Registration

Networking

An opportunity for alumnae and students to network informally.

Dinner

Welcoming Remarks

Leanna James Blackwell, Director of Communications, Acting Executive Director, Alumnae Association

Leaders in the Classroom: Learning from
Caring and Courageous Teachers
Keynote address by Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita of Language, Literacy, and Culture, School of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

 2 - 7 PM, Art Museum Lobby

4:00 – 5:15 PM,
Art Museum Lobby

  5:30 – 7 PM, Great Room, Blanchard Campus Center

7:15-7:25, Gamble A, Art Building

7:30 PM, Gamble A, Art Building

Registration                                                                                                         

Welcoming Remarks
Joanne V. Creighton, President, Mount Holyoke College

Panel: MHC and its Educational Mission
Panelists: Lois A. Brown, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Harriet L. and Paul M. Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts; Lenore Carlisle, assistant professor of psychology and education; Susan Geller Ettenheim’75(as moderator), Teacher, New York City Board of Education, Eleanor Roosevelt High School; Penny Gill, Dean of the College, Mary Lyon Professor of Humanities, Professor of Politics; Lori Kelman ’82, Chair of the Dept. of Natural Sciences and Editor of BIOS, Montgomery College

The panel will explore the myriad ways in which alumnae experienced the College’s educational mission during their own time at MHC, and how alums bring their MHC experiences and perspective into their current work as educators. Questions to be addressed include:

• How can our goals as educators be articulated in relation to our MHC experiences?
• How does what we do fit into the continuity of our students' educations? Are we preparing students for a MHC experience and if so, what does that mean?
• How might members of the MHC community organize and conduct our work to enable even greater success in liberating imaginations and generating critical engagement in social transformation?
  

9 - 11 AM, Art Museum Lobby

9:30 – 9:45 AM, Gamble A, Art Building

10 – 11:15 AM, Gamble A, Art Building

Concurrent Panels

Curricular Reform: Who Owns the Curriculum
Panelists: Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur ’01, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rhode Island College; Jordana B. Harper-Ewert '03 (as moderator), Principal, Litwin School, Chicopee, MA; Stephanie Mackler ’98, Assistant Professor of Education, Cornell College; Marcia R. Webb ’87, Teacher, Watkinson School .

The panel will investigate the issue of who decides what is learned in the classroom, who has access to learning and discovery, and how learning is assessed. Questions to be addressed include:

• Can we, as educators and learners ourselves, find fresh ways to think about what we most want our students to learn, why we want them to learn it, and how best we might enable their learning?
• How might we open up new ways to match skills with values, and content with methods of instruction?
• Can we construct and advocate curricula that liberate our students' imaginations and critical intelligence without sacrificing discipline and rigor?
• How can educators implement a curriculum within a market-based political economy that will truly enfranchise and empower students?

Diversity and Equality: Local Communities, Global Implications
Panelists: Paulette Q. Thompson ’85, French & History Teacher, Seattle Public Schools; Karina (Tinker) Monroe FP’07, Teacher, City of Springfield; Rhonda Soto '04, Class Action Race/Class intersections Program Coordinator;Sonali Gulati ’96 Assistant Professor, Dept. Photography and Film, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Arts; Norean R. Sharpe ’82, Chair, Division of Mathematics and Science and Professor, Statistics and Operations Research, Babson College

The panel will explore the creative tension that can arise between educators’ commitment to diverse perspectives and cultural frameworks and their goal of a more equalitarian distribution of educational resources—in the U.S. and around the world. Questions to be addressed include:

• How can we prevent racial, ethnic, and cultural discrimination within our educational systems?
• How might we simultaneously challenge class inequalities within a global economy? What role does standardized testing play in these arenas?
• How can we ensure accountability of educators and educational institutions, while resisting simplistic measures of outcome (such as standardized tests) that only perpetuate class, racial, and gender inequalities?
  

11:30 – 12:45 PM

Gamble A, Art Building

Cleveland L1

Lunch and Roundtable Discussions

• MHC and its Educational Mission (continuation from the morning panel)
• Curricular Reform: Who Owns the Curriculum (continuation from the morning panel)
• Diversity and Equality: Local Communities, Global Implications (continuation from the morning panel)
• Multiculturalism in the Classroom
• Technology Integration in the Classroom
• Literacy Issues
• Globalization: Who Can Claim to be Educated in the Global Context
• STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Education
• What Do We Do About Languages: Is Cultural Literacy Possible Without Better Training In Languages?
  

1 - 2 PM, Great Room, Blanchard Campus Center

Break

Educating Students for Global Citizenship
Panelists: Cheryl R. Maloney '73 (as panelist and moderator), Assistant Superintendent, Weston Public Schools; Eva A. Paus, Professor of Economics and Carol Hoffman Collins Director of the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives

How do we prepare our students to be global citizens, navigate changing economic landscapes, understand the shifting political winds, and utilize their technological skills effectively? This lecture will discuss how teachers use the curriculum of all disciplines to expand students’ knowledge of the world. What concerns do these initiatives raise for parents and the community? We will also look at how other nations are struggling with these same issues.

Campus Tour/Free time

Meet in Art Museum lobby near receptionist desk.

Reception Cocktail Hour

Dinner

Welcoming remarks at dinner by Lois A. Brown, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Harriet L. and Paul M. Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts

Documentary: Granito de Arena (Grain of Sand)
Granito de Arena is the story of hundreds of thousands of public schoolteachers whose grassroots, non-violent movement took Mexico by surprise, and who have endured brutal repression in their 25-year struggle for social and economic justice, a struggle especially important to Oaxaca's indigenous children. Award-winning Seattle filmmaker, Jill Freidberg, spent two years in southern Mexico documenting the efforts of teachers, parents, and students fighting to defend the country's public education system from the devastating impacts of economic globalization.

Commentary & Discussion of Teachers as Leaders of Social Reform in Oaxaca and in the U.S.

Join Harold Garrett-Goodyear, moderator, Jill Freidberg, film producer, and Fernando Soberanes and Beatriz Gutiérrez, two of the Oaxacan teachers who have given eloquent voice to the goals of teachers in resistance, , for discussion of the film and of their struggle for social justice.

2 - 2:30 PM

2:30 - 4:00 PM, Great Room, Blanchard Campus Center

4:00 - 5:00 PM,
Art Museum Lobby

4:00 - 5:00 PM

5:15 - 5:45 PM, Great Room, Blanchard Campus Center

5:45 - 6:45 PM, Great Room, Blanchard Campus Center

7:00 - 8:00 PM,
Gamble A, Art Building

8 – 9 PM

Gamble A, Art Building

Breakfast and Round Table Discussions 

• MHC and its Educational Mission (continuation from Saturday panel)
• Curricular Reform: Who Owns the Curriculum (continuation from Saturday panel)
• Diversity and Equality: Local Communities, Global Implications (continuation from Saturday panel)
• Multiculturalism in the Classroom
• Technology Integration in the Classroom
• Literacy Issues
• Globalization: Who Can Claim to be Educated in the Global Context
• STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Education
• What Do We Do About Languages: Is Cultural Literacy Possible Without Better Training In Languages?

8:30 – 10 AM, Great Room, Blanchard Campus Center

Consolidating Information from Round Table Discussions  

Resources for Teaching and Learning from Each Other                 
Presenters: Leanna James Blackwell, Susan Geller Ettenheim’75(as moderator), and Edward Gray

The "how to and why we should" stay connected and continue our discussions after this weekend conference.

Wrap-up

Boxed Lunch Available

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (A Little Bit of So Much Truth)

The internationally award-winning documentary by Corrugated Films captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged in the summer of 2006 when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using these media outlets to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles.

Sponsored by the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Psychology and Education Department, and Harriet L and Paul M. Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts

10 – 10:30 AM, Great Room, Blanchard

   10:30 – 11:30 AM, Great Room, Blanchard

11:30 – 1 PM, Great Room, Blanchard

Noon, Great Room, Blanchard

1 – 2:30 PM
Gamble A, Art Building