Each academic year, the Social Justice Educational Studies Program (formerly Humanistic/Multicultural Education) sponsors or co-sponsors events. Through conferences, workshops, speakers, and alumni events, the Program addresses a range of critical educational and social issues and seeks to engage participants in dialog that leads to critical awareness, equity, and social justice in organizations and communities.

PAST EVENTS

28th Annual Multicultural Education Conference: Friday March, 3, 2023

27th Annual Multicultural Education Conference

The 27th annual Multicultural Education Conference, "Collectives and Connectives: Creating Pathways of Support and Sustainability," was held Friday, March 25, 2022, at SUNY New Paltz.

The conference brought together about 275 educators, parents, community members, and students who are working toward equitable schools and educational spaces in which all people can thrive. The keynote panel, "Navigating Educational Relationships in Times of Tension: Is Community Building (Im)Possible?" featured superintendents Eric Rosser (Poughkeepsie), Ray Sanchez (Ossining), and Angela Urbina Medina (New Paltz), with moderator Paul Perez. Conference attendees chose from 14 different workshops, a visit to the Dorsky Museum, and lots of conversation.

2020 Virtual Event

Praxis of Joy, Healing, and Transformation in the Midst of Dual Pandemics
Saturday, November 7

Educators, youth and families faced even more challenges in 2020, as we lived through a global pandemic and ongoing insurrections against racial injustice and antiBlackness. In the midst of dual pandemics, it is particularly important we attend to visions and practices of healing, joy and transformation as we collectively work toward social and educational justice.

In his keynote, Dr. Edwin Mayorga invites participants to make connections across our learning spaces, to consider what pandemic praxes for joy and healing look, sound, and feel like for social justice educational communities. What role do healing and joy play in our work toward abolitionist teaching, decolonization, and racial & ethnic studies? What resources and interconnections can we draw upon that center our humanity and our relationship to the land that can amplify our work at a historical moment where the earth is on fire, we are physically isolated, and our streets are resounding with calls for racial justice? How can we look to each other--particularly those who have been historically disappeared by systems of oppression--in order to enliven the praxis of healing and transformation that are so necessary today?

Following his keynote, Dr. Asilia Franklin-Phipps (SUNY New Paltz) and Willie Morris (Dutchess Community College) offered responses.

Edwin Mayorga, Ph.D. (he/him/his), is a parent-educator-activist-scholar, and Associate Professor of Educational Studies and Latin American/Latino Studies at Swarthmore College (PA). Edwin teaches and writes about racial neoliberal urbanism, scholar-activism, participatory action research (PAR) entremundos, decolonization, critical racial/ethnic studies and community+school collaboration.

2019 Multicultural Education Conference

For the past 24 years, this annual conference has brought together educators, students, parents, and community members to gather fresh insight and to make connections with others who are working to create equitable schools that will enable all young people to achieve.

This year's 25th annual Multicultural Education Conference, "Stories and Struggles: Realizing the Power of Movements" was held Friday, November 8, 2019. Keynote speaker Dr. Michelle Fine from the Graduate Center, CUNY, spoke about "Teacher Wisdom for Building Inclusive and Engaging Classrooms in Contentious Times." The program also featured a cultural arts performance from the TMI Project on Black Stories Matter and Locker Room talk and a variety of workshops. 

Photos from 20th anniversary Multicultural Education Conference, 2014

Social Justice Educator Group

        Throughout the Mid-Hudson Valley there are many educators committed to multicultural/ social justice education who are doing meaningful work in their schools addressing diversity issues. This work is increasingly difficult because of the pressures of high-stakes testing, other top-down educational mandates and budget cuts.
        The Social Justice Educator Group supports educators and others who are committed to multicultural/social justice education. Like similar groups around the country, the goals of this group include:

1. Providing a community of support for educators committed to multicultural/social justice education.

2. Offering a space to share experiences and learn about the successes and struggles of educators in other districts.

3. Getting new ideas, resources, and materials that will enhance our educational

4. Providing a base from which to take collective action to work for changes that will support
    multicultural/social justice education.

Past Social Justice Educator Group programs, among many, have included:

• Bringing the Dignity Act For All Students Act into our Classrooms and Schools: Addressing Homophobia presented by Karen Cathers

• Creating Socially Just Spaces for Youth in Schools: A Look at the Role of Restorative Justice Practices, presented by Dr. Maria Hantzopoulos

• Supporting Undocumented Youth Today & a Screening of "Dreamers Among Us," with commentary by a DACA student

Alumni Gatherings

Each year, alumni from the Program gather for a reunion dinner to renew connections with other graduates. The alumni gathering also includes a social-justice related educational program to which members of the college community are invited.

Programs have included:

• 40 Years Later: Can We Talk: A Film and Discussion about School Integration, by Dr. Lee Anne Bell

• Making The Visible Invisible: White Privilege in our Daily Lives, by Dr. Diane Goodman

• Art Therapy with Pediatric Patients: Healing Process, Healing Image, by Dr. Lucy Barbera

• Using Restorative Practices to Build Community, by Priscilla Prutzman

Collegewide Speakers and Panels

        In collaboration with others, the Humanistic/Multicultural Education Program is active in sponsoring speakers and programs for the college and local community that address current issues related to education and social justice.

        A sampling of programs include:

• Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times, by Paul Rogat Loeb

• Asking Core Questions about Common Core Standards: Latest Version of Top-Down School Reform, by Alfie Kohn

• Challenging the Attack on Public Education: Carrying on the Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, by Yohuru Williams, Beth Dominio, & Nicholas Tampio

• Receivership, High Stakes Testing, & Social Justice in New York State's Public Schools, by Jamaal Bowman, Kevin Gibson, Betty Rosa, Ellen Roach, & Biana Tanis