Recent College Press

Ann Ishimaru, associate professor of education policy, organizations and leadership, recently headlined an NEPC Talks Education podcast featured in the latest bulletin from the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado. Ishimaru was interviewed about creating systems that are responsive to the cultures, languages, priorities, needs, hopes and dreams of racially and culturally diverse youth and families in our schools. She spoke about how a school's culture of family and community engagement tends to be shaped by white heteronormative assumptions that have the effect of excluding students and families from groups who have been historically marginalized. Additional participants featured in the podcast include Regina Elmi, executive director of Supporting Partnerships in Education and Beyond (SPEB), who served as the keynote speaker for this year's College of Education graduation ceremony.

Viewpoint magazine features professor emeritus James A. Banks in its Spring 2021 edition, which is now available online. The two-page spread ― complete with a vintage photograph of Dr. Banks teaching students in 1990 ― provides a fascinating look at his career progression and legacy at the UW. Banks joined the College of Education in 1969, as part of the first university-wide effort to recruit faculty of color. The article draws connections between activism led by the UW's Black Student Union (BSU) in the late 1960s that advocated for the recruitment of Black teachers, scholars and administrators with contemporary efforts from the BSU to accelerate progress on diversifying faculty and other leadership roles.

Ann Ishimaru co-authored a new report, "Summer Learning and Beyond: Opportunities for Creating Equity," jointly published by the Learning Policy Institute and the Spencer Foundation. While many education stakeholders have called for intensive remediation for students to address this year of disrupted schooling and potential learning loss, this report argues that intensive remediation alone will not meet students' needs and ― if conducted in a way that is segregating, stigmatizing, and separated from children's real-life concerns ― could even deepen inequalities and exacerbate trauma. As schools and districts plan for summer learning experiences and beyond, Ishimaru and her co-authors argue that it is more important now than ever that they do so in ways that center the range of experiences, needs, and dreams that young people will be bringing with them to learning environments.

Four University of Washington faculty members are among the leaders in academia, business, philanthropy, the humanities and the arts elected as 2021 fellows of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies.

The UW fellows include James A. Banks, professor emeritus of education. Honored for his work in education, Banks is the founding director of the Banks Center for Educational Justice – originally the Center for Multicultural Education – in the UW College of Education. He holds the Kerry and Linda Killinger Endowed Chair in Diversity Studies Emeritus and retired from the UW in 2019, after 50 years.