Professional Development Conferences

Teaching Race in America: A Professional Development Conference (August 9, 2023) brings together high school and middle school teachers and university professors to discuss and provide strategies for teaching race in social studies and ELA classes.

The conference will feature presentations by Nikole Hannah-Jones (creator of The New York Times's 1619 Project and Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University School of Communications), Roy Finkenbine (Professor of History and Director of Black Abolitionist Archives at the University of Detroit Mercy), Carlin Borsheim-Black (Professor of English Education at Central Michigan University), and local secondary educators and university professors.

Nikole Hannah-Jones will demonstrate how to use the "1619 Project" to navigate challenging topics including slavery, segregation, and racial inequality.

Roy Finkenbine and Carlin Borsheim-Black will provide teaching strategies for educators. Finkenbine will discuss teaching Race and Slavery in America's Past and Borsheim-Black will offer insight into teaching racial literacy in secondary ELA. 

Breakout sessions will include presentations by local educators focused on practical and innovative strategies to discuss racism and race in social studies and ELA classes.

Overall, attendees will gain SCECH, new strategies, digital resources, reading lists, and connections to feel comfortable and empowered to teach race in the classroom.

If you have any questions about the conference or would like to be put on our mailing list for conference updates, please send an email to [email protected].

Wednesday, August 9

• 8 - 8:30 a.m. - Registration and Continental Breakfast
• 8:30 - 9:15 a.m. - ​​Welcome Remarks from Dean Elaine Carey, Dean Jon Margerum-Leys, and Sponsors
  • Location: Founders Ballrooms A and B
• 9:15 - 9:30 a.m. - Break
• 9:30 - 11:00 a.m. - General Session
  • “In Conversation about Truth, History, and The 1619 Project”
    Nikole Hannah-Jones, Howard University
    Location: Founders Ballrooms A and B
• 11:15 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. - Lunch and General Session
  • “Uncomfortable Discoveries: Teaching about Race and Slavery in America’s Past”
    Roy Finkenbine, University of Detroit Mercy
  • "Navigating Conservative Pushback in English Classrooms"
    Carlin Borsheim-Black, Central Michigan University
    Location: Founders Ballrooms A and B
• 12:45 - 1 p.m. - Break
• 1 - 1:45 p.m. - Breakout Session I
  • “Integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Terms into Educational Spaces: Strategies and Best Practices”
    Jessyca Mathews, Carman-Ainsworth High School
    Location: Founders Ballroom C East
  • “Confronting a History of Racism through Disciplinary Literacy”
    Jared Aumen, Ann Arbor Public Schools
    Joslyn Hunscher-Young, Ann Arbor Public Schools
    Location: Gold Room A
  • “‘Just like me’: Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif,” Agency, And Radical Empathy”
    Christopher Apap, Oakland University
    Location: Gold Room C
  • “Race Across the Curriculum”
    Danielle Ligocki, Oakland University
    Phyllis Ness, Oakland University
    Patti Bills, Oakland University
    Linda Doornbos, Oakland University
    Location: Founders Ballroom C West
• 1:45 - 2 p.m. - Break
• 2 - 2:45 p.m. - Breakout Session II
  • “‘Not Just Another Thing’: Finding Passion, Purpose, and Agency in 1619 Project Resources”
    Rosalyn Shahid, Wayne RESA
    David Hales, Wayne RESA
    Location: Founders Ballroom C East
  • “Teaching Political Movements using The Hate You Give and Kite Runner”
    Kimberly Y. Holland, Wayne State University
    Location: Gold Room A
  • “Rethinking the Canon with Frederick Douglass”
    Rob Anderson, Oakland University
    Tim Donahue, Oakland University
    Jennifer Tianen, West Bloomfield High School
    Location: Gold Room C
  • "Racialized Issues in Schools"
    Robert Martin, Oakland University/Oakland County Diversity Director
    Cornelius Godfrey, Oakland Schools/Oakland County Diversity Director
    Location: Founders Ballroom C West
• 2:45 - 3 p.m. - Break
• 3 - 3:45 p.m. - Breakout Session III
  • “Cultivating Courageous Conversations About Race in the Classroom, School and Community”
    Jay Marks, Jay B. Marks and Associates Educational Consulting Services
    Location: Gold Room A
  • “Teaching Taught Topics: A Case Study of Race, Resistance, and Violence on the Underground Railroad in the Midwest”
    Rochelle Danquah, Oakland University
    Location: Gold Room C
  • “Equitable Instruction: Remixing Curriculum and Pedagogy for Social Justice and Empathy Development”
    Kim Stein, Bridgeport High School
    Location: Founders Ballroom C East
  • “Teaching histories of Racism and Resistance through Popular Film” and “Television/TV, YouTube, and Video Games: Understanding racism through media”
    Annie Sullivan, Oakland University
    Sam Srauy, Oakland University
    Location: Founders Ballroom C West
• 3:45 - 4 p.m. - Break
• 4 - 4:45 p.m. - General Session
  • Museum Panel
    • Olivia Marsh, The Henry Ford Museum
    • Tracy Irwin, Detroit Historical Society
  • Closing Remarks
    Location: Founders Ballrooms A and B

Nikole Hannah-Jones, Keynote Presenter

Nikole Hannah-Jones is an award-winning investigative reporter who covers civil rights and racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine.  Nikole got hooked on journalism when she joined her high school newspaper and began writing about students like her, who were bused across town as part of a voluntary school desegregation program. Prior to joining The New York Times, Nikole worked as an investigative reporter at ProPublica in New York City, where she spent three years chronicling the way official policy created and maintains segregation in housing and schools. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2017), the National Association of Black Journalists Journalist of the Year (2015), the George Polk Award for radio reporting (2016), the Pulitzer Prize (2020), and NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Nonfiction for The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. Currently, Hannah-Jones is the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy. 

Roy Finkenbine, Keynote Presenter

Roy E. Finkenbine is Professor of History and Director of the Black Abolitionist Archive at the University of Detroit Mercy, where he teaches courses in African American history, modern Africa, slave resistance, the Civil War era, and the Underground Railroad.  He previously taught at Hampton University.  While on the editorial staff of the Black Abolitionist Papers Project at Florida State University in the 1980s and 1990s, he coedited the five-volume Black Abolitionist Papers, 1830-1865 (1985-1992) and Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation (1993). He has authored Sources of the African American Past (1st ed., 1997; 2nd ed., 2004), as well as over a dozen articles and book chapters related to the black abolitionists, reparations for slavery, and the Underground Railroad.  He serves on the Michigan Freedom Trail Commission.  His op-eds have appeared in the History News Network, Time, Newsweek, RawStory, AlterNet and Faithfully Magazine. Currently, Finkenbine is completing a book entitled The Indigenous Underground Railroad: Freedom Seekers and First Nations Peoples in the Old Northwest.

Carlin Borsheim-Black, Keynote Presenter

Dr. Carlin Borsheim-Black is an award-winning teacher-researcher and professor of English education in the Department of English, Language, and Literature at Central Michigan University. Borsheim-Black's teaching and scholarship focus on possibilities and challenges of antiracist teaching in the context of literature study, especially in predominantly white classrooms and communities. Her book, Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction for White Students, co-authored with Dr. Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides, offers English teachers specific practices for merging goals for racial literacy with goals for literature instruction in secondary English classrooms. The book was recognized with the 2022 Outstanding Book Award by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Borsheim-Black's research has been published in Research in the Teaching of English, English Education, Teachers College Record, and Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. She currently serves as co-editor of Michigan Reading Journal.

If you're interested in helping "Teaching Race in America: A Professional Development Conference" make an impact on educators and their pupils, please review the various sponsorship opportunities below. Please use the code, S0823TRA, to make donations. 

Presenting Sponsor - $30,000 (Exclusive)
FMV $180

• Company logo on the event invitation and other event collateral
• Pre-event press release(s) acknowledging your company as the presenting sponsor
• Presenting Sponsor recognition in digital media releases
• Pre event Presenting Sponsor recognition in OU social media posts
• Welcome address (two minutes) by executive representative during VIP reception and general session
• Corporate logo displayed on the large screen in VIP reception and general session rooms
• Prominent acknowledgement on VIP event signage
• Recognition in follow-up social media posts on OU and College of Arts and Sciences social media pages
• Company display table at VIP reception and conference
• Invitation for 6 to VIP reception

Platinum Sponsor $15,000 (2 available)
FMV $120

• Pre event Platinum Sponsor recognition in OU social media posts
• Opportunity to provide remarks during VIP reception (1 minute)
• Prominent Acknowledgement on VIP event signage
• Corporate logo displayed on the screen in the general session room
• Recognition in follow up social media posts on OU and College of Arts and Sciences social media pages
• Company display table during conference
• Invitation for 4 to VIP reception

Gold Sponsor - $5,000 (4 available)
FMV $60

• Corporate logo displayed on the large screen in VIP reception and general session rooms
• Recognition in follow up social media posts on OU and College of Arts and Sciences social media pages
• Company display table at conference
• Invitation for 2 to VIP reception

Bronze Sponsor $2500 (4 available)
FMV $30

• Company name displayed on the large screen in VIP reception and general session rooms
• Recognition in follow up social media post on OU and College of Arts and Sciences social media pages
• Company display table at conference
• Invitation for 1 to VIP reception

Benefactor Sponsor - $1,000
(Covers the registration cost for 4 middle/high school teachers)

• Benefactor Sponsor recognition in digital media releases
• Company name displayed on large screen at the conference
• Recognition in follow up social media posts on OU and College of Arts and Sciences social media pages

• Participants will gain a richer set of perspectives on the challenges and benefits of teaching race through intentional and honest conversations with colleagues.
  
• Participants will explore new strategies and approaches for teaching race and equity.
  
• Participants will examine instructional resources to teach race, and determine areas of application in their ELA and Social Studies classes.
  
• Participants will engage with, and develop a plan to implement, discipline-specific approaches to anti-racist instruction in ELA and Social Studies classes.

Presenting Sponsor:
Kresge Foundation

VIP Reception Sponsor:
Life's Journey Training and Consulting, LLC 

Gold Sponsor:
United Way of Southeastern Michigan
The Skillman Foundation
OER Project 
Lia and Glenn McIntosh
Elaine Carey and Javier Alvarez-Isasi

Bronze Sponsor:
Knudsen Foundation
Charles H. Wright Museum
The Detroit Historical Society 

Benefactor Sponsors:
MEEMIC Insurance Company

Breakfast Sponsor: 
The School of Education and Human Services