Leadership

Gloria Boutte is a Carolina Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina. For more than three decades, Boutte’s scholarship, teaching, and service have focused on equity pedagogies. Boutte is the author/editor of four books a 2019 AESA Critics' Choice Award Winner. She has more than 90 publications and has received millions in grants. Boutte has presented nationally and internationally on equity, community, curriculum, instruction, and diversity issues. She has received prestigious awards such as the Fulbright Scholar (taught in Nigeria for one year) and Fulbright Specialist (taught at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and University of Guyana in South America).

Boutte is the founder of the Center of Excellence for the Education and Equity of African American Students (CEEEAAS). She has presented her work and/or served as a visiting scholar internationally in every continent except Antarctica. In2017, Boutte and George Johnson created a curriculum, Drs. Diaspora, which teaches about African and African American history and culture.

Dr. Rose Wan-Mui Chu has dedicated her professional life to the tireless pursuit of education equity and excellence for children and youth, especially those from communities of color and American Indian communities. Rose is a practical dreamer and brings her passion, vision and creative problem solving to “making change happen” in service of equity and justice. Her diverse and rich cross-sector experiences and perspectives continue to inform her life’s work.

Some highlights:
A native of Hong Kong, Rose grew up in Malaysia before coming to the United States 39+ years ago. She was the first in her family to go to college and earned a PhD from Georgia Tech, with a major in Human-Machine Systems Engineering and a minor in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. Her dissertation involved developing an intelligent tutoring system for NASA with 60,000 lines of code in C++. She had almost five years of experience working at Honeywell as a senior research scientist before leaving the profession to become a teacher.

Rose was a secondary math classroom teacher, district mentor, curriculum specialist and math/science equity coordinator at Minneapolis Public Schools, one of the largest urban district in Minnesota. She was hired as part of the Secondary Alternative Licensure Pathway program for career changers, a collaboration between MPS and St. Cloud State University.

Rose recently “retired” from Metropolitan State University with Professor Emerita status. She was a teacher educator and faculty leader in the Urban Teacher Program (UTP). UTP was created with a legislative mandate to increase the number of teachers of color.

Rose had executive management and leadership experiences through her appointment as Assistant Commissioner for MN Department of Education, and later as interim dean for the School of Urban Education at Metropolitan State (Where UTP is housed).

Rose has been a Senior Policy Fellow at MnEEP since August 2016 leading the work for MnEEP’s strategic Big Bold Goal #3: MN educators reflect student demographics. She founded the statewide TeachMN2020 Campaign to create and retain a racially diverse teacher workforce. TeachMN2020 aims to demystify and elevate the teaching profession by changing the public narrative about teaching (see ImprintU.org), and to catalyze collaborative engagement towards collection action, accountability and impact.

Rose also serves as the Training and Technical Assistant Consultant with Youthprise’s federally funded Opportunity Reboot initiative since Fall 2015. She supports six community-based organizations in Minnesota to re-engage “opportunity youth” in education and work through a youth development lens. Most recently, Rose served on the curriculum development team and is an endorsed trainer for the required Cultural Competency Training for teachers under the MN Professional Educator Standards and Licensing Board.

She has a diverse professional service portfolio and consulting experience, from coaching math teachers, preparing teacher candidates for math licensure exams, to designing/facilitating community engagement convenings and activities. From serving as an equity thought partner in conference planning and execution, to facilitating systems thinking and systems change theories and practices with organization leaders.

Rose has a long history of service through her volunteerism and leadership in the community. She co-founded the Dragon Festival at Lake Phalen in St. Paul and is currently a founding board member of the Coalition of Asian American Leaders in Minnesota. Rose was formerly a member of the Civic Engagement Steering Committee facilitated by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and is currently a Parks and Recreation Commissioner for the city of Little Canada, among many of the boards and committees she has served or continues to serve (and many more declined). She was recently elected to the Roseville Area School Board, and will begin her 4-year term starting in January 2020.

Belinda Bustos Flores, PhD, is currently an Associate Dean of Professional Preparation, Assessment, and Accreditation, and a Professor in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies, College of Education and Human Development at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Flores has published five books and numerous articles centering on teacher recruitment, development, and culturally efficacious pedagogies. Recognitions include: 1st place award for Outstanding Dissertation from The National Association for Bilingual Education, 2000; and the 2004 UTSA President’s Distinguished Award for Research Excellence. Dr. Flores is the founder of the UTSA’s Academy for Teacher Excellence, which was honored in 2015 as a "Bright Spot in Hispanic Education” by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.

Dr. Flores was the recipient of the 2015 AERA Hispanic Research Issues SIG Elementary, Secondary, and Postsecondary Award. In 2019, Dr. Flores was the recipient of the AERA Bilingual Education Research SIG Lifetime Achievement Award.

Nicholas D. Hartlep (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) is the Robert Charles Billings Endowed Chair in Education at Berea College where he Chairs the Department of Education Studies. Before coming to Berea College Dr. Hartlep Chaired the Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education at Metropolitan State University, an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) in St. Paul, Minnesota. While there he also served as the Graduate Program Coordinator.

Dr. Hartlep has published 22 books, the most recent being (2019) What Makes a Star Teacher? Seven Dispositions that Encourage Student Learning which was published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. His book The Neoliberal Agenda and the Student Debt Crisis in U.S. Higher Education, with Lucille L. T. Eckrich and Brandon O. Hensley (2017) was named an Outstanding Book by the Society of Professors of Education. In 2018, the Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) granted Dr. Hartlep the John Saltmarsh Award for Emerging Leaders in Civic Engagement Award.

In 2017, Metropolitan State University presented him with both the 2017 Community Engaged Scholarship Award and the President’s Circle of Engagement Award. In 2016, the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee presented him with a Graduate of the Last Decade Award for his prolific writing. In 2015, he received the University Research Initiative Award from Illinois State University and a Distinguished Young Alumni Award from Winona State University. Follow his work on Twitter at @nhartlep or at his website, www.nicholashartlep.com

Rita Kohli is an Associate Professor in the Education, Society and Culture Program in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). She has a Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis on Race and Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. As an Oakland Unified School District teacher, teacher educator, and educational researcher, Kohli has spent 20 years in urban public schools across the country. Her research interests include critical race theory, the racial climate of teacher education and schools, critical teacher development, and the struggles, assets and possibilities of teachers of Color across the pipeline. She is the former chair for the Critical Educators for Social Justice Special Interest Group for the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the co-founder and co-director of the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice (ITOC), and currently serves on the editorial board of the international journal Race, Ethnicity and Education. Kohli is the co-editor of the book, Confronting Racism in Teacher Education: Narratives from Teacher Educators and has published in journals such as Journal of Teacher Education, the Review of Research in Education, Teacher Education Quarterly, and Urban Education. She was the recipient the UCR Innovator for Social Change Award (2016), the Scholar Activist and Community Advocacy Award from the Critical Educators for Social Justice Special Interest Group of AERA (2017), and the Early Career Award of the Division G: Social Context of Education Division of AERA (2018).

Dr. Lamb is a native of Texas; she was born in Austin, and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She is of mixed blood, Hispanic and an enrolled member of the Lipan Apache Band of South Texas. She received her PhD in Institutional Analysis/Occupational Adult Education in 2009 from North Dakota State University. The title of her dissertation was: Cohort model learning communities: The tribal college perspective of best practices in teacher education. Dr. Lamb is the Associate Dean for the Liffrig Family School of Education and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Mary, Bismarck, ND. She also serves in multiple educational capacities which include the following: national assessor for CAEP, proposal reviewer for the Society for the Advancement of Chicano and Native American Scholars, testing developer/supervisor for Educational Testing Service Praxis examinations, grantee trainer for the U.S. Department of Education, Principal Investigator for Native American Education Leadership Program (NAELP) under the direction of the U.S. Office of Indian Education, and curriculum designer/consultant for Honoring Tribal Legacies (National Park Service, Lewis and Clark Trail) in partnership with Dr. Stephanie Wood, Oregon State University. Her research interests are in Native American self-determination, providing higher education opportunities for marginalized populations, and minority serving institutions of higher education. Carmelita was recently appointed by Governor Burgum to the ND Pardon and Parole Boards for a three-year term. Serving in this capacity has enriched her understanding of the frailty of the human condition.

Lisa Quay is the Executive Director of the Mindset Scholars Network (MSN), which is an interdisciplinary community devoted to expanding educational opportunity by advancing our scientific understanding of how students’ psychological experience of learning and school influences their educational outcomes. Prior to her role with MSN, Lisa was a consultant specializing in strategy development and implementation, research and analysis, and business planning for non-profit organizations and foundations. She has also held positions at the Stupski Foundation, Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the Berkeley School of Law, The Bridgespan Group, and Mathematica Policy Research.

Willis Walter II, is currently the Dean/Associate Professor for Virginia State University’s College of Education. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia State University, He served as a public school classroom teacher in Leon County, FL and Vestavia Hills, AL. He also served as a school administrator in Childersburg and Birmingham, AL. Dr. Walter has extensive experience in program accreditation and curricular development activities. He has served as a member of the Technical Assistance Team for the Florida Department of Education in the area of Teacher Education Program Approval. He has served on several statewide committees and participates in both folio and site visit reviews for peer reviewed teacher education program approval. He is currently a national examiner for the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). Born in Chicago, IL, Willis received his Bachelor of Science in Education from Florida A&M University and his PhD in Child Development/Curriculum & Instruction with certification in Administration and Supervision from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.