17th Annual New England Conference
on Multicultural Education (NECME)

Central Connecticut State University,
New Britain, CT

Thursday, October 18, 2012, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Welte Auditorium

Conference is FREE to all attendees!

Driving Directions to Herbert D. Welte Hall, Central Connecticut State University  (hide directions)

Jacqueline Jordan Irvine is the Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus at Emory University and Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland. Dr. Irvine’s specialization is in multicultural education and urban teacher education, particularly the education of African Americans. Her books include, Black Students and School Failure, Growing Up African American in Catholic Schools, Critical Knowledge for Diverse Students, Culturally Responsive Lesson Planning for Elementary and Middle Grades, In Search of Wholeness: African American Teachers and Their Culturally Specific Pedagogy, and Seeing with the Cultural Eye. In addition to these books, she has published numerous articles and book chapters and presented hundreds of papers to professional education and community organizations. Some of awards and recognitions include: American Educational Research Association (AERA)’s Outstanding Achievement Award – Research Focus on Black Education (RFBE) SIG; Distinguished Career Award from Committee on the Role and Status of Minorities; Dewitt-Wallace/AERA Lecture Award; President’s Distinguished Service Award from the SIG: RFBE; AERA Social Justice Award; Division G’s award for Outstanding Service in the Preparation of the Next Generation. The American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education has recognized her work with the Outstanding Writing Award; Hunt Lecture; and the Lindsay Award for Distinguished Research in Teacher Education. Emory University noted Dr. Irvine’s accomplishments with The Distinguished Emory University Faculty Lecture and Award; Thomas Jefferson Award, an award given at Commencement to a faculty for their contributions in research and service; and Emory University’s Crystal Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching Graduate Education. Finally, Dr. Irvine was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2007.

Christine E. Sleeter, PhD. (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1982) is Professor Emerita in the College of Professional Studies at California State University Monterey Bay, where she was a founding faculty member. Formerly a high school learning disabilities teacher in Seattle, she previously served as a faculty member at Ripon College in Wisconsin and at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and a visiting professor at Victoria University in New Zealand, San Jose State University, San Francisco State University, and University of Washington, Seattle. She is currently President of the National Association for Multicultural Education, and previously served as Vice President of Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education) of the American Educational Research Association. Her research focuses on anti-racist multicultural education and teacher education, and currently she is developing a new area, critical family history. With a team of researchers in Victoria University, New Zealand, she recently completed an evaluation study of a Maori professional development program for secondary schools. Dr. Sleeter has published over 100 articles in journals and edited books, such as Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, Disability Studies Quarterly, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Curriculum Inquiry. Her recent books include Teaching with Vision (with Catherine Cornbleth, Teachers College Press, 2011), Critical Multiculturalism: Theory and Praxis (with Stephen May, Routledge, 2010), and Doing Multicultural Education for Achievement and Equity (with Carl Grant; Routledge, 2007). Her work has been translated into Spanish, Korean, French, and Portuguese. She has been invited to speak in most U.S. states as well as several countries. Awards for her work include the American Educational Research Association Social Justice in Education Award, the American Educational Research Association Division K Legacy Award, the California State University Monterey Bay President’s Medal, the National Association for Multicultural Education Research Award, the Central Washington University Distinguished Alumni Award, and the American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group on Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class and Gender Senior Scholar Award. You can listen to her talk about race and the opportunity gap in schools for Teaching Tolerance, or watch her speak about critical family history.

Kevin Jennings is the CEO of Be the Change, a nonprofit that creates national issue based campaigns on pressing problems in American society. ServiceNation, the first campaign launched from Be the Change, Inc.’s platform, helped to achieve the strongly bi-partisan Kennedy Serve America Act — the greatest expansion of national service in our country in 60 years. OpportunityNation, our second campaign launched in 2011, promotes thoughtful, practical and bi-partisan solutions to increase opportunity and economic mobility in America.

From 2009-2011 Kevin served as Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education, heading the department’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools (OSDFS). In this role, Mr. Jennings led federal efforts to promote the safety, health and well being of America’s students. Kevin led the Obama Administration’s anti-bullying initiative, which culminated in March 2011 with the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention keynoted by President Obama.

Kevin began his career as a high school history teacher and coach, first at Moses Brown School in Providence, R.I., from 1985 to 1987, and then at Concord Academy in Concord, Mass., from 1987 to 1995. At Concord, he served as the faculty advisor to the nation’s first Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) leading him in 1990 found the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a national education organization bringing together lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and straight teachers, parents, students, and community members who wanted to end anti-LGBT bias in our schools. Jennings left teaching in 1995 to build the all-volunteer GLSEN organization into a national force, serving as its founding Executive Director until 2008. Under his leadership, GLSEN programs such as Gay-Straight Alliance, the Day of Silence and No Name-Calling Week became commonplace in America’s schools. GLSEN’s advocacy was key in passing comprehensive safe schools laws in eleven states, increasing the number of students protected from anti-LGBT discrimination from less than 900,00 in 1993 (less than 2% of the national student body) to 14.3 million by 2008 (nearly 30%).

Kevin became the first member of his family to graduate from college when he received his B.A. magna cum laude in history from Harvard University in 1985. He also holds an MA in education from Columbia University’s Teachers College and an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business. He has received the Human and Civil Rights Award of the National Education Association, the Distinguished Service Award of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the Diversity Leadership Award of the National Association of Independent Schools, and was elected Chief Marshal of the 2010 Harvard Commencement as the member of his class who has had the greatest positive impact on the world since graduating. He is a Board Member of the Harvard Alumni Association and Union Theological Seminary. He is also Board Chair for the Tectonic Theater Project, which created The Laramie Project.

Mr. Jennings has authored six books, with his latest, Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir, being named a Book of Honor by the American Library Association in 2006. He also helped write and produce the documentary Out of the Past, which won the 1998 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary.

Mr. Jennings and his partner, Jeff Davis, a senior executive at Barclay’s, celebrated their 17th year together in 2011. They are the proud "parents" of a golden retriever, Amber, and a Bernese mountain dog, Ben, and also have a "granddog" in Ben’s son, Jackson, born in March 2009.