What Happens in September?

A Discussion on COVID-19 & Social Justice in Higher Education (Recording Below)

On June 4, 2020, we convened two panels of higher education leaders, COVID-19 researchers, scholars, and community organizers to share their perspectives on the question: “What happens in September?”

We asked audience members to submit their most pressing questions for the panelists in advance  and allowed them to vote in real time on which questions the panelists would answer live. In response to and in honor of George Floyd and all victims of racial injustice, the second panel featured scholars and community organizers who have long been studying race, poverty, and injustice in the United States. 

We invite you to watch these discussions below, and to join us at the Virtual Education Summit this July, where we will continue these conversations. 

For your convenience, we have timestamped the video based on the questions and topics addressed. Please feel free to skip around based on what you want to hear:

Panel 1: "What Happens in September?" (A discussion on college in the age of COVID-19)

• Introduction (0:49)

• Q. What are the ethics of balancing institutional fiscal health and sustainability against life-threatening risks? (13:14)

• Q. How do we approach activities and spaces that require close contact? (24:52)

• Q. How might we overcome the equity issues associated with online instruction, in regards to the disparity in access to technology? (34:07)

• Q. When making decisions about campus reopenings, what data points are most important? (42:30)

• Q. Many of my colleagues and I are concerned about academic integrity as we move to remote testing and assignments. How are other educators handling this? (55:50)

• Q. We're seeing the new reality beyond Covid-19 is likely to involve a more robust and interactive build-out of the course LMS, along with options for remote attendance. How can we help faculty whose mindset is still focused on traditional course modalities to not be left behind? (1:02:49)

• Q. What keeps you up at night in this moment? What gives you hope? (1:06:06)

Panel 2: A discussion on race, poverty, and social justice in higher education (1:17:47)

Panel 1: What Happens in September?

	Kelly Richmond Pope CPA, Associate Professor in the School of Accountancy at DePaul University Kelly Pope is an award-winning filmmaker, education innovation evangelist, TED speaker, and contributor to Forbes, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. Her passion for innovative pedagogical practices has led her to develop game-based, multi-modal investigative experiences for her students. She regularly connects with students and faculty across the country who are seeking advice as they transition to learning and teaching online due to COVID-19.
	Michael Sorrell President of Paul Quinn College Named one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine and one of America’s 10 Most Innovative College Presidents by Washington Monthly Magazine, Michael Sorrell is the only three-time recipient of the HBCU Male President of the Year Award (2018, 2016 and 2012). Sorrell recently penned an op-ed in The Atlantic Magazine, in which he argues that “institutions are letting their financial and reputational worries cloud their judgment about when they can safely reopen.”
	Tara Smith Professor of Epidemiology at Kent State University Tara Smith is an infectious disease epidemiologist and tenured professor in the Kent State University College of Public Health, where she runs a research lab (which now includes SARS-CoV-2 work) and serves on the university’s reopening steering committee. In a recent article for Quanta Magazine, she writes, “the hard-won knowledge we’ve gained from decades of studying related viruses can help us answer some of our biggest questions about this pandemic.”
	Tomas Pueyo Author of "Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance," and Vice President of Growth at Course Hero  In early March, Tomas Pueyo penned an article, “Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now," that quickly became the defining piece of the COVID-19 outbreak. Pueyo's work—which includes "Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance," a piece outlining measures to hinder the spread of the virus—has been read by more than 60 million people, translated into more than 40 languages, and resulted in multiple media appearances on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and quotes in The New York Times, The Guardian, Vox, Slate, The Verge, Forbes, and many others.

Panel 2: Race, Poverty, and Social Justice in Higher Education

	Ingrid Banks Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Black Studies, UC Santa Barbara Ingrid Banks' research and teaching areas include race, gender, and culture—including beauty culture, black popular culture, black feminist theory, politics of the body, critical race theory, and ethnographic methods. Dr. Banks' publications appear in Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, Feminist Teacher, Work and Occupations, Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, Feminist Frontiers (Sixth Edition), The Chronicle of Higher Education, and New York Newsday.
	Quetzal Flores Grammy Award winning Chican@ musician, producer, and cultural strategist/organizer Born to activist parents, Quetzal Flores inherited a deep rooted accountability to community and social justice. He is the founder and musical director of the Grammy Award-winning Chican@ band, Quetzal, and is currently the co-founder and director of cultural vitality for Community Power Collective(CPC), where he oversees internal and external facing cultural processes to build power with low-income tenants and workers through transformative, cross-sectoral organizing.
	Gaye Theresa Johnson Associate Professor of African American Studies and Chican@ Studies at UCLA Gaye Theresa Johnson, a recipient of the UC’s Distinguished Teaching Award, writes and lectures on race and racism, cultural history, spatial politics, and political economy. Her first book, Spaces of Conflict, Sounds of Solidarity: Music, Race, and Spatial Entitlement in Los Angeles is a history of civil rights and spatial struggles among Black and Brown freedom seekers and cultural workers in LA. She is also the co-editor of Futures of Black Radicalism, a work that examines the causes and resolutions of race, poverty, and social justice in the United States.