The Shirley Dixon Celebration of Urban Education Symposium will be held Friday, March 6, 5:30–7:30pm, in the Grace Hall Atrium. Prominent anti-racist writer and educator Tim Wise will deliver the keynote address.
Hosted by Cabrini’s Center for Urban Education, Equity, and Improvement (CUEEI), the annual event will happen in conjunction with the Pennsylvania National Association for Multicultural Education (PA-NAME) Conference, March 6–7, and shares its theme: The Fierce Urgency of Now, based on the words of Martin L. King Jr. The symposium will highlight exemplar practices within urban education, bringing together practitioners and scholars from schools, higher education, and the community.
Tim Wise has provided anti-racism training to educators and administrators nationwide and has spoken on over 1,000 college campuses, at hundreds of professional and academic conferences, and to community groups across the country. He has authored seven books, including his latest, Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America (City Lights Books).
“As we examine ‘the Fierce Urgency of Now’ with Tim Wise at the Shirley Dixon Celebration of Urban Education Symposium,” said CUEEI Director Ronald W. Whitaker II, EdD, “we will challenge ourselves as educators and individuals concerned about equity to facilitate transformational servant leadership through the lens of courage, convictions, and humility.”
Whitaker, who is Assistant Dean, Assistant Professor, and Director of District and School Relations in Cabrini’s School of Education, noted that offering the symposium and conference together this year was a perfect fit for the CUEEI’s mission to “provide courageous and transformational leadership to students and communities who are most underserved, disadvantaged, and/or disenfranchised.”
After the keynote address, the “Most Courageous” Awards—for Exemplar Urban Educational Leadership, High Impact Teacher, Commitment to Equity School, and Community Leader Equity—will be announced. Additionally, this year’s event will pay tribute to the symposium’s namesake, Cabrini Trustee and advocate for equitable education Shirley Walker Dixon (’84, MEd’89, EdD’18), who passed away in 2019.