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Two Lynch School of Education events, the school’s Fall Symposium and the LSOE Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture’s Diversity Challenge, highlight late October campus activity at Boston College.
Joan Lombardi, an international expert in child development and social policy, will deliver the keynote at the 15th annual LSOE Fall Symposium this Tuesday, Oct. 21, at 4:30 p.m. in the Yawkey Center’s Murray Room.
Lombardi, who earned her master’s of education at the Lynch School in 1973, served as the first deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development in the Obama administration. Her keynote remarks are titled “Early Childhood Education: Looking Back and Moving Forward.”
Earlier, Lombardi served as deputy assistant secretary for policy and external affairs for the Administration for Children and Families, and as the first commissioner of the Child Care Bureau during the Clinton administration. She is currently an advisor to the Buffett Early Childhood Fund and a senior fellow for the Bernard van Leer Foundation.
Lombardi, who earned her PhD in human development from the University of Maryland, is the author of Time to Care: Redesigning Child Care to Promote Education, Support and Build Communities, and co-editor of A Beacon of Hope: The Promise of Early Head Start for American’s Youngest Children.
While working with young children and families for more than four decades, she has witnessed a revolution in thinking about the importance of the early years to long-term learning, health, and behavior. Her keynote address will review where the field has come since the emergence of Head Start and where it may be headed in the decades ahead.
Her address will be followed by remarks from two Lynch School faculty with expertise in the area: Professor of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology Rebekah Levine Coley and Associate Professor of Teacher Education, Special Education, and Curriculum and Instruction Mariela Páez.
A reception will follow the presentation. The deadline for registration is tomorrow; go to omc.bc.edu/schools/lsoe/2014/symposium/register.php.
The Diversity Challenge, which takes place Oct. 24 and 25, will examine “Racial and Cultural Discrimination Across the Lifespan,” with panel discussions, workshops, and individual presentations by invited experts in education, mental health, and community activism.
An estimated 250 attendees are expected at the conference, which will touch on immigrant youth and workplace violence. Among the featured panels are “Understanding Invisibility as Part of the Black Experience,” “Mental Health Needs of Diverse Populations,” “Increasing Awareness of Racial Inequalities in Educational and Professional Contexts,” “Effects of Stereotypes and Discrimination on Mental Health and Academic Achievement,” and “The Importance of Understanding Racial Bias.”
The conference also will observe the 40th anniversary of the Boston school desegregation controversy, with a panel that includes Donna Bivens, project director of the Boston Busing Desegregation Project.
“She’ll be talking about where we were in the past and where we are with respect to desegregation in the schools,” says Professor and ISPRC Director Janet Helms. “We’ve made some small improvements, but actually we’re moving backwards on many of these issues. With respect to school desegregation, for instance, although a few students have more opportunities than they did in the past, for the most part we have returned to being a segregated school system – the haves and the have-nots.”
This year’s conference will also offer a full day of discussion on Saturday in hopes of providing those who cannot attend Friday with a chance to participate and come away with some new insight.
For more information on Diversity Challenge 2014, see www.bc.edu/content/bc/schools/lsoe/isprc.html.