CUESEF 2023 Speakers

We have an exciting line-up of scholars, educators, activists, and thinkers joining us for conversations about memory, futures, and freedom to life, educational practice, and collective work and communal responsibility.

Panelists

Tricia Barbas

Tricia Barbas
Pittsburgh Science & Technology Academy, HS English

Session: Practices of Freedom: Memories of Study, Planning Educational Futures

Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton

Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton
Mother of Hadiya Pendleton

Session: Embodied Pedagogies: Memory, Mothering, and Making through Grief

Cheryl Fields-Smith

Cheryl Fields-Smith
Professor and Graduate Coordinator, Department of Educational Theory and Practice, University of Georgia

Dr. Fields-Smith is Professor of Elementary Education in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice (ETAP) within the Mary Frances Early College of Education. She has been a member of ETAP faculty for 18 years and currently serves as ETAP’s Graduate Program Coordinator. She earned her doctoral degree from Emory University in 2004 under the direction of Dr. Vanessa Siddle Walker. She is a former elementary school teacher, 1st, 2nd, and 4th grades, in Connecticut.

Dr. Fields-Smith’s research interests center on understanding Black parents’ engagement in their children’s education from the perspective of Black parents. She is a pioneer in Black homeschool research having published the first empirically based study in 2009 in the article, Motivations, Challenges, and Sacrifices: Black Parents’ Decisions to Homeschool co-authored with a doctoral student who served as her research assistant on a Spencer Foundation grant. Since this publication, Dr. Fields-Smith written a book titled, Exploring Single Black Mothers’ Resistance Through Homeschooling, Co-edited a book titled, Homeschooling Black Children in the U.S.: Theory, Practice, and Popular Culture, and published several articles and chapters on Black home education. Her work has been featured in major networks and other multimedia broadcasts. 

Session: Families & Communities as Sites of Educational Memories and Futures 

Amarachi Iheme

Amarachi Iheme (she/her) 
Rising Junior, Communication Sciences and Disorders & Linguistics

Session: Practices of Freedom: Memories of Study, Planning Educational Futures

Michelle Kenney

Michelle Kenney
Mother of Antwon Rose
CEO/Founder, Antwon Rose II Foundation

Michelle Kenney is the mother of Antwon Rose II, the 17-year-old shot and killed by East Pittsburgh Police on June 19, 2018. Michelle established the Antwon Rose II Foundation in honor of her son, Antwon, to continue the work that Antwon was doing during his life on earth and to advocate for police reform. Since establishing the Antwon Rose II Foundation, Michelle has collaborated with several well-known organizations including but not limited to the NFL, Roc Nation, the Pittsburgh Steelers and 1Hood Media. Michelle is also a Board Member of the national non-profit, United Justice Coalition and The Hear Foundation of Pittsburgh.

Michelle has made it her mission to ensure Antwon's name and legacy is never forgotten by continuing to pour into the ideas and creations of young people not only in Antwon's community but surrounding communities as well. Michelle believes the biggest accomplishment since her son's passing has been the Rose Registry and the submission of 5 Bills of legislation to change how policing is done in Pennsylvania.

Michelle’s entanglement with law enforcement has made her advocacy even more complicated. For over a decade Michelle worked as an Administrative Assistant to a local police chief and Mayor where she got a first-hand look at everything good and bad regarding the police system. Michelle clearly understands the oath/blue line in policing and knows that it can work for and against individuals. Prior to her tenure with the police department, she worked as a secretary for a private law firm giving her insight into how the legal system operates as well. Her education includes Temple University as well as West Virginia University.

Michelle’s personal life includes being a mother of Antwon’s sister, Kyra Jamison, and four beautiful granddaughters. 

Session: Embodied Pedagogies: Memory, Mothering, and Making through Grief

Erica Meiners

Erica Meiners (she/they)
Northeastern Illinois University

Session: Freedom Now: A Dialogue on Abolition and Education

Erica R. Meiners is a professor of education and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Northeastern Illinois University. A writer, organizer, and educator, Meiners is the author For the Children? Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State, coauthor of The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence, and a coeditor of The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Toward Freedom.

Jason Orr

Jason Orr
Propel Homestead, MS Social Studies

Session: Practices of Freedom: Memories of Study, Planning Educational Futures

Tamika Palmer

Tamika Palmer
Mother of Breonna Taylor

Session: Embodied Pedagogies: Memory, Mothering, and Making through Grief

 

 

 

Za'Morrie Reeves

Za'Morrie Reeves
Taylor Allderdice High School Student

I’m Za'Morrie Reeves, I am 16 years old with a desire for law enforcement. I am an upcoming Junior at Taylor Allderdice High School and I hope to become a Pittsburgh Police officer after college. I have the pleasure of serving on multiple different councils for my school... those being the Superintendent Student Advisory Council (SSAC), African American Centers for Advanced Studies Executive Committee (AACAS), and the Student and Government Council (SAGC).

Session: Youth Panel

Samaria Rice

Samaria Rice
Mother of Tamir Rice
CEO, Tamir Rice Foundation

Session: Embodied Pedagogies: Memory, Mothering, and Making through Grief

Nichole Sims

Nichole Sims
A+ Schools

Session: Families & Communities as Sites of Educational Memories and Futures 

Aaliyah Taylor

Aaliyah Taylor
CEO, A.T Teen Publishing Workshop

Aaliyah "LiLi" Taylor is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native. Her best seller Girl In The Shadows has sold over 700 copies. Aaliyah created A.T Teen Publishing Workshop as a way to help teens overcome social issues through writing.

From 2021-2022 Aaliyah competed and won first place in the Penn Hills Charter School Of Entrepreneurship, shark tank, BUILD competition, and NFTE regional competition. In 2022 Aaliyah founded her company Lyin Enterprises LLC to further showcase, her gift of writing, dance, music, and cosmetology.

Follow her amazing journey as her story is still being written. For booking information, you can contact Aaliyah "LiLi" Taylor on all social media platforms.

Session: Youth Panel

Amber Taylor

Amber Taylor
Westinghouse High School

Session: Youth Panel

Sister IAsia Thomas

Sister IAsia Thomas
Children's Window to Africa

Session: Practices of Freedom: Memories of Study, Planning Educational Futures

Philicity Walker

Philicity Walker
Woodland Hills High School

Session: Practices of Freedom: Memories of Study, Planning Educational Futures

Shaneé Washington

Shaneé Washington
University of Washington

Session: Families & Communities as Sites of Educational Memories and Futures 

Nekiya Washington-Butler

Nekiya Washington-Butler
University of Pittsburgh CASE Program

Session: Practices of Freedom: Memories of Study, Planning Educational Futures

Connie Wun

Connie Wun
Executive Director, AAPI Women Lead

Dr. Connie Wun is the co-founder and Executive Director of AAPI Women Lead. She was raised most of her life in Oakland, California and is the daughter of refugees. She has spent time as a sex worker, university and high school educator, as well as an anti-sexual assault counselor. Connie has published in academic books, journals, and mainstream press, including Antiblackness, Critical Sociology and Elle magazine. She is a co-editor for the anthology, Abolition for the People, with Colin Kaepernick and Christopher Petrella. Dr. Wun has appeared on Democracy Now!, MSNBC, NPR, and a range of podcasts. Connie has been fortunate enough to lead and co-facilitate community-driven research projects on gender violence, antiBlackness, and carceral violence. Connie is finishing up her sabbatical trying to recover from this place.

Session: Freedom Now: A Dialogue on Abolition and Education

Facilitators

Ari Brazier

Ari Brazier
Postdoctoral Association, University of Pittsburgh

Ariana Denise Brazier, Ph.D. is a Black queer feminist and smiley sad mom-girl. She is a play-driven community-organizer and educator who is motivated to raise a joyous, free Black child. Ari received her doctoral degree in English, Critical & Cultural Studies from the University of Pittsburgh in April 2021. Ari has been described by the people she loves as southern, explosive, abstract, intricate, and awkward. As a researcher, Ari’s work is centered on Black children and families living in poverty in the southeast United States. She documents how Black child play functions as a grassroots method of community-based storytelling, teaching, and organizing. As a human, Ari is navigating a period of spatial and emotional precarity. Motherhood continues to be a kaleidoscopic experience. All the while, her son, Remix, is the most evolutionary joy she has ever known.

Session: Youth Panel

Lori Delale-O'Connor

Lori Delale-O'Connor
Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Education

Lori Delale-O'Connor, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Urban Education and Associate Chair of the Department of Education Foundations, Organizations, and Policy. She currently teaches courses in qualitative methods, urban education, and the social contexts of education. Dr. Delale-O’Connor’s research focuses on examining the connections between families, communities, and education across spaces with a particular focus on fostering equity and justice for children and youth in urbanized educational systems.

Dr. Delale-O'Connor earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University where she was also a certificate fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Education Sciences -- a pre-doctoral training program funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. She also holds an M.Ed. in secondary education from Boston College, where she was a Donovan Urban Scholar and taught secondary social studies in the Boston Public Schools. Dr. Delale-O'Connor's research has been published in the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, and Urban Education, among other outlets. She is also co-author of the 2019 book, "These Kids Are Out of Control": Why We Must Reimagine "Classroom Management" for Equity (Sage Publications).

Session: Families & Communities as Sites of Educational Memories and Futures 

Martez Files

Martez Files
Assistant Professor of Black Studies in Teacher Education, University of Pittsburgh School of Education

Dr. Martez Files is an Assistant Professor of Black Studies in Teacher Education at the University of Pittsburgh. His previous experiences include teaching high school history and social studies, serving as an adjunct professor of African American studies, and the Diversity Enhancement Program fellow at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Recently, he completed an appointment as a Graduation Coach for a $60-million grant, GEAR UP Alabama, which worked to remove barriers to higher education for rural youth in Alabama. Before coming to Pitt, he was the Program Coordinator for African American Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at UAB.

Dr. Files has a Ph.D. in Educational Studies in Diverse Populations with a concentration in Metropolitan Education Studies from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His dissertation "Mothering Ourselves to Wholeness" is a project that uncovers the myriad ways Black mothers in life and literature have forged communal wholeness, protected the most vulnerable, and healed harm outside and within communities. He holds a M.A.T. in His/SS with an emphasis on social justice from Brown University, and graduated cum laude from UAB, where he earned a B.A. in African-American Studies and B.A. in History. He is a prominent activist and organizer in Alabama, whose work focuses on mental health, politics, education, communal care, and police accountability.

Session: Mapping Study and Organizing Possibilities

Rachel Hopkins

Rachel Hopkins
Program Director, Practices of Freedom, University of Pittsburgh School of Education

Rachel Hopkins is Program Director for Practices of Freedom: A Model for Transformative Teaching and Teacher Education at the University of Pittsburgh. She also leads The NextGen Project: Let’s Talk About Racism at Carnegie Mellon University’s Cognitive Development Lab. Rachel’s work invites her to create affirming spaces for Black youth, educators, and pre-service teachers; to design and implement antiracist, culturally-responsive, and freedom-centered curricula; and to facilitate interracial and intergenerational study and dialogue. As an interdisciplinary researcher and educator, Rachel supports students and teachers in deepening their understanding of systemic oppression, disrupting injustice in their schools and communities, and freedom-dreaming.

Rachel has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology with a minor in social work and is a first-year doctoral student in Urban Education. During her time in undergrad she completed three community engagement internships through the Homewood Community Engagement Center, Institute of Politics, and the Browne Leadership Fellows Program within the School of Social Work. These experiences invited her to support the efforts and initiatives of community leaders, educators, and changemakers in fields of community mental health, early childhood education, and K-12 STEAM education. Rachel has also supported youth ages 6-21 during school and in out of school time spaces as a mentor and site coordinator for the Ready To Learn mentorship program (2019-2021) and a Heinz Fellow (2020-2021) at the Center for Urban Education, among other mentorship mentorship programs centering Black youth.

Rachel is an affiliate of the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium and an active member of its Policy & Advocacy and Culturally-Relevant & Sustaining Education working groups. She is deeply invested in supporting and sustaining Black educators, implementing racial justice education programs with youth and adults, and facilitating authentic and healing university-community collaborations.

Session: Practices of Freedom: Memories of Study, Planning Educational Futures

Khalid Long

Khalid Long
Assistant Professor of Theatre, Institute for African American Studies, University of Georgia

Dr. Khalid Y. Long is a scholar, dramaturg, and director specializing in African American/Black diasporic theatre, performance, and literature through the lenses of Black feminist/womanist thought, queer studies, and performance studies. Accordingly, his work pays close attention to the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality within marginalized and oppressed communities.

Dr. Long has published scholarly essays in The Black Theatre Review (tBTR), Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance, the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, and the Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance. His forthcoming scholarship includes essays in The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre (2nd edition) edited by Harvey Young, Zora Neale Hurston in Context edited by Christopher Varlack, Theatre Design & Technology, Theater: Yale’s Journal of Criticism, Plays, Reportage, and the edited collection Critical Essays on the Politics of Oscar Hammerstein II, edited by Donald Gagnon. Dr. Long is also a regular contributor to Black Masks and Performance Response Journal 2.0.

Dr. Long is working on his manuscript, An Architect of Black Feminist Theatre: Glenda Dickerson, Transnational Feminism, and The Kitchen Prayer Series (University of Iowa Press). Dr. Long is co-editor of two forthcoming critical anthologies, including Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance: Acts of Rebellion, Activism, and Solidarity (co-edited with Dr. DeRon S. Williams and Dr. Martine Kei Green-Rogers) with Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, Agitations: Politics, Text, Performance Series). The second anthology is August Wilson in Context (co-edited with Dr. Isaiah M. Wooden) with Cambridge University Press.

Session: August Wilson Archival Research and Teaching

Dorothy Roberts

Dorothy Roberts
George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, University of Pennsylvania

Dorothy Roberts is the 14th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor and George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology at University of Pennsylvania, with joint appointments in the Departments of Africana Studies and Sociology and the Law School, where she is the inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights. She is also Founding Director of the Penn Program on Race, Science & Society. An internationally acclaimed scholar, public intellectual, and social justice activist, Roberts has written and lectured extensively on the interplay of race, gender, and class inequities in U.S. institutions and has been a leader in transforming thinking on reproductive justice, child welfare, and bioethics. She is author of the award-winning Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (1997); Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (2001); and Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century (2011), as well as more than 100 articles and book chapters, including “Race” in the 1619 Project. Her latest book, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World (2022), culminates more than two decades of investigating racism in family policing and calls for a radically reimagined way to support children and their families.  Torn Apart was a finalist for an LA Times Book Prize.

Professor Roberts has served on the boards of directors of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Black Women’s Health Imperative, and National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. Recent recognitions of her work include elections to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Medicine, Rutgers University-Newark Honorary Doctor of Law Degree; Juvenile Law Center Leadership Prize; Abortion Liberation Fund of PA Rosie Jimenez Award; New Voices for Reproductive Justice Voice of Vision Award; Society of Family Planning Lifetime Achievement Award; and American Psychiatric Association Solomon Carter Fuller Award.

Session: Embodied Pedagogies: Memory, Mothering, and Making through Grief

Khirsten Scott

Khirsten Scott
Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Education
Director, Western Pennsylvania Writing Project

Daughter of the US South, Dr. Khirsten L. Scott is a community-driven educator who centers and embodies liberatory Black feminist and womanist practice. She works across the disciplines of rhetorical theory and writing studies, digital and Black studies, as well as critical pedagogy. Khirsten is currently working on her first book which explores HBCUs and their survival within US Higher Education. Within the city of Pittsburgh, she is lead organizer and facilitator of HYPE Media (Homewood Youth-Powered and Engaged Media), a critical literacies program focused on youth-led story-making possibilities that respond to stigmatized narratives of Black girls, Black women, and Black communities. Khirsten is cofounder and director of DBLAC, Digital Black Lit (-eracies and -eratures) and Composition, a virtual and in-person community offering writing support for Black scholars.

She is also director of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project (WPWP). The WPWP site is one of 175 sites nationally, focusing on multimodal literacies across disciplines and levels; the main premise is "teachers teaching teachers," which means that the WPWP fosters teacher leadership and aims to diminish hierarchies. Her work can be found in Kairos, Prose Studies, the Routledge Reader of African American Rhetoric, Mobility in Work in Composition, Bridging the Gap: Multimodality in Theory and Practice and Kentucky Teacher Education Journal. Dr. Scott supervises undergraduate internship opportunities for HYPE Media, DBLAC, and WPWP during the fall, spring, and terms. More information about internship requirements can be found here.

Session: Writing for Inclusion in the Classroom

Sabina Vaught

Sabina Vaught
Professor and Director of the Kinloch Commons for Critical Pedagogy and Leadership, University of Pittsburgh School of Education

Dr. Sabina Vaught is a Professor and Director of the Kinloch Commons for Critical Pedagogy and Leadership. Dr. Vaught’s research considers global carceral and liberatory knowledge movements broadly and the race-gender labor and conquest relationships among schools, prisons, and insurgent communities specifically. In her scholarly work, Dr. Vaught draws on a constellation of knowledge traditions. Her most recent book, The School-Prison Trust (University of Minnesota Press, 2022), is a co-authored ethnographic, legal, and cultural story of Indigenous self-determination and refusal in the face of school-prison conquest strategies in the long colonial war against Native peoples. Dr. Vaught’s teaching has extended to adult and juvenile prisons for state-identified women and girls, where she has facilitated Feminist Studies study groups. Dr. Vaught was a high school language arts teacher and leader in two city school districts and two bridge programs.

Sessions: Freedom now: A dialogue on abolition and education and Practices of Freedom: An abolitionist dialogue

CUESEF 2023 will be held on Tuesday, June 20 - Saturday, June 24, 2023