Question It! Change It!
“Education in Crisis”
Spring 2024
The Business, Arts, and Sciences, Question It! Change It! Colloquium Series, is a forum for students and the broader DelVal community to engage in informed and guided conversations about contemporary problems and issues. Faculty in the School of Business, Arts, and Sciences, will present lectures addressing these current issues from their respective disciplines, facilitate discussion and provide resources to deepen our understanding.
Problems in our educational systems were not caused by Covid-19, but the global pandemic both exposed and accelerated serious issues. At the K-12 level protracted disinvestment in many school districts has impacted infrastructure and resources – including for the mental health well-being of students – and further exacerbated racial disparities in educational opportunity. Teacher and staffing shortages have only compounded inequities. The very real battles over lockdowns and masking mandates deepened political rifts over what should and should not be taught or even voiced and displayed in public schools and has added to a broken teacher pipeline. These divides over the content of curricula continue in higher education – whether from cancel culture or anti-woke activism. The former undermines while the latter is a direct threat to academic freedom. What does academic freedom mean in a time when tenured positions are dwindling and institutions increasingly rely on adjunct faculty, who comprise part of the precarious “gig” economy, to save the bottom line? And the spread of generative AI technologies only further complicates the role of teachers and faculty in our educational systems as they grapple with how best to support teaching and learning in such a dynamic and contentious environment. Please join us as we engage in a series of discussions about “Education in Crisis” over the academic year as part of the School of Business, Arts and Science’s Question It! Change It! Colloquium series.
Schedule of Events (Spring 2024)
Post-Pandemic Education
Panel Discussion facilitated by Dr. David Timony, Chair of Education
Date: Wednesday, February 7, 2024
Time: 6:30-8:00 p.m.
Location: Life Sciences Building 201/202
School to Prison Pipeline
Presentation and Discussion: Dr. Megan Demarest, Chair of Criminal Justice and Dr. Sheena Sood, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Date: Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Time: 6:30-8:00 p.m.
Location: Life Sciences Auditorium
Telling the Story: Holocaust Education
Presentation and Discussion: Dr. Allison Buskirk-Cohen will facilitate a panel discussion about Holocaust and genocide education featuring Dr. Craig Stutman, Associate Professor of History and Policy, Rabbi Emeritus Lance Sussman, Ph.D., Krista Hegburg, Ph.D., Senior Program Officer, International Academic Programs, Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Time: 6:00 -7:30 p.m.
Location: Life Sciences Auditorium