Response and Responsibility — Continuing the Conversation

Artists are often at the center of responding to inequality and as a result the arts in education field must hold space for these actions. When we respond to combat oppression we risk our professional, social and physical comforts, and as artists and educators, we have a responsibility to do so. James Baldwin said, “Artists are here to disturb the peace.” To better grapple with this timely assertion, we must ask, “how do we do that and how do we move the needle toward justice?” In the midst of school shootings and the overt injustice inflicted upon various groups, how do we address issues of safety and responsibility? The option to respond is no longer a choice; it is imperative to ensure progress in education and our society moving forward.

This summit will explore

What is our responsibility as artists and arts educators to address these issues?
What larger role can arts education play in responding to injustice to support the well-being of all learners?
How will our response impact the systems in which we operate, the spaces in which we work and learn, and our communities?
How do we maintain our own safety and practice self-care while responding to these injustices?

We will provide an exploratory and generative space for activism and liberating educational practices. Please join us as we come together to respond to our nation’s most pressing issues through the arts in education.

Click here for a list of resources to prepare you for the summit.

About

Schedule

Keynote Speakers

Praxis Sessions

Lab Session Descriptions

Lab Session Presenters

THE RESPONSE & RESPONSIBILITY SUMMIT WILL ENGAGE PARTICIPANTS IN CONVERSATION, INTERACTIVE EXPLORATION, AND ACTION PLANNING THROUGH FOUR CORE FORMATS:

Plenaries: Plenaries will engage the entire corps of summit participants in activities and discussions. These full group sessions will occur throughout the summit.

Lab Sessions: These breakout sessions will be led by a prestigious group of facilitators and will engage small groups of participants in conversations of critical topics relating to our theme. Lab Sessions will be interactive and discussion-based.

Praxis Sessions: Praxis is the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. These small group sessions will be a time to practice the ideas of the summit and apply them to the participants own work. Paulo Freire said, “Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.” Participants will meet with a consistent group throughout the summit in these sessions.

Keynote Speakers: The summit will feature two keynote experiences from leaders in the field to catalyze conversation, offer insight, inspire action, and provoke conversation.

Schedule

Friday, October 5, 2018

3:00 Arrival & Registration
4:00-4:15 Welcome with Steve Seidel, Director of the HGSE AIE Program, and Melanie Brown, AIE 07
4:15-6:00 Opening Plenary: Igniting the Radical Mindset - A Creative Exploration with Robyne Walker-Murphy, Austin Greene, and DonChristian Jones
6:15-7:00 Dinner
7:15-8:15 Praxis Group Sessions

Saturday, october 6, 2018

9:00 Breakfast
9:30-9:45 Welcome with Carissa Johnson White, CtC Co-Chair, AIE ‘08
9:45-10:45 Keynote Address: Giving You The Best That I Got: Bringing Our Balanced Selves To The Table with Micia Mosely
11:00-12:30 Lab #1
12:45-1:45 Praxis Group Sessions and Lunch
2:00-3:30 Lab #2
3:45-4:45 Praxis Group Session
5:00-7:00 Group Reflection and Closing with Robyne Walker-Murphy, Austin Greene, DonChristian Jones, and the CtC Steering Committee

Keynote Presenters

Giving You The Best That I Got: Bringing Our Balanced Selves To The Table

Artists working in education can feel the need to limit their expression and boundary pushing in educational settings. It’s our responsibility to challenge the status quo while sustaining ourselves in the work. Too many of us limit self care to personal time, if we give it time at all. This session will explore how aligning the fullness of who we are, what we think and what we do, is possible and necessary to create the change we want to see.

MICIA MOSELY, KEYNOTE

Micia Mosely, a comedian and educator who earned her Ph.D. in education from U.C. Berkeley, keeps audiences learning & laughing in a variety of contexts and venues. Mosely’s one-woman show, "Where My Girls At?" (an off-Broadway comedy about Black lesbians) was nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award (Best Solo Performance). Currently, she performs her brand of social justice stand up comedy across the country. She began her career teaching high school social studies in San Francisco and went on to work as a coach with The National Equity Project and a National Training Specialist with The Posse Foundation. Mosely's research and practice focuses on equity, race, and urban education. She is also known for her one-woman show “Where My Girls At?” a comedy about Black Lesbians. She stays connected to teaching as lecturer at UMass Boston and an Induction Mentor for the residency program a Teachers College, Columbia University. Mosely spends the majority of her time as the founding Executive Director of The Black Teacher Project, an organization committed to recruiting, developing and sustaining Black teachers for schools in the United States.

Learn more at www.miciamosely.com & www.blackteacherproject.org.

Igniting The Radical Mindset-A Creative Exploration

Preparation is key in everything we do as artists, educators and activists. In order for us to be ready to challenge our assumptions and open ourselves to new, radical ways of thinking and being, we must be intentional and deliberate. During this session led by social justice artivists educators, Robyne Walker Murphy (Groundswell-Brooklyn, NY), Austin Greene (DreamYard-Bronx, NY), and DonChristian Jones (Groundswell-Brooklyn, NY), participants will be lead through an inquiry-based, visual arts experience where they will create visionary images and mantras to carry them through the two day conference and beyond.

ROBYNE WALKER-MURPHY, KEYNOTE

Robyne is a nationally recognized art and social justice educator and administrator. In November of 2016, she began her appointment as Executive Director at Groundswell, New York City’s premier organization dedicated to advancing the practice of public artmaking. Previous to her position at Groundswell, Robyne served as director of membership development and engagement at the National Guild for Community Arts Education, working closely with a national network of community arts organizations. Robyne created the Guild's first network for leaders of color in the arts, ALAANA (African, Latin, Asian, Arabic, Native American) to raise the profile of work being led by people of color (POC) in the arts, increase POC access to sustained resources, and invest in the growth and leadership of people of color in the field of community arts education. This role was deeply rooted in her work serving for seven years as the director of the DreamYard Art Center, located on the ground floor of an affordable housing unit in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. Under her leadership, DreamYard Art Center’s offerings expanded from three programs serving high school students to 16 multi-disciplinary art and college readiness programs for young people in grades PreK-12. In 2012, DreamYard Art Center was recognized by the White House as one of the top 12 out of school programs in the nation. Robyne accepted the award from First Lady Michelle Obama at a White House ceremony. During her tenure at DreamYard, Robyne also led the organization through the development of several arts and social justice programming and community engagement initiatives. She created and co-developed DreamYard’s Social Justice Pedagogy Team, a professional development series aimed at establishing important tenets of social justice education; creating common language across programs; exploring best practices; and learning from veteran social justice educators.

AUSTIN GREENE, KEYNOTE

Austin Greene is an artist, graphic designer, educator, activist, and organizer. For the past several years, he served as the Lead Teaching Artist for the DreamYard A.C.T.I.O.N. project. A.C.T.I.O.N. is a four year, social justice and creative arts program for Bronx High School students. A.C.T.I.O.N. participants use visual art, theater, and poetry to challenge social injustices and inspire change in their communities. Austin recently transitioned out of his role as Lead Teaching Artist to become the the Social Justice Pedagogy Coach at the DreamYard Arts Center. Additionally, he serves as a Teacher with the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts' (MoCADA) Artists-In-Schools Program. In addition to his work as a teaching artist and coach, Austin is a teacher, supporter, and collaborator at The Little Maroons Childcare Cooperative, a parent led, childcare cooperative run out of his home. He is a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. He believes that art is a tool for justice. He is a proud native of Brooklyn, New York.

DONCHRISTIAN JONES, KEYNOTE

DonChristian Jones is a Philly born, New York based, visual artist, rapper, singer/songwriter, and producer. His work spans musical and time based performance, rap albums, video and public murals, blending genres of painting and hip hop, referencing classical and contemporary styles. Much of his work today is informed by his time spent painting murals on Rikers Island with youth inmates. Don has shown and performed at The Whitney Museum, MoMA Ps1, Webster Hall, Dancespace, Center for Performance Research, and was an artist in residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation at Captiva, Florida.

Melanie R. Brown, welcome address

Melanie R. Brown is Senior Program Officer for U.S. Policy & Advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She leads the foundation’s national policy and advocacy portfolios on charter schools, students with disabilities and early learning. Prior to Gates, Melanie spent eight years as Education Program Officer at The Heinz Endowments where she managed portfolios to advance parent and student organizing in education, increase diversity within the teaching profession and promote culturally responsive arts education in public schools. She began her career as a middle and high school English and arts educator previously teaching in Washington, D.C. and China. Melanie has a bachelor’s degree from American University and masters’ degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Carnegie Mellon's Heinz College of Public Policy. She is currently an Atlantic Fellow in Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics and the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where her research focuses on how Black women in philanthropy advance equity and justice. You can find more about Melanie at www.melanierbrown.com.

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yedidya lubunga from boston pulse, student performance

Boston Pulse empowers youth voice through identity-affirming spoken word pedagogy and public speaking training in order for students to make positive change in themselves and in their communities.

Boston Pulse Poetry is a spoken word youth organization founded in 2015 by Tony DelaRosa (Harvard Arts in Education Alumnus). It is modeled off of the sister non-profit organization Indy Pulse, which he co-founded in 2013 while serving as a teacher in Indianapolis Public Schools. They have collaborated with and performed for Citizen Schools, Teach For All, Teach For America, Leadership for Educational Equity, Harvard, Yale, Teacher's College at Columbia, and more. The team is currently participating in the 4.0 Schools Fellowship to scale the organization's mission to push education policy through poetry and youth voice.

Praxis Sessions

Praxis is the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. These small group sessions will be a time to practice the ideas of the summit and apply them to the participants own work. Paulo Freire said, “Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.” Participants will meet with a consistent group throughout the summit in these sessions.

anna keefe

Anna Keefe is a poet, community artist, and PhD Candidate in Education focusing on collaborative program design with equity-seeking youth. She is passionate about co-creating learning opportunities that allow people to amaze themselves and uplift one another. She draws on extensive professional experience in community development and youth engagement, including with Right To Play, the Ontario Public Service, and Art Starts Neighbourhood Cultural Centre. She also holds an M.Ed. in Arts in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Anna is an American-Canadian of mixed European settler ancestry who grew up in Toronto, Canada.

Eve kagan

Eve Kagan (AiE ‘08) is a performer, educator and mental health counselor who thrives at the intersection of these disciplines. She is currently investigating the role of the arts in reconstructing trauma narratives, transforming and healing individuals and communities through empowerment. Eve holds an MA in Counseling from Northwestern University and works at the Talley Center for Counseling Services at the University of Mary Washington, integrating arts into her therapeutic practice with students.

Jennifer Ifil-Ryan

Jennifer Ifil-Ryan is an arts educator and administrator using socially engaged practices as an approach toward social transformation. Deeply familiar with multicultural learning environments and the educational challenges of impoverished communities, she has expertise in conceptualizing, devising and implementing frameworks for culturally relevant, hands-on, self-driven pedagogy, with an emphasis on incorporating multiple learning modalities, language acquisition, and social-emotional learning. Currently the Deputy Director & Director of Creative Engagement with the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling in Harlem, she is responsible for creating and managing programs that prioritize diversity and inclusion in viewing, discussing and making art. Jennifer is driven by her passion for social justice, advocacy for equitable living conditions, and the belief that the arts are an extremely effective tool for building foundations toward those ends. She is the founder of the non-profit, Urban Soul, where she offers professional development for artists, teachers, administrators, and communities at large in socially engaged art practices, curriculum design, program development and consulting services. Jennifer has been an adjunct professor of Art Education at City College since 2015, holds a masters degree from NYU in Individualized Study, and has presented at a variety of national and international conferences.

marit dewhurst

Marit Dewhurst is the Director of Art Education and Associate Professor of Art and Museum Education at The City College of New York. She has worked as an arts educator and program coordinator in multiple arts contexts including community centers, museums, juvenile detention centers, and international development projects. Her research and teaching interests include social justice education, community-based art, youth empowerment, and the role of the arts in community development. In addition to multiple journal articles and chapters, her first book, Social Justice Art: A framework for activist art pedagogy highlights young activist artists. Her second book, Teachers Bridging Difference: Exploring identity through art describes how educators can use art as a tool to connect people across different sociocultural identities.

Lab Session Descriptions

Lab #1

How might we cultivate a culture of reflective practice in our community?

led by EMILY FUNKHOUSER & LAURA LOCHNER

Artistic media and methods offer us a broad range of expressive opportunities. When leveraging the arts we can reach a larger audience; we can also engage and consider a larger community of perspectives when reflecting and designing systems and programs in our work. This workshop offers participants time and space to consider how they might cultivate a culture of reflective practice in their community or work settings. Using modes of artistic expression -- 2D, 3D, digital, written, performative etc -- we will explore this challenge.How might expressive languages support you to bring multiple voices to the table? What already established elements of your work culture would support this type of approach? What might be the barriers? What are the possibilities? What are the next steps?

How can we utilize Artists to learn about inclusion, diversity and equity?

led by ALYSSA LILES-AMPONSAH, AARIC DOYLE-WRIGHT & DR. NATASHUA DAVIS

Join staff members from the Access and Leadership Unit from the University of Missouri, (the Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity) as they share content from their BackTALK curriculum. This learning lab will address issues of inclusion, diversity and equity by starting with an artist profile, an example of their work, and in depth analysis of what can be gleaned about that particular social justice topic from the art work. We will utilize Project Zero's Visible Thinking routines to make learning and understanding visible to participants. Participants will also be asked to participate in hands on activities inspired by the artists discussed in the lab.

How can arts integrated project based learning play a role in the healing of a city in turmoil?

led by STEVEN MCALPINE

How and why must we connect our communities inside and outside of our cities? How can we as educators create projects that empower students to step outside of the ivory tower and do more than "study" urban problems? How can an arts integrated approach to education help us move a few inches toward a world in which we would enjoy living?This session will describe the UMBC Kinetic Sculpture Project as an upper level arts-integrated course that partnered with local schools in Baltimore as well as the American Visionary Arts Museum downtown to design, build and race kinetic sculptures from recycled materials. Session participants will bring their experiences with arts integrated STEM (or STEAM) projects to share with each other, and will propose a new project that addresses a pressing social issue in their city.

How Do We Rewire the Circuits of Dispossession by Re-Imagining and Re-Positioning Youth as Next Generation Arts Educators, Leaders, and Policy-Makers?

led by ANNA WEST, DESIREÉ DALLAGIACOMO, TAREIL GEORGE, JAMES MORA, AMARYLLIS LOPEZ & IMANI SUNDIATA

Representatives from Forward Arts and Humanities Amped, two grassroots community organizations located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, traveled last spring to witness the inter-generational teaching and learning happening in the Andover Bread Loaf program. We came home with a renewed desire to decolonize our youth educational spaces in ways that truly invite young people to step into leadership roles. This lab invites participants to work with us to recognize and see beyond the circuits of dispossession and privilege that create structural barriers for youth who have been systematically denied access to equitable participation. We will use the vocabulary of Image Theater, a Boal-based performance method, to elicit the pragmatic and imaginative wisdom of participants as we make connections to issues of equitable participation across the various institutions that make up the Arts in Education field.

Lab #2

A Reimagined Future: As incarcerated young people are reintegrated into society, the transformative power of art education opportunities must be made readily accessible to them. What does it mean to create a society where all young people have access to the arts and art education and how will we get there?

led by MARISSA GUTIÉRREZ-VICARIO

This Lab will be hosted by Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE), a New York-based community organization that amplifies the voices of young people using the visual arts. Studies have repeatedly show that young people of color in public schools are disproportionately affected by the lack of exposure to the arts in their communities. For this reason, we are interested in mobilizing with and learning from others in order to advocate for funding that will directly impact the lives of young people of color, particularly public school students and formerly incarcerated young people being released back into their communities. We believe that the arts can be used as a healing and restorative tool in the face of injustice and traumatic human rights violations. All young people deserve access to human rights education, to experience culture and art, and to further their leadership within their own communities. Together, in this Lab, we will explore both questions and discuss the possibilities for a reimagined future, where access to the art education is a reality.

Cross-Disciplinary and Cross-Cultural Collaboration in the Arts: Examining the Challenges and Opportunities

led by CAROLYN HO & AMANDA ACEVEDO

To understand how the arts can be promoted as a critical force in the fight for justice requires a deep understanding of what equitable, artistic collaboration can be in practice. This lab yearns for a deeper dive into the challenges and opportunities that cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural artistic collaborations offer. Participants will discuss, create, devise, and through various forms of collaborations, offer insights into how their artistic training, practices, and backgrounds and their individual and collective cultures inform their modes of creating, aesthetics, values, ways of communicating, and the work they produce together. With participants, we hope to start creating a more robust and nuanced way of identifying, discussing, and embracing the challenges and opportunities these types of collaborations provide. This exploration is the beginning of a larger body of work Amanda and Carolyn are creating in investigating the challenges and opportunities within cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural artistic collaborations, which will hopefully be a tool for creating more equity, justice, and inclusion in approaching these types of artistic collaborations.

Dis/Orientations: Mapping whiteness in educational spaces

LED BY VICTORIA RESTLER, JESSICA HAMLIN & VIVIANNE A. NJOKU

How is institutional whiteness expressed in sounds and smells, ways of moving and stopping (for and by whom), written and unwritten rules, futures and histories? Writing on the lived spatial and bodily experience of whiteness, philosopher Sara Ahmed teases apart the dynamics of invisibility and hypervisibility that shape white spaces. She argues, “Whiteness is only invisible for those who inhabit it, or those who get so used to its inhabitance that they learn not to see it, even when they are not it (see Ahmed, 2004b). Spaces are orientated ‘around’ whiteness, insofar as whiteness is not seen.” One of the conditions of white space then, is a collective turning away from whiteness. Educational institutions (schools universities, museums, and nonprofits) are dominated by white bodies and are often described as white spaces (Voon 2015; U.S. Department of Education 2016). In this Lab, we will use drawing, dialogue, and movement to turn towards whiteness in educational spaces and bear witness to the ways it influences our work as teachers and learners. Working with the personal cartographies of our institutions and a range of mapping practices, we will trace the habits of institutional whiteness and the ways our bodies--stances/shapes/postures--inhabit them.

Are We Good: Hip Hop Pedagogy and Affirmative Epistemologies

LED BY ASHLEY WOODSON

Hip hop pedagogy is an emerging toolset in urban education, particularly in work with boys of color. In this lab, we investigate how various hip hop artists make knowledge claims about sexual interest in their lyrics. Participants will work together to evaluate if and how hip-hop artists were certain, or if the evidence they used is insufficient to support affirmative consent. The lab concludes with collaborative lyrical poem writing about sexual consent.

Lab Session Presenters

Lab #1

Emily Funkhouser & Laura lochner

How might we cultivate a culture of reflective practice in our community?

Emily Funkhouser (AiE ‘07) is an artist and educator, exploring the interdisciplinary relationship between the fields of fine arts and social sciences. She is especially interested in how media can be used for expression and advocacy. For the past decade, Emily has supported staff development and curriculum design at Google’s childcare centers. Emily lives in San Jose, California, where she maintains a regular studio practice.

Laura Lochner is dedicated to supporting children's development and inclusionary classroom practices. As the Inclusion Manager at Google’s childcare centers, she supports families and educators whose children have diverse needs. Through learning groups, consultations, workshops and presentations, she advocates for inclusive practices. Laura received her B.S. in Liberal Studies with a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and an M.A. in Organization and Leadership from the University of San Francisco.

Alyssa Liles-Amponsah, Aaric Doyle-Wright & Dr. NaTashua Davis

How can we utilize Artists to learn about inclusion, diversity and equity?

Alyssa Liles-Amponsah is an artist and educator. She is currently an Associate Director of K-12 Programming at the University of Missouri.

Dr. NaTashua Davis is an educator and the Executive Director of the Access and Leadership Development Unit at the University of Missouri for the Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity.

Aaric Doyle-Wright is an artist and Business Specialist with the Access and Leadership Unit at the University of Missouri, for the Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity.

Steven McAlpine

How can arts integrated project based learning play a role in the healing of a city in turmoil?

Steven McAlpine is the Assistant Director of Interdisciplinary Studies at UMBC. Before UMBC, Steven worked as a researcher and seminar facilitator for the Interdisciplinary Studies Project at Harvard Project Zero. While at Harvard, Steven designed a Teachers Guide for Walden Media’s IMAX film “PULSE: a STOMP Odyssey” and worked as an education consultant for the Boston Arts Academy. He currently teaches an interdisciplinary project based learning course, INDS 430 Kinetic Sculpture Project, funded in part by a Breaking Ground grant. Steven earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College and his Ed. M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Anna West, Desireé Dallagiacomo, Tareil George, James Mora, Amaryllis Lopez & Imani Sundiata

How Do We Rewire the Circuits of Dispossession by Re-Imagining and Re-Positioning Youth as Next Generation Arts Educators, Leaders, and Policy-Makers?

Amaryllis Lopez is a community organizer and poet whose work explores race, gender, and Afro-Latinx identity. Lopez discovered her passion for poetry through the Andover Bread Loaf writing program where she has been a Writing Leader for the past 7 years. Amaryllis is the Executive Assistant for the art and social justice Lawrence-based 501(c)(3) organization, Elevated Thought. Lopez also serves as the Co-Youth Coordinator for the Next Generation Leadership Network under the Ford Foundation's Youth and Opportunity Learning grant. Amaryllis was born and raised in Lawrence, MA. She is now entering her third year at Bridgewater State University studying English and Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

James Mora is a young poet and youth leader based in Lawrence, MA. His work has been in literacy, advocacy, and educational justice.

Anna West is a educator and organizer of socially-engaged youth writing and research in the HumanitiesAmped program. Anna founded WordPlay in Baton Rouge (now Forward Arts); she co-founded Louder than a Bomb, the country’s largest youth poetry slam festival and Mass LEAP, a literary education and performance collective. She holds a B.A. in creative writingfrom Columbia College Chicago, a M.Ed. from HGSE, and a PhD in English Education from Louisiana State University.

Desireé Dallagiacomo is a poet, performer, and educator. She is the program director and teaching artist at Forward Arts, a youth spoken word and social justice non-profit in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She has taught and performed across the USA, Canada, & Australia— being a guest speaker, teacher, and performer at more than 70 universities worldwide. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her first full-length collection of poetry is forthcoming from Button Poetry, Spring 2019.

Tareil George is an eleventh grade Writing Leader and critical researcher in the Humanities Amped program at McKinley Senior High School. She is working hard to graduate with the highest GPA in her class and to make her family proud. She was selected to be a Humanities Amped 2018 ambassador for her leadership and dedication. Tareil plans to attend Southern University and earn a PhD.

Imani Sundiata is a sophomore at Louisiana State University. Imani’s one true passion is spoken word poetry.She assisted her team in 2017 to win the international youth poetry slam festival, Brave New Voices. Studying to become a psychologist, she believes that good mental health begins at a young age. She hopes to create a specialized art therapy dealing in spoken word one day to mix her two loves together.

Lab #2

Marissa Gutiérrez-Vicario

A Reimagined Future: As incarcerated young people are reintegrated into society, the transformative power of art education opportunities must be made readily accessible to them. What does it mean to create a society where all young people have access to the arts and art education and how will we get there?

Marissa Gutiérrez-Vicario is the Founder and Executive Director of Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE). As a committed human rights activist, artist, educator, and advocate for youth, Marissa launched ARTE in 2013 to help young people amplify their voices and organize for human rights change in their communities through the arts. Marissa holds an M.P.A. from the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Currently, Marissa serves as an Adjunct Lecturer at the City College of New York in the Art Education Department.

Carolyn Ho & Amanda Acevedo

Cross-Disciplinary and Cross-Cultural Collaboration in the Arts: Examining the Challenges and Opportunities

Carolyn Ho is a musician, theatre specialist, and a lover of the visual arts. She is interested in the interdisciplinary learning platform the arts can provide, especially in K-12 settings. She is passionate about evoking change in educational policy through the Arts in East Asia. Carolyn holds an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has been working with Project Zero’s Agency by Design, specifically on the Early Childhood in the Making project.

Amanda Dunne Acevedo is a Chicago-based deviser, curator and arts educator. Until the summer of 2017 she was the Director of Education at Northlight Theatre, a Lead Teaching Artist with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and taught the 2016-17 Teaching Artist Seminar and Practicum course at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She has facilitated professional development workshops at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School, Steppenwolf Theatre, Miami University, Pennsylvania State University, and this past summer worked with Lincoln Center Education. In May 2018, she received her Ed.M from the Arts in Education program at HGSE. amandadunneacevedo.weebly.com

Victoria Restler, Jessica Hamlin & Vivianne A. Njoku

Dis/Orientations: Mapping whiteness in educational spaces

Jessica Hamlin is an artist educator and Visiting Assistant Professor of Art + Education at the Steinhardt School for Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University.

Vivianne A. Njoku is a multi-media artist, educator and activist working in school, university, out-of-school, and nonprofit spaces. She is currently the Educational Programs Director at Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and founder of SHIFT.

Victoria Restler, is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and Assistant Professor of Educational Studies at Rhode Island College where she also directs the Youth Development Master’s Program.

Ashley Woodson

Are We Good: Hip Hop Pedagogy and Affirmative Epistemologies

Ashley N. Woodson is a mother, sister, daughter and counterstoryteller. Inspired by principles of critical race theory, she researches the possibilities of Black kids’ civic imaginations. She is an Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Missouri - Columbia, and Faculty Fellow for Community Engagement in the Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity.

Summit Presentations

Timeline/Loop/Spiral

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Artists as First Responders: Curriculum and Lessons Centered Around Artists

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Mapping Whiteness in Educational Spaces

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Cross-Disciplinary & Cross-Cultural Collaborations

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Circuit of Dreams

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A Reimagined Future: Envisioning a World Without Mass Incarceration

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