Message from Division VP
April 2015
Ming Fang He

Dear Division B Curriculum Studies Colleagues:

I sincerely hope that everybody is looking forward to the 2015 AERA Annual Meeting in Chicago (April 16-April 20, 2015)!

First of all, I would like to thank our amazing Secretary, Isabel Nuñez (Concordia University Chicago) and our invigorating Affirmative Action Officer, Crystal Laura (Chicago State University) for their incredible leadership and support! With both of you as sources of energy and wisdom, we continue to build our curriculum work on the Principles of Diversity for AERA Division B suggested by Bernadette Baker and initiated under the VP-ship of Donald Blumenfeld-Jones and advanced by the VP-ship of Carl Grant (see details from our Division B’s home page at AERA).

I would also like to thank our courageous, creative, and hard working 2015 Program Team: Program Co-Chairs--Pamela Konkol (Concordia University Chicago) and Jennifer Milam (Principal of Our Lady of the Elms Elementary School); Section 1 Co-Chairs (Critical and Post-Foundationalist Perspectives and Practices)--Debbie Sonu (Hunter College) and Wade Tillett (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater); Section 2 Co-Chairs (Decolonizing, Transnational, and Indigenous Inquiry)--Noah Sobe (Loyola University-Chicago) and Nicholas Ng-A-Fook (University of Ottawa); Section 3 Co-Chairs (Challenging Methodological and Representational Boundaries)--Travis Wright (University of Wisconsin) and Jorge Lucero (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign); Section 4 Co-Chairs (Spatial Justice: Youth, Community Activism, and Ecologies)--Min Yu (Missouri State University) and M. Francyne Huckaby (Texas Christian University); Section 5 Co-Chairs (Historical, Philosophical, and (Inter)Disciplinary Knowledges)-Ricardo Rosa (University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth) and Sabrina Ross (Georgia Southern University); Section 6 Co-Chairs (Cultural Studies: Critical Media Literacies, Popular Culture, and Posthumanisms)--Jake Burdick (Purdue University) and Jung Kim (Lewis University). All of you have made our programs so thought provoking and so irresistible!

I would also like to send my heartfelt thanks to those who took their precious time to provide insightful and critical reviews for our proposals and those who are going to participate as chairs, presenters, and discussants. We could not have pulled together such vibrant programs within AERA without you (see Division B Program Calendar in the following pages for details)!

As you pull together your “Must-See List” for Chicago, please look at our Division B’s invigorating programs!

First on the list are our six exciting Division B Pre-Conference Seminars (April 15, 2015; 1:00pm—5:00pm & April 16, 2015; 9:00am-12:00pm). I would like to thank our Secretary, Isabel Nuñez, who has pulled together a group of inspirational and generous curriculum workers~scholars who will lead the Pre-Conference Seminars (see Division B Pre-Conference Seminars in the following pages for details). I am sending my deepest gratitude and heartfelt thanks to all the Pre-Conference Seminar Facilitators for the inspirational work and invaluable time you put into the Pre-Conference Seminars in the midst of your crazily busy schedules. I believe that everybody at the Pre-Conference Seminars will be inspired!

The second on the list are the AERA Memorial Sessions. We have lost so many inspirational curriculum scholars, great human beings, beautiful minds, caring friends, mentors, and colleagues! I sincerely hope that you will join those communion sessions to share your memory of, grief for, and inspiration from those we have lost in the past year to honor their powerful works and admirable lives (see the 2015 AERA Memorial Sessions in the following pages for details).

The third on the list is our Division B Business Meeting, Heartbreaking Loss, Radical Love, and Revolutionary Imagination [Scheduled Time: Friday, April 17, 2015 (6:15--7:45pm; Hyatt, West Tower--Green Level, Crystal C)]. We will begin with five minutes of silent remembrance for those we have lost in the past year. There will be memorable powerpoints on their works and lives portrayed on the background. Then we will move on to the exciting 2015 AERA Division B Award Ceremony. All the recipients for the 2015 AERA Division B Awards (i.e., Ella Baker/Septima Clark Human Rights Award, Lifetime Achievement Award, Outstanding Dissertation Award, Outstanding Service Award, Outstanding Book Award including Honorable Mention for Outstanding Edited Volume and Honorable Mention for Innovations in Curriculum Studies) will be introduced by the Award Committee Chairs. The recipient for the AERA Division B Ella Baker/Septima Clark Human Rights Award (Monisha Bajaj, University of San Francisco) and the recipients for the AERA Division B Lifetime Achievement Award (Craig Kridel, University of South Carolina; Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University) will deliver inspirational acceptance speeches (10 minutes). Certificates for Outstanding Service to Division B will be presented to Outgoing Program Co-Chairs and Section Co-Chairs. There will be some free books distributed at the Business Meeting. Graduate students will be given priority to receive those books! Our Business Meeting will be celebratory and invigorating (see the 2015 AERA Division B Award Recipients in the following pages for details). 

On behalf of AERA Division B with more than 2000 members, I congratulate all the recipients of the 2015 AERA Division B Awards for your extraordinary contributions to the field of curriculum studies. I am also sending my deepest appreciation and heartfelt thanks to all the Chairs and Members of 2015 AERA Division B Award Committees for the amazing wisdom, hard work, and invaluable time you put into the selection of such incomparable and worthy recipients in the midst of your crazily busy schedules.

The fourth on the list are our Division B Featured Sessions as follows (see the 2015 AERA Division B Featured Sessions in the following pages for details):

New Orleans Education Reform—One Decade Later: Guide for Cities or Warning for Communities? (Lessons Learned From the Bottom Up)
Sun, April 19, 4:05 to 6:05pm, Sheraton, Ballroom Level, Sheraton III

Division B Program Chair Session: Curriculum Diaspora
Fri, April 17, 10:35am to 12:05pm, Hyatt, East Tower - Gold Level, Columbus AB

Division B Fireside Chat. Bringing Ferguson to Our Classrooms: The Implications of Michael Brown's Teacher Curricula
Fri, April 17, 12:25 to 1:55pm, Hyatt, East Tower - Gold Level, Columbus CD

Division B Vice Presidential Session 1. City That Works: Chicago's Resistance to Corporate Education "Reform"
Sun, April 19, 10:35am to 12:05pm, Hyatt, East Tower - Gold Level, Columbus AB

Division B Vice Presidential Session 2. Empowering Teacher Voice: The Turn to the Organizing Model of Unionism
Fri, April 17, 2:15 to 3:45pm, Hyatt, West Tower - Green Level, Crystal C

Urban Indigenous Land-Based Pedagogies and Community Educational Design Research
Sun, April 19, 2:15 to 3:45pm, Hyatt, West Tower - Gold Level, Regency AB

Lastly, please make your effort to attend the extremely exciting AERA Education Research to Performance Youth Research Festival as follows:

AERA Presidential Session

Chairs
Joyce E. King, Georgia State University
Michelle Fine, The Graduate Center - CUNY

Participants
Dorothy L. Espelage, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Stafford Hood, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Cirecie West-Olatunji, University of Cincinnati
David O. Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago
Maria Elena Torre, City College of New York - CUNY
Nicole Mirra, University of California - Los Angeles
Motlalepule Ruth Mampane, University of Pretoria
Limarys Caraballo, Queens College - CUNY
Maddy Fox, Brooklyn College - CUNY
Isabel Morales, Los Angeles High School for the Arts
Joseph Gardner, DePaul University
Anne M. Galletta, Cleveland State University
Venus E. Evans-Winters, Illinois State University
Kristen L. Buras, Georgia State University
Garfield Bright, Georgia State University
Brian A. Williams, Georgia State University
Ashley Patterson, The Ohio State University – Columbus

Faculty associated with Council’s Education Research to Performance Initiative will discuss challenges and commitments of building community-based, multi-generational research teams dedicated to rigorous inquiry and provocative performance. We are excited to invite colleagues and friends from across AERA divisions and SIGs to discuss the expansion of research opportunities to high school and undergraduate youth, activist and community-based organizations, particularly those from historically marginalized communities.

AERA Presidential Session

Chairs
Michelle Fine, The Graduate Center - CUNY
Joyce E. King, Georgia State University 

Participants
Kristen L. Buras, Georgia State University
Limarys Caraballo, Queens College - CUNY
Venus E. Evans-Winters, Illinois State University
Maddy Fox, Brooklyn College - CUNY
Joseph Gardner, DePaul University
Anne M. Galletta, Cleveland State University
Motlalepule Ruth Mampane, University of Pretoria
Nicole Mirra, University of California - Los Angeles
Isabel J. Morales, Los Angeles Unified School District
Brian N. Williams, University of Georgia
Dorothy L. Espelage, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Annette M. Henry, The University of British Columbia
Cirecie West-Olatunji, University of Cincinnati
Stafford Hood, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
David O. Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago
George L. Wimberly, American Educational Research Association
Ashley Patterson, The Ohio State University - Columbus
Ben R. Kirshner, University of Colorado
Lisa (Leigh) Patel, Boston College
Eve Tuck, SUNY - College at New Paltz
Monique Antoinette Guishard, Bronx Community College - CUNY
Mark R. Warren, University of Massachusetts - Boston
A'isha Kareem, State Prison System

Thousands of exquisite flowers go to our incomparable Newsletter Editors--Diane Watt (University of Ottawa) and Suniti Sharma (St. Joseph’s University) for creating such an exhilarating space for us to share, to listen, and to honor diversity in unity and unity in diversity in curriculum studies!

Thousands of heartfelt thanks to those who have served and who are graciously willing to serve as our Division’s Officers! I feel extremely honored to work with such brilliant, passionate, and compassionate colleagues (see Division B Officers and Program Chairs in the following pages for details). Your courageous and creative service for our Division continues to inspire and invigorate the unyielding and mighty curriculum work engaged in by curriculum studies workers--researchers, scholars, policy makers, parents, community workers, movement organizers as we develop our understanding toward and enact our action upon contested curriculum issues and situations in context, practice, inquiry and theory in an increasingly trembling and troubling world.

In particular, I thank all of our members, especially our graduate students for their invigorating participations at various levels in our Division B! You are the arising prominence and future of curriculum studies! 

I am looking forward to seeing you~all in Chicago in April.

Sincerely,

Ming Fang He
AERA Division B VP (2014-2017)