The fourth J.K. Haynes Teacher Preparation Conference, September 18 and 19, will feature sessions and workshops addressing various issues in educational delivery in Louisiana. Named for longtime education and civil rights activist and former Louisiana Board of Regents member J.K. Haynes, the conference seeks to improve teacher education efforts for minorities by bringing together university faculty and the elementary and secondary education community.

Southern System hosting fourth teacher conference

In an act of solidarity, higher education and the elementary and secondary communities will meet for the fourth J.K. Haynes Teacher Preparation Conference September 18 and 19. The event is sponsored by the Southern University System and is a gathering of administrators and faculty from its five campuses and Grambling State University.

This year's conference will be held on the Baton Rouge campus at J.K. Haynes Hall, formerly the School of Nursing building. An opening night reception will be held at the Southern University Museum of Art on Tuesday, September 18 at 5 p.m.

The two-day conference features sessions and workshops addressing various issues in educa-tional delivery in Louisiana. The conference, named for longtime education and civil rights ac-tivist and former Louisiana Board of Regents member J.K. Haynes, seeks to improve teacher education efforts for minorities by bringing together university faculty and the elementary and secondary education community.

The keynote speaker, M. Christopher Brown II, is professor and dean of the College of Educa-tion at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He previously served as vice president for programs and administration at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, director of social justice and professional development for the American Educational Research Association (AERA), as well as executive director and chief research scientist of the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute of the United Negro College Fund. Brown has held faculty appointments at The Pennsylvania State University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

In conjunction with the conference, educators are invited to submit papers to be presented at the conference and potentially included in a special edition of the Journal of Urban Education: Fo-cus on Enrichment for its annual conference edition. The purpose of the journal is to create an academic forum and dialogue for enriching the educational experiences of students in urban schools. It is published by the College of Education at Southern University at New Orleans. The manuscripts can be written by faculty, senior practitioners and/or exceptional graduate students.

Topics of discussion include:

• Curriculum Design: Academic Preparation and Experiential Training for Teachers

• Post-graduation Training " Subject-area Competency

• Student Learning Assessment

• Recruitment to the Profession

Submissions should be mailed to: Southern University System, Office of the Vice-President for Academic and Student Affairs, ATTN: J.K. Haynes Teacher Preparation Conference, J.S. Clark Administration Building - Fourth Floor, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70813. All correspondence should include the author's name, address, contact number, email address and fax number. All abstracts will be reviewed and decision notices will be sent soon after submission.

The J.K. Haynes Consortium was established by Act 16 of the Regular Session of the 1995 Leg-islature. It is a comprehensive professional development and improvement group for teacher educators in the designated universities. The consortium is administered by the Southern University Board of Supervisors through its various institutions and through a cooperative agreement with Grambling State University, as authorized by law.

The consortium's mission is to increase and improve African American presence in public schools throughout Louisiana by working to reduce the shortage of minority teachers in the state. In addition to this, there is a collective effort among the participating campuses to improve education delivery through various partnerships and the improvement of instruction through faculty development activities.

For more information about the conference or submission of papers, contact Shanna Estay Little at 771-4030.