2009 Julian Parker Lecture Series

A Series on Issues and Values in Urban Education

FREE and open to the public

6 - 8:30 p.m.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Opus Hall, Room 201
University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis Campus

Join us at the 2009 Julian Parker Lecture Series and Minnesota Alliance of Black School Educators Award Ceremony, an annual event focusing on values and issues in education.

Featured Speaker

Educator Sister Sandra Smithson will deliver the annual Julian Parker Lecture on urban education. Smithson, a Franciscan nun, has had a long and distinguished career as an educator in the United States and Latin America, focusing on the needs of poor children.

In 2003, Smithson, then 76 years old, and her older sister, Mary Craighead, started Smithson Craighead Academy, the first charter school in middle Tennessee. The school has its roots in Project Reflect, a remedial education program the sisters began for disadvantaged children. Now 82, Smithson still is going strong and her school has won numerous awards for its success.

In the late 1950s Smithson had volunteered to go to Latin America with the goal of serving the poor. Instead, she was assigned to a wealthy school in Costa Rica. As director of the school, she had the sisters' salaries raised and used the surplus funds to start an after-school program for the poor children in the neighborhood. The program was so successful that in three years those children were fully integrated into the school.

Smithson's model was used to restructure the education system throughout Costa Rica in a reform that was known as the "Golden Age of Maria Crucis," Smithson's religious name. She would spend 12 years in Latin America, overseeing educational reform in Costa Rica and serving on a provincial team in Honduras that oversaw the work of 80 sisters throughout the region.

Program Schedule:

6-7 p.m.  

Reception

7-7:30 p.m.

Minnesota Alliance of Black School Educators Excellence in Diversity Award and Azell Smith Memorial Scholarships presentations

7:30 p.m.

Introduction of the speaker by Jesse Overton, President and Chief Executive Officer of SkyLearn Inc. and SkyTech LLC and alumnus of the University of St. Thomas and the University of Minnesota

7:45 p.m.
Featured Speaker: Sister Sandra Smithson, founder of the Project Reflect Education Program (PREP) and the Smithson-Craighead Academy in Nashville, Tenn.

8:30 p.m.
Coffee and Conversation

Clock hours available upon request.

Co-sponsors with the University of St. Thomas, Master's in Public Policy

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Leadership, Policy and Administration of St. Thomas' College of Applied Professional Studies and the Minnesota Alliance of Black School Educators, which uses the occasion to present scholarships to outstanding students and to give an annual award to a person who has made significant contributions to diversity in Minnesota education.

Additional partners for this series are:
University of St. Thomas School of Education,
Minnesota Minority Education Partnership,
NAACP Minneapolis,
Minnesota Association of Charter Schools,
St. Peter Claver Church and School,
Academia Cesar Chavez and
HOPE Community Academy.

Sponsored by the University of St. Thomas Department of Leadership, Policy and Administration.

Julian Parker Lecture Series

The Julian Parker Lecture Series honors the longtime chairman of the
education department and graduate school dean at Xavier University, New
Orleans. Parker was a national leader on urban education and race relations. In the 1960s, Parker was instrumental
in dealing with issues of race and diversity when he worked at the University of St. Thomas in an exchange program between the nation's historically black colleges and private colleges in Minnesota.

Registration coming soon.

For more information contact:

Robert Brown
Program Coordinator
(651) 962-4992
rjbrown@stthomas.edu