Award-Winning Author to Headline U of A Multiculturalism Symposium

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H. Richard Milner IV

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Award-winning author H. Richard Milner IV will be the keynote speaker at the 2014 Multiculturalism and Social Justice Symposium scheduled for June 23-24 at the University of Arkansas.

Milner, who is the Helen Faison Professor of Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh, received praise for his book, Start Where You Are But Don’t Stay There: Understanding Diversity, Opportunity Gaps, and Teaching in Today’s Classrooms, published in 2010 by Harvard Education Press. He won the 2011 American Educational Studies Association Critics’ Choice Book Award and the 2012 American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Outstanding Book Award.

The symposium is sponsored by the department of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas. It begins with a reception at 5 p.m. June 23 at the Janelle Y. Hembree Alumni House. The reception will be followed by a discussion of past and present images from visual media and their meanings for perceptions and interactions with varied groups.

 The symposium is scheduled from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. June 24 at the Donald W. Reynolds Center on the U of A campus.

Online registration is open. Teachers will receive six hours of professional development credit for attending.

The theme of the symposium is “Media, Images, and Opportunities: Classroom Connections,” and Milner will draw from both his book and his work consulting with school districts across the country regarding culturally responsive teaching and poverty’s influence on education.

The symposium agenda also includes breakout sessions on images in textbooks, using drama to address voice and achievement in classrooms and book conversations, as well as a panel of parents who will discuss their children’s experiences within schools.

Milner directs the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Urban Education, where he focuses on the need to prepare pre-service and in-service teachers for the racially diverse student populations in their classrooms. His book helps practitioners develop insights and skills for successfully educating these diverse student bodies.

In the book, Milner provides case studies that examine what he calls opportunity gaps that exist among diverse groups of students. His talk is titled “Teaching and Learning With Pop Culture: Music, Movies and More.”

Introducing the concept of opportunity gaps allows a more robust and nuanced discussion of why school failure persists for some groups of students, according to Gloria Ladson-Billings, assistant vice chancellor of academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Education who wrote the forward for Milner’s book. She wrote that Milner’s unique concept of opportunity gaps moves the discussion away from the exhausted talk of achievement gaps and points out that – even with dedicated teachers, an insistence on high standards and constant pressure to produce high test scores – students can still fall short because they are missing some important opportunities.

Milner holds appointments in education, Africana studies and social work in the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education. He was awarded the 2006 SCE Early Career Award of the American Educational Research Association. He is the editor-in-chief of Urban Education and co-editor of the Handbook of Urban Education. He earned his doctorate from Ohio State University.