Local school and community leaders and education researchers will look at the dynamics leading to and resulting from the racial composition of Nashville’s K-12 schools Tuesday, Oct. 30, at 3:30 p.m.
The panel discussion, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the auditorium of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. A reception will follow the discussion at 5 p.m. The Vanderbilt Center for Nashville Studies is sponsoring the event.
Vanderbilt University researchers Ellen Goldring, professor of education policy and leadership, and Claire Smrekar, associate professor of public policy and education, will present key issues in a talk titled “The Face of Learning: Desegregation, Re-segregation, Immigration and Nashville Schools.” Howard Gentry, former Nashville vice mayor and chief executive officer of the Nashville Chamber Public Benefit Foundation, will moderate a discussion during which panel members Mark Hill, Richard Dinkins, Ed Kindall, Jose Gonzalez and Julia Lydon will respond to Smrekar’s and Goldring’s remarks.
Hill is chief education officer for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. Dinkins is Davidson County chancellor and a desegregation activist/attorney. Kindall is vice chair of the Metro Public Schools Board. Gonzalez is an instructor of entrepreneurship and management at Belmont University and co-founder and former executive director of Conexion Americas, a non-profit organization whose mission is connecting Latino families to the local community. Lydon is the English Language Learners (ELL) liaison for Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Orrin Ingram, Vanderbilt Center for Nashville Studies community advisory board member and chair of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce’s education committee, and Dan Cornfield, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Nashville Studies, will also make remarks at the event.
For more information about the Vanderbilt Center for Nashville Studies, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/vcns/.
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Media Contact: Princine Lewis, 615-322-NEWS
princine.l.lewis@vanderbilt.edu