Keynote addresses by two of the most highly recognized scholars in urban and African-American education will highlight the university’s inaugural conference on black issues in higher education Feb. 3.
The conference, which features Norvella Carter, the Endowed Chair of Urban Education at Texas A&M University, and Vanessa Siddle Walker, the Winship Distinguished Research -Professor at Emory -University, runs from
8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at Masters Hall in the Georgia Center for Continuing -Education.
Topics of panel discussions range from “Surviving and Publishing at a Research I University,” to “The Intricacies of Mentoring Minority and Women Faculty” and “Leadership and Administration in the Academy.”
Panelists for the discussions include: Ronald Cervero, professor of adult education and head of the department of lifelong education, administration and policy; Kecia Thomas, associate professor of psychology; Diane Bates Morrow, associate professor of history; Rosemary Phelps, professor of counseling and human development services; Patricia Miller, professor and head of the department of psychology; Juanita Johnson-Bailey, professor and graduate coordinator of adult education and women’s studies; Rob Branch, professor of instructional technology; Sally Zepeda, associate professor and graduate coordinator of educational administration and policy; and Cheryl Dozier, assistant vice president for academic affairs at Gwinnett University Center.
“This conference will be of particular interest to junior faculty and doctoral candidates,” says Louis A. Castenell Jr., dean of UGA’s College of Education.
Walker is known for her research on the impacts that segregation, racism and community conditions have on the learning and education of African Americans. She began her career as a high school teacher at Chapel Hill High School and Cummings High School. She also taught English seminars for minority students at Phillips Academy. Prior to accepting a position at Emory, she taught at Wheelock and Elon colleges and the University of Pennsylvania.
Carter’s research focuses on preparing teachers for urban classrooms, teacher efficacy, building resilience in children and teacher induction. Since joining the faculty at Texas A&M -University in 1998, she has helped recruit 32 masters and doctoral students from Houston. She has developed partnerships with schools in several Houston school districts and has established programs that address the need for urban teachers through teacher induction initiatives, internship programs and professional development of veteran teachers.
Carter has been involved in some form of education—as a teacher at elementary, middle school and high school -levels—for almost three decades. She was also a principal in a Detroit school and prepared educators for urban and diverse environments at three universities. As director of the Chicago Metropolitan Teacher Education Center and urban specialist at Illinois State University, she restructured the center to produce urban practitioners and revised curricula to include culturally responsive teaching tactics.