M. Christopher Brown addresses participants in the fourth annual J.K. Haynes Teacher Preparation Conference.

Conference seeks to affect change through Louisiana classrooms

Louisiana educators were exposed to the latest in teacher principles and practices at the fourth annual J.K. Haynes Teacher Preparation Conference.

M. Christopher Brown has spent his entire professional life educating both students and educators so he became a perfect catalyst to spark change and motivate this year's participants in the Southern University System-sponsored J.K. Haynes Teacher Preparation conference.

The conference, held Sept. 18-19, is in the fourth year of its mission to strengthen educational offerings in the state of Louisiana and drew more than 175 teaching professional, said Shanna Estay Little, the System's Senior Coordinator for Institutional Research, Assessment and Student Initiatives. "The Southern System takes very seriously this unique opportunity to impact the state by building a stronger system of public education," Little said. "The J.K. Haynes Conference is a much-needed booster shot for Louisiana's teachers."

The booster shot was packaged by the Louisiana Legislature in 1995 when it providing funding for the J.K. Haynes Consortium to improve teacher education and bolster the number of African Americans in the teaching profession.

The two-day conference featured sessions and workshops addressing various issues in educational delivery in Louisiana. Brown delivered the conference's keynote address and drew from a powerful list of experiences in education and social policy.

Brown is professor and dean of the College of Education 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.

The conference, named for longtime education and civil rights activist 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 J.K. Haynes consortium is administered by the Southern University Board of Supervisors in a cooperative agreement with Grambling State University.

J.K. Haynes keynote speaker M. Christopher Brown, far right, is greeted by Southern System President Ralph Slaughter and Kassie Freeman, vice president for academic and student affairs.