close attention to our own personal development and understanding and, simultaneously, build skillset for practical application. Fabiola is also an adjunct faculty in the SJSU Department of Educational Leadership

• Dr. Rebeca Burciaga's bio

  • Rebeca Burciaga (Twitter: @qvo) is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership & Chicana and Chicano Studies. Her research is nested in the nepantla (borderlands) of Education and Chicana/o Studies and focuses on the schooling experiences of Chicanx and Latinx students, families, communities, educators, and leaders. Her current project focuses on culturally sustaining approaches to school leadership. Dr. Burciaga’s areas of expertise include qualitative methodologies (testimonio & ethnography), critical theories (critical race theory & Chicana feminist theory), and critical pedagogies. Her research has been supported by highly competitive funding including the Spencer Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.

• Dr. Melissa Martinez's bio

  • Melissa A. Martinez (Twitter: @mamartinezphd) is an associate professor in the Education and Community Leadership Program at Texas State University. She is a native of the Rio Grande Valley, and a former bilingual elementary school teacher and school counselor. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Administration from The University of Texas at Austin in 2010 and earned her B.A. (1998) and M.Ed. (2002) at The University of Texas at Brownsville. Her research focuses on equity and access issues along the P-16 education pipeline, particularly in relation to: 1) improving college readiness, college access, and fostering a college going culture for underserved communities, 2) the preparation of equity-oriented school leaders who understand and can meet the needs of underserved communities, and 3) the preparation and retention of faculty of color. Through her research and teaching, Dr. Martinez is committed to preparing future educational leaders who are thoughtful, critical, and reflective in their practice and adhere to the tenets of social justice.

• Dr. Sylvia Mendez-Morse's bio

  • Sylvia Mendez-Morse is a retired Associate Professor in Educational Leadership Program in the Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership at Texas Tech University. Dr. Mendez-Morse conducts qualitative studies, phenomenological approaches primarily on issues concerning gender, women of color, and Latinas educational leaders.

• Ana Tavares' bio

  • Ana, most recently the principal of the Rafael Hernández PreK-8 Dual Language School in Roxbury, has worked for 26 years as an urban bilingual educator dedicating her life’s work to dismantling systems of oppression. Ana is a graduate of Harvard University Graduate School of Education and began working in the Boston Public Schools in 1999. Ana joined the Hernández school in 2011 after a national search by the Hernández community, and she became Principal in April 2012. Ana’s school leadership experience has focused on increasing the learning of students of color in a bilingual setting, partnering with the school’s teachers and families to provide access to high-quality bilingual public education for all students. Ana also recently began her doctoral studies.

• Dr. Tara Yosso's bio

  • Tara J. Yosso, Ph.D. is a professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Yosso’s research and teaching apply the frameworks of critical race theory and critical media literacy to examine educational access and opportunity. She is specifically interested in understanding the ways Communities of Color have historically utilized an array of cultural knowledge, skills, abilities, and networks to navigate structures of racial discrimination in pursuit of educational equality. She has authored numerous collaborative and interdisciplinary chapters and articles in publications such as the Harvard Educational Review, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Journal of Popular Film and Television, and The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities. She has been awarded a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for Diversity and Excellence in University Teaching, and honored with a Derrick Bell Legacy Award from the Critical Race Studies in Education Association. She is extensively cited within and beyond the field of education.

Register for our Friday, March 12, event

Friday, March 19, 3:30-5pm PDT

• Dr. E.J.R. David
• Disability Justice panel with Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia, Dr. Saili Kulkarni, and Leroy Moore

• Dr. E.J.R. David's bio
  • E. J. R. David, Ph.D. (Twitter: @ejrdavid) is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Alaska Anchorage, with his primary duties being with the PhD Program in Clinical-Community Psychology that has a Rural, Cultural, and Indigenous Emphasis. Dr. David has published theoretical and empirical works on Racial or Ethnic Minority Psychology, including four books: Brown Skin, White Minds: Filipino -/ American Postcolonial Psychology (2013; Information Age Publishing), Internalized Oppression: The Psychology of Marginalized Groups (2014; Springer Publishing), The Psychology of Oppression (2017; Springer Publishing), and We Have Not Stopped Trembling Yet (2018; SUNY Press).
• Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia's bio

  • Tiny (aka Lisa Gray-Garcia) is a formerly unhoused, incarcerated poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist, lecturer, poet, visionary, teacher and single mama of Tiburcio, daughter of a houseless, disabled, indigenous mama Dee, and the co–founder of POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE/PoorNewsNetwork. She is also the author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America, co-editor of A Decolonizers Guide to A Humble Revolution, Born & Raised in Frisco and - Poverty ScholarShip -Poor People Theory, Arts, words and Tears Across Mama Earth A PeoplesTeXt which was just released in 2019.

    In 2011 she co-launched The Homefulness Project - a landless peoples, self-determined land liberation movement in the Ohlone/Lisjan/Huchuin territory known as Deep East Oakland, ,and co-founded a liberation school for children, Deecolonize Academy  She has taught Poverty Scholarship theory and practice in Universities, street corners and encampments from Columbia to Skid Row. In the Covid19 Pandemic she and other poverty skola leaders at POOR Magazine have galvinized folks with race and class privilege and solidarity community so POOR Magazine could increase their already existent street love-work, education , service and support to supply food, masks, gloves, healing and sanitation to over 700 unhoused and no-income housed communities per week across the Bay Area as part of healing, surviving this Corona crisis-she has dubbed it "interdependence" and Radical Redistribution-and much more She spear-headed the How To Not Call PoLice Ever workshop series with other poverty and disability skolaz at POOR Magazine in 2015 and in 2021 they released a book of the same name.

    Tiny also launched and co-authored a book and workshop series called Po Peoples Survival Guide Thru Covid19 and the virus called poverty released in 2020 Tiny has also authored multiple revolutionary childrens books, introducing disabled, houseless inter-generational protagonists with resistance narratives and created companion curriculum on these never included topics for all youth, children and families in poverty and with privilege. 

• Dr. Saili Kulkarni's bio
  • Dr. Saili S. Kulkarni's  (Twitter: @Dr_Koolkarni) research highlights the beliefs of Special Education teachers of color using Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory (DisCrit). She received her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to her work in academia, she was an inclusion specialist in Oakland Unified School District where she worked with students with mild/moderate and moderate/severe disabilities in elementary schools. Dr. Saili Kulkarni draws from the experiences of teachers and school professionals who support restorative practices for young children in an effort to create more inclusive, safe school environments for all learners.
• Leroy Moore's bio
  • Krip Hop was founded by Leroy F. Moore Jr., an African American writer, poet, community activist and feminist who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Moore was born in New York in 1967 to an activist father loosely connected to the Black Panthers. His upbringing sensitized Moore to the challenges faced by African Americans and the disabled. As a youth, Moore discovered that most people had little knowledge of the historical impact of disabled African Americans. This led him to begin research, initially in the music industry.

Register for our Friday, March 19, event

Watch Our Recordings

Friday, February 26, 2021

"But All Lives DO Matter: Being Intentional & Deliberate About an Antiracist Stance" with Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings

• 7:21​ - Introduction of Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings by Dr. Saili Kulkarni
• 12:27​ - Remarks from Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings
• 39:05​ - Q&A with Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings

• Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings' Bio

  • Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings (Twitter: @gjladson) is the former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and faculty affiliate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She was the 2005-2006 president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Ladson-Billings’ research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students. She also investigates Critical Race Theory applications to education. She is the author of the critically acclaimed books The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children and Crossing Over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms, and numerous journal articles and book chapters.

    She is the former editor of the American Educational Research Journal and a member of several editorial boards. Her work has won numerous scholarly awards including the H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, the NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the Palmer O. Johnson outstanding research award. During the 2003-2004 academic year, she was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. In fall of 2004, she received the George and Louise Spindler Award from the Council on Anthropology and Education for significant and ongoing contributions to the field of educational anthropology. She holds honorary degrees from Umeå University (Umeå Sweden), University of Massachusetts-Lowell, the University of Alicante (Alicante, Spain), the Erickson Institute (Chicago), and Morgan State University (Baltimore).  She is a 2018 recipient of the AERA Distinguished Research Award, and she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2018.

"Schools Were Never Normal / Learning Happens Everywhere: From Return & Recuperation to Reckoning & Reimagination in Education" with Dr. Jonathan Rosa

• 55:11​ - Introduction of Dr. Jonathan Rosa by Jorge Pacheco Jr.
• 57:00​ - Remarks from Dr. Jonathan Rosa
• 1:26:00​ - Q&A with Dr. Jonathan Rosa

• Dr. Jonathan Rosa's Bio

  • As a sociocultural and linguistic anthropologist, Jonathan Rosa's (Twitter: @DrJonathanRosa) research theorizes the co-naturalization of language and race as a key feature of modern governance. Specifically, he analyzes the interplay between youth socialization, raciolinguistic formations, and structural inequity in urban contexts. Dr. Rosa collaborates with local communities to track these phenomena and develop tools for understanding and eradicating the forms of disparity to which they correspond. This community-based approach to research, teaching, and service reflects a vision of scholarship as a platform for imagining and enacting more just societies. Dr. Rosa's research has been published in scholarly journals such as Harvard Educational Review, American Ethnologist, American Anthropologist, Language in Society, and the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. In addition to his formal scholarly research, Dr. Rosa is an ongoing participant in public intellectual projects focused on race, education, language, (im)migration, and U.S. Latinxs, and his work has been featured in media outlets such as MSNBC, NPR, CNN, and Univision.

• Additional resources from Dr. Rosa

  • - Economies of Abandonment: Social Belonging and Endurance in Late Liberalism, Elizabeth Povinelli

    - Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm, Yarimar Bonilla & Marisol LeBrón, editors

    - Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis, Katherine McKittrick, editor

    - Born Out of Struggle: Critical Race Theory, School Creation, and the Politics of Interruption, David Stovall

    - Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Antiblackness, and School in San Francisco, Savannah Shange