Event for Nebraska educators to be held on April 3rd

05 Mar 2018     By Katie Ballue

The Helen Kelley Symposium for Excellence in Education will address issues such as colorism, racial identity, poverty, class, and early childhood development and encourage discussion among early childhood educators and professionals in the area.

Hosted by the Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies, the Helen Kelley Symposium will feature Dr. Linda Burton, Director of the Center for Child and Family Policy, James B. Duke Professor of Sociology, and Professor of Public Policy at Duke University. Using the inspiring story of 7 year old Andre, Burton will illustrate why color, race, and societal factors matter, and what any one person or family can do to make a difference. Followed by Burton's presentation, there will be a breakout session to reflect on the implications of Andre's story. The event will take place on April 3, 2018 at the West Stadium Club inside Memorial Stadium from 3-5 PM. 

Burton began her work as director of the Center for Child and Family Policy July 1, 2017. Previously, she served as dean of Social Sciences at Duke's Trinity College of Arts & Sciences from 2014-2017. Previously she directed the undergraduate honors program and undergraduate studies in the Sociology Department. She came to Duke in 2006 from Penn State, where she was professor of human development and family studies and sociology and directed a research center on family diversity and context. 

Burton has more than a decade of administrative experience from leading two National Institute of Mental Health consortia and postdoctoral training programs and a lengthy history of leading large-scale federally- and private-foundation-funded ethnographic and mixed methods studies of poverty, family processes, and human development across the life course.

Her work is nationally recognized, most recently with a Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association, the inaugural Wiley Alexis Walker Award for Outstanding Research in Family Science, and the Family Research Consortium IV Legacy Award. She recently received the 2017 Duke University Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in gerontology and she is a Gerontological Society of America fellow and an elected member of the Sociological Research Association.

Local legislators, state policy officials, university and public school officials, early childhood and elementary education teachers and professionals are encouraged to register to attend this even on April 3rd by visiting https://go.unl.edu/hks2018register.

This event is open to the public and there will be parking validation available for the first fifty off-campus vehicles in the stadium parking garage. Email katie@unl.edu for more information.