An Exploratory Workshop at NERA 2024 (Malmö University, Sweden)
Adventures of Education: Desires, Encounters and Differences

Workshop Abstract:
Organizations with self-defined progressive values often engage these challenges by attempting to cultivate change agency in their participants, framing their work within contexts of sustainability, diversity, intercultural collaboration, community belonging, and global solidarity. Change agency, defined here as the capacity for individuals and groups within institutions to activate and align institutional culture, curriculum, practices, and systems in the service of values-concordant, mission-driven change initiatives, is a necessary pre-condition of ethically informed change-making. The institutions that celebrate this concept, however, often manifest a nuanced and paradoxical relationship to change in their day-to-day operations; programs that aim to instruct students in practices of change-making often demonstrate wide gaps between program ideation and implementation. Curriculum is frequently envisioned according to idealized progressive values, but implemented according to unexamined social, cultural, and political habits and practices that may be at odds with the curricular aims. Additionally, underlying beliefs associated with liberal humanism often serve as justifications for progressive visions, despite problems of coloniality and neoliberalism that may be embedded in these visions. As change-oriented educational organizations work to distance themselves from ingrained pedagogical practices and embrace visions that support work across shared global crises, members are often required to work across conflicting values frameworks. Frequently, conflicting psychological, sociocultural, relational, institutional, and legal discourses make elements of program implementation difficult. 

 The exploratory workshop will consider the implications of conflicting discourses that often underly attempts to build educational programming around concepts of change-making, including (but not limited to) neoliberal discourse, neocolonial discourse, decolonial discourse, diversity-equity-inclusion discourse, and trauma-grievance discourse. Case studies from the presenter’s experience working in international schools dedicated to the arts, peace-building, and change-making will provide the opening frame for discussion about ways in which these discourses (and others) presence in self-defined progressive educational communities; participants will explore methods of identifying and attending to these sources of tension to help institutions narrow the gap between practice and vision. Workshop discoveries will support the presenter’s research in change agency and ethical praxis in educational systems, and will be broadly applicable to anyone working to support education for positive social change.

Poethics for Educational Transformation
ETMU Days 2023 (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)

Workshop Abstract:
This presentation uses poetry as a medium to explore the limits of standard academic language and practices, and offers a form through which to engage phenomenologies of institutional structures oriented towards systemic change. Drawing inspiration from the works of multimodal theorists and poets such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Maxine Greene, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, M. Jacqui Alexander, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M. NourbeSe Philip, Sylvie Kandé, and Rachida Madani, the presentation will engage and inform structures of thought that often serve as barriers to educational transformation. The presentation will offer a reading of the author’s original poetry that centers themes of cognitive and systemic disruptions, and will include analysis and discussion of the implications of using poetry as an academic tool for institutional growth and awareness building. Poetry, a form of communication that is often left out of traditional academic discourse, nonetheless offers a medium through which the limits of academic language and practice can be interrogated, and unexamined hegemonic narratives can be brought to light. Academic modalities that center artistic practice call attention to entrenched patterns of communication, encourage movement across boundaries, and offer creative ways to engage problems of access, power, and political agency in educational spaces. Discussion will include practical applications for students, teachers, researchers, and administrators across varied educational contexts, and will explore the promise of authentic integration of artistic practice in formal academic settings.

Patriarchy-Disrupting Pedagogy in International High Schools: Curriculum Design and Praxis for Collaborative Peer Education

University of Oulu “Feminist Matterings” Conference

Convenors: Melinda Russial, United World College - USA & Yijing Yang, Undergraduate Student

Patriarchy-Disrupting Pedagogy in International High Schools: Curriculum Design and Praxis for Collaborative Peer Education is a workshop designed to leverage curricular experiences of faculty and students in Experiential Education at United World College-USA for a broader community of activists and educators. The UWC-USA Student Life program offers a rigorous curriculum in leadership, advocacy, and teen empowerment with a model that can be reproduced in a variety of settings. The model is characterized by co-development of curriculum between faculty members and student participants, and pedagogical training for students to instruct their peers in issues of diversity, equity, access, inclusion, mental health, sexual health and sexual misconduct advocacy, substance use harm reduction, and overall wellness. Curriculum is re-created each year to support tailoring it to the unique experiences of students actively enrolled in the boarding school for that year, and to engage students in the process of continuous curriculum-building. We emphasize a feminist lens in our approach to sexual wellness, mental health, and diversity, and empower students to carry these lenses forward with them after graduating from our program.

The proposed workshop will offer instructional modeling, conversation about application across diverse demographics, and question-and-answer opportunities with the lead instructor at UWC-USA (Melinda Russial, Director of Arts and Culture and Student Life Curriculum) and a panel discussion with undergraduate alumni of the program. Special emphasis will be on incorporating a feminist educational lens in communities with diverse values — UWC-USA serves 220 students (ages 16-19) from over 90 countries each year, and affords many opportunities to explore conflicting values frameworks in a shared global landscape.

More information about the conference program.

True Life Trio performs riveting, intricate vocal harmonies from Eastern Europe, the Americas and beyond. This innovative trio explores the creative possibilities of cross-fertilization between different vocal traditions, with unlikely timbres connecting Bulgaria to the Bayou. The group features the profound vocal talents of Leslie Bonnett, Briget Boyle, and Juliana Graffagna, whose musical collaboration was forged in the Bay Area’s legendary Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble. Together, the trio’s voices weave and meld as if by magnetic force, honed and polished by a common love of vocal music the world over.

EVET will share the evening with True Life Trio, performing an intimate set of Turkish, Greek and Albanian vocal and instrumental music. These captivating and expressive musical forms reveal the relationship and cross-pollination which has happened over the centuries in that region.

EVET performs at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe for the opening of the exhibit, Beadwork Adorns the World on Sunday, April 22, 2018 from 1:00pm-4:00pm.

The exhibit is about what happens to glass beads that are made in one place and end up, often times, far from home. Like the glass beads, music also travels and adorns people’s lives in different ways. EVET would like to take you on a little musical journey from Anatolia Turkey, to Bulgaria, to Greece, and points in-between.

Come and listen or come and dance. From 1:00-1:40 EVET will play music from Turkey and Armenia. From 2:00-2:40, music from Bulgaria. From 3:00-3:40, music from Albania and Greece and more. Lovely beads of folk music!

EVET joins forces with Kalin Kirilov, Carol Silverman, and Alexander Markovic for a night of Balkan music and dance as a part of the United World College-USA Annual Conference. Free and open to the public.

Kefi, a Greek word described as meaning the spirit of joy, passion, enthusiasm, and associated with the expression of positive emotion, on the dance floor with Santa Fe folk dancers and belly dance performances by Deborah Newberg and Areena! Music from Serbia, Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Lebanon and Egypt. Paradiso’s beautiful wood dance floor and its warm bohemian atmosphere is the perfect venue for welcoming an all-ages music and dance event.

Balkan, Middle Eastern, and Sephardic music in an all-acoustic winter setting.

EVET performs dinner and dance music for Salaam-Shalom: A Celebration of Peace, the annual fundraiser of Creativity for Peace. Creativity for Peace nurtures understanding and leadership in Palestinian and Israeli adolescent girls and women so that they take on significant roles in their families, communities, and countries that advance peaceful coexistence.

Featuring EVET and introducing the UWC-USA Silk Road Ensemble. 

7:30pm, UWC-USA Silk Road Ensemble opens the event with students performing works from Macedonian, Albanian, Romani, and Lebanese folk traditions. 8:00pm, EVET performs works from Turkish and Balkan folk and contemporary traditions, with a brief nod to the Middle East. 

Join us in the UWC-USA auditorium or via Livestream at:  https://livestream.com/uwc-usa/evet

Round Mountain and EVET share the stage of the San Miguel Mission for an all-acoustic night of music hailing from diverse Balkan and international sources.

EVET debuts with an afternoon of dance and celebration, featuring music from Bulgaria, Turkey, and Romani traditions from across the Balkans.

Melinda Russial joins the Santa Fe Community Orchestra at the New Mexico Museum of Art for a performance of Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto, Op. 57.

“See what you hear, and hear what you see! Take in the American Modernism exhibit at the Museum, and then join The Santa Fe Community Orchestra for a companion concert of music from the early 20th Century, featuring works by Copland and William Grant Still, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, with Ron Grinage at the piano. Plus Nielsen’s dramatic Clarinet Concerto, featuring Melinda Russial, and a brief Side-by-Side performance with music students from Aspen Magnet School.”