Tonight on the WWU campus: Panel discussion on the future of multicultural education

In conjunction with Western Washington University’s Education Week, WWU’s Center for Education, Equity, and Diversity is hosting panel discussion titled "Moving Beyond The Rhetoric: A New Multicultural Education For the 21st Century" from 7 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, May 18, at the Viking Union Multipurpose Room on the WWU campus.

The event is free and open to the public, but it does require reservations, which can be made at http://www.wce.wwu.edu/ceed.

Distinguished educators in the field of multicultural education Patty Bode and Sonia Nieto will be among the panelists for the discussion. Bode is the director of Art Education for Tufts University and Nieto is a professor of Language, Literacy and Culture at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. They are co-authors of the book “Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education,” which is used in many university teacher education courses across the country.

The discussion, which is about the future of multicultural education, also will include panelists Gary Howard, an adjunct professor of WWU and Seattle University and author of “We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools;” Denny Hurtado, director of Indian Education of the Office of the Superintendant of Public Instruction; and Ken Zeichner, director of Teacher Education at the University of Washington.

The event is co-sponsored by WWU’s Woodring College of Education and the Curriculum Integration for Responsive, Cross-cultural, Language-based Education program (CIRCLE).

For more information, contact Jeremy Anhalt or Lynda Spaulding, co-coordinators of WWU’s Center for Education, Equity and Diversity at (360) 650-3827 or ceed@wwu.edu.