Athens, Ga. – Keynote addresses by two widely recognized scholars in education policy and leadership and program development will highlight the University of Georgia’s third annual Conference on Black Issues in Higher Education on Feb. 1.
John L. Taylor, professor of educational leadership at the University of Arizona, and Penny Ralston, professor of family and child science at Florida State University, will highlight the conference sponsored by UGA’s College of Education.
The daylong event will also include three panel discussions featuring several UGA faculty members on the topics of Blacks in Higher Education Leadership, Grant Writing and Dissemination of Research Results, and The Art of Teaching at a Research University.
Taylor served as dean and professor of education at California State University, Chico, and the University of Arizona. Prior to his years in academe, he worked for nine years as a research associate and director of the Learning and Instruction Division at the National Institute of Education in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. His primary research focus is education policy and inquiry into minority groups’ leadership opportunities of substance.
He is currently co-principal investigator of a two-year research project comparing the culture of student-athletes with those of general student populations. The NCAA is co-sponsoring the project with the University of Arizona.
Taylor is a member of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Advisory Board at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and serves on the board for Linking Academic Scholars to Educational Resources (LASER) at the University of South Florida. He has been a member of the Committee on Government Relations of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education and the Council of the Great City Schools Colleges of Education. He also served as president and member of the Association of Colleges and Schools of Education in State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.
Taylor has been awarded the Southern Arizona Middle School Association Middle School Educator of the Year Award, Arizona Association for Bilingual Education Award, Arizona Alliance of Black Educators Award, University of Arizona Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center Distinguished Leadership Award, Metropolitan Education Commission Crystal Apple Award, and a Copper Letter Certificate of Appreciation from the Mayor of Tucson. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Before joining the FSU faculty, Ralston was a professor in the College of Human Sciences at Iowa State University. Prior to that, she was a professor and head of the department of consumer studies at the University of Massachusetts. Her research focuses on community-based programs for older adults, health promotion/nutrition education, issues affecting the minority elderly, and program development in higher education.
Ralston is a fellow of the Association of Gerontology in Higher Education and the Gerontological Society of America. She has served as past president of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences and on the editorial boards of The Gerontologist and Journal of Nutrition for the Elderly. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.
Taylor will give the opening address and Ralston the luncheon address. The conference will take place in Masters Hall at the Georgia Center from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Details:
Registration cost: $20
Registration deadline: Monday, Jan. 21
Phone: 706/542-2134
Fax: 706/542-6596 (pdf form available on website)
