Diversity Committee to host speaker from UW
By the Apache Staff
A nationally recognized expert in multicultural education will be on campus March 28.
Dr. Carl A Grant, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will speak on "Multiculturalism in Higher Education: Rhetoric or Commitment?" at 10 a.m. March 28 in the Cultural Centre.
Jerry Corcoran, co-chair of the IVCC Diversity Committee that invited Grant to campus, said a number of school people have been invited to attend including counselors and administrators at elementary and secondary schools and staff from nearby community colleges and universities.
"We think it is important that our community college be the hub around which a lot of diversity-related discussions take place, and we invite our friends and colleagues from surrounding schools to participate in those discussions with us," Corcoran said.
"We hope there’s a great turnout of both students and staff, because this will be a wonderful opportunity to meet and hear from a national figure on the subject of multiculturalism in higher education," Corcoran continued. "His perspective on the subject is just like his biography, outstanding."
At 9 a.m., Dr. Grant will be meeting with representatives of various IVCC student groups by invitation.
"We thought it was a good idea to give students a chance to get to know a pretty neat guy on an informal basis," Corcoran said.
Dr. Grant is a Hoefs-Bascom Professor of Teacher Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and a Professor in the Department of Afro-American Studies at U of W.
In 1997, he received the School of Education Distinguished Achievement Award. Dr. Grant has written or edited 20 books or monographs in multicultural education or teacher education.
He has received several grants for training and research from the federal government and foundations, totaling more than $1.5 million. In 1990, he was selected as one of the top leaders in Teacher Education by the Association of Teacher Educators. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association.
Dr. Grant is a former teacher and administrator in the Chicago Public Schools.
The other members of the college’s Diversity Committee are Kim Abel, Margaret Allen, Fran Brolley, Steve Charry, Paul Crawford, Mary Lou Meader, Ken Sangston, Jill Urban-Bollis, Kathy Sramek, and co-chair Paula Hallock.