2018 Race & Pedagogy National Conference
Every four years, the University of Puget Sound and the Race & Pedagogy Institute welcomes more than 2,000 local, regional, national, and international participants to engage issues of race and to discuss the impact of race on education. Each conference builds on the success of the last and contributes new perspectives to the conversation. This conference was held September 27 - 29, 2018, to explore the theme Radically Re-Imagining the Project of Justice: Narratives of Rupture, Resilience, and Liberation. Major sub-themes are: Rupturing the Logics of Domination: Urgencies in the Project of Justice; Undoing Miseducation: Reclaiming and Rewriting Narratives of Liberation; and Radical Transformations: New Publics, New Social Contracts.
The Conference included Keynote, Spotlight, and Concurrent sessions. Conversation Spaces will be built into the program to multiply opportunities for more informal interactions among attendees around selected topics drawn from the formal sessions. As part of the Institute’s commitment to understanding the arts as public pedagogy, the fine and performing arts spoke, on campus and in community spaces, to the trauma and costly yields of entering the archives of painful histories of dehumanization and internment; to the similarly and differently turbulent and violent crossings through which migrations, genocide, and enslavement have been wrought; to Tacoma’s own struggles for justice over the course of many years. The Conference also featured a Youth Summit for middle and high school students built on the Institute’s engagement with Washington State public schools. In addition, a conference strand designed by PreK–12 educators will focus on Unlearning Racism and wrestling with issues of representation, curriculum, and pedagogy in public schools and teacher preparation.
Clock hours and professional development credits were available for local, statewide educators. Conference participants had access to a digital program platform that served as a guide for choosing and moving through the Conference program to craft a rich educational experience and make connections with other attendees.
Keynote Speakers:
- Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, was elected as the 21st president of the National Congress of American Indians in 2013, and is one of the most senior tribal political leaders in the state of Washington and the larger Pacific Northwest. Cladoosby is also the co-speaker for the Coast Salish Gathering, which comprises tribes from Western Washington and British Columbia.
- Jeff Chang, formerly the Executive Director of The Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University (IDA), has recently been named the first vice president of narrative, arts, and culture at Race Forward. Based in New York and Oakland, Race Forward’s mission is to build awareness, solutions, and leadership for racial justice by generating transformative ideas, information, and experiences.
- Valerie B. Jarrett is a senior advisor to the Obama Foundation and a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. She has championed the creation of equality and opportunity for all Americans, economically and politically empowering women.
- Alicia Garza, is an internationally recognized organizer, writer, and public speaker. In 2018, she founded the Black Futures Lab, which invites Black people to experiment with new ways to build independent, progressive Black political power. One of three co-founders of Black Lives Matter, Garza dreams of a future where all Black communities have what they need to live well. Artist, organizer, educator, and popular public speaker Alicia Garza
- Patrisse Cullors is a Los Angeles native and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network and founder of grassroots Los Angeles-based organization Dignity and Power Now. She is also a senior fellow at MomsRising, where she is working on ending Maternal Mortality and Morbidity. Her memoir When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir became an instant New York Times bestseller Patrisse Cullors