DWSC Conference coming to PSU

Portland State University’s department of Curriculum and Instruction is sponsoring the 2023 Dismantling White Supremacy Culture Conference (DWSC). This year's theme is Creating Conscious Curriculum, featuring author Zaretta Hammond, who will address: "Why Teaching is Still a Subversive Act." The conference is virtual with an optional in-person component on day two, held at PSU’s Vanport Building, home of the university’s College of Education.

Hammond wrote, “Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain," using neuroscience as the foundation for rigorous teaching practices that respond to students of color, affirming their excellence, and supporting their highest potential. The conference, organized by Truss Leadership, will be attended by educators from throughout the United States. This is an opportunity to learn about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) resources and anti-racism while establishing a national network of DEI thought leaders and educators.

Registration is open now.

“It’s important that folks be brave enough to be beacons,” says racial equity coach and consultant Joe Truss. “We can’t all be scared. Let the light shine.” Truss provides professional development to schools and organizations, and with Hammond, will keynote the conference. He shares his experience transforming schools as a teacher and principal in California, providing ideas and insight into why things are broken, and how to address white supremacy culture. This is the fourth annual DWSC conference at PSU, with record-breaking attendance expected. More than 3,500 people have participated in the past.

“When education is under attack, it’s a reminder of the importance and power of what we teach, the conversations we have and the books we read, acknowledging that power and using it to transform. Serving the public with education is a political action,” says Truss. “I’m unapologetic about centering our most marginalized students.

PSU faculty Andreina Velasco in the Elementary Graduate Teacher Education Program responded to the importance of the conference in view of recent political attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in public education: “When I see today that Amanda Gorman’s poem for the Presidential Inauguration, ‘The Hill We Climb,’ was banned in Florida, and the reason given was indoctrination – I think, indoctrinating in what? In excellence? These kinds of attacks fuel me to better prepare myself and future educators, to be brave, be bold, and advocate for classrooms where there is space for the multiple lived experiences and narratives of students and families."

Hammond’s book is used in PSU’s Bilingual Teacher Pathway (BTP) and Graduate Teacher Education Program (GTEP). “For at least the last five years, faculty in GTEP and BTP have ensured that all teacher candidates are exposed to Hammond’s work as part of their training to become culturally responsive teachers,” says Velasco.

The DWSC conference will be held in the Vanport Building on campus, named for the highly diverse and largely Black community in Portland where PSU began, destroyed by a flood on May 30, 1948, and never rebuilt.

“Hosting this conference in a space that honors the Vanport community is a testament to PSU's effort to move forward and rewrite its institutional DNA. It demonstrates how the College of Education is committed to preparing teachers who are conscious about creating curriculum that addresses and disrupts white supremacy culture, that tells stories like that of Vanport, and so many others,” says Velasco.

[Learn more about Vanport and memory activism at the Vanport Mosaic Project.]

Registration for the DWSC conference is open now. Note that space is limited for the in-person option on Saturday, June 17, 2023. Educators interested in facilitating small groups for an honorarium fee are welcome to apply.

Registration is open now.

Cost to attend virtual DWSC conference: $300

Additional cost for In-Person option: $200

Scholarships available for PSU alumni, staff, and students.