Towson University will be hosting the 17th Annual Multicultural Conference on Thursday, March 3, 2011 in the University Union, Chesapeake Rooms from 9:00 am ? 3:15 pm.
Diversity can transform our classrooms, energize our students and make us all better teachers. This year’s conference looks at the university classroom as the epicenter for diversity: diverse curricula, diverse pedagogies, diverse students and diverse faculty. ?Dangerous Teaching? captures the idea that issues of diversity may present challenges for our classes, but also new opportunities to make courses even more effective. Attendees will work from real-life cases in order to reflect on their pedagogies and develop new innovations for the classroom.
The keynote speaker for this event will be Dr. Elizabeth Higginbotham, Professor of Sociology at the University of Delaware. A native New Yorker, Dr. Higginbotham did her undergraduate work at City College of the CUNY and graduate work at Brandeis University, where she received her doctorate in sociology in 1980. She worked with Bonnie Thornton Dill and Lynn Weber to establish the Center for Research on Women at the University of Memphis, making it hub for innovation work in the new race, class and gender scholarship.
Dr. Higginbotham also directed the Memphis Center’s Curriculum Integration Project. The center earned awards for its pioneering work in curriculum integration, particularly helping faculty integrate the new race and gender scholarship in liberal arts courses. In addition to her own research on employment issues for professional Black women, Higginbotham collaborated with Lynn Weber on a study of mobility issues, employment and health outcomes for a matched sample of Black and White professional and managerial women in Memphis. Many of their publications are in popular readers used in the teaching of race, class and gender.
She is the author of Too Much to Ask: Black Women in the Era of Integration (University of North Carolina Press, 2001) and co-editor of Women and Work: Exploring Race, Ethnicity, and Class (Sage Publications, 1997). She also has published many articles in Gender & Society, Women?s Studies Quarterly, and edited collections.
For more information, contact Sam Collins at {scollins@towson.edu} or 410-704-3199
