University of Lynchburg will host a lecture on how schools can help students overcome educational disparities Thursday, March 15, at 7 p.m. in Memorial Ballroom.
Dr. Gilman W. Whiting will present “The Urgency of Now: Theorizing Education Frameworks in Action.” His areas of research include educational disparity; special and gifted education; race, sports, and American culture; welfare reform and fatherhood initiatives.
In 2006, Whiting developed his dissertation on young Black fathers and created the Scholar Identity Model, a psycho-social model that helps communities re-conceptualize ways to combat academic apathy. Five years later, he took that model to international audiences.
He is an associate professor and the director of graduate studies for the African American and Diaspora Studies Department at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, and the founding chair of Achievement Gap Institute in Vanderbilt’s George W. Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt. That program connects teachers, administrators, and program coordinators with researchers from across the country on research and best practices related to reducing underachievement, addressing diversity and inclusion recruitment and retention.
“The Urgency of Now” is the 2018 Rosel Schewel Lecture in Education and Human Diversity. The annual event brings experts to Lynchburg to talk with educators and future teachers about issues of modern education.