Time: 1 pm CDT
Moderator: Eric Cook
There are still many challenges to overcome and issues to consider as we slowly climb our way out of the pandemic. In addition to reflecting on the lessons Covid has taught us from an educational perspective, there are a number of other social issues that have emerged as well. Race, diversity, sexuality, equity, and inclusion have all surfaced as prominent and volatile topics. As part of the cancel culture, the #DisruptTexts movement has targeted classical literature as offensive and exclusionary. How should classical Christian educators respond? How do we wisely navigate these issues and stay faithful to our mission? Join Eric Cook, President of SCL, with four thoughtful scholars, leaders, and educators who will share wisdom and insight as we navigate the complexities of our day.
Book Reccommendations
- The Year of Our Lord, 1943; Alan Jacobs
- Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times by Soong-Chan Rah
- Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley
Jessica Hooten Wilson
Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Louise Cowan Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Dallas. She is the author of a handful of books on Flannery O’Connor, Dostoevsky, and Walker Percy; most recently she co-edited Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul in the West. Find her online at www.jessicahootenwilson.com or follow her on Twitter @HootenWilson.
Alexandra Hudson
Alexandra Hudson is passionate about the way that ideas, storytelling, and beauty can change people’s lives. She is the curator of Civic Renaissance, a newsletter and intellectual community dedicated to lifelong learning, goodness, truth, and healing our public discourse through reviving the wisdom of the past. She is an award-winning writer and journalist currently writing a book on civility and civic revival for St. Martin’s Press, one of the top five largest publishing houses in the world. Alexandra earned her Master’s degree in Public Policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and has served at the local, state, and federal levels of government and public policy—including a recent appointment at the US Department of Education where she helped administer a budget of $16 billion. From Vancouver to Orlando, and from Sydney to Paris, Alexandra is an in-demand speaker, frequently engaging audiences both across North America and around the world. A former Novak Journalism Fellow, she regularly contributes to Fox News, CBS News and other television outlets, and also contributes to The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, Newsweek, among other outlets. She has been recognized as among Vancouver’s “Top 20 Under 20,” and her work has been featured in Forbes, USA Today, The Indianapolis Star, among other local, national and international outlets. She lives with her husband and son in Indianapolis, Indiana, where you can find them enjoying classic films, dabbling in water color, or reading a Platonic dialogue.
Dr. Angel Adams Parham
Dr. Angel Adams Parham is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Nyansa Classical Community. Nyansa provides after-school programming and curricula designed to connect with and draw students of color into the beauty of classical literature and the great conversation. She is also Associate Professor of Sociology at Loyola University-New Orleans. Dr. Parham's sociological training provides an in-depth understanding of the social and economic challenges facing many low-income communities of color, while her Christian faith emphasizes the importance of combining this sociological knowledge with a commitment to students’ spiritual formation and the cultivation of their moral imagination. She is also a wife and mother of two beautiful girls who are homeschooled according to classical Christian principles and pedagogies.
Matthew Post
Matthew Post is Assistant Professor of Humanities and Associate Dean of the Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts at the University of Dallas. He is responsible for supporting the development of K–12 teacher and school leader formation programs, with a specific emphasis on fostering character and principled, prudent leadership. He has founded, developed, supervised, and fundraised for programs serving education reform including master’s and doctoral degrees in civics, character education, and educational leadership; alternative certification; professional development and curricula for K–12 teachers and schools; a classical, character-based lab school; and a research unit on character education in collaboration with the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. He also works to build networks and infrastructure to help advance and sustain the growth of liberal arts education at the K–12 level. He has spent his career teaching the liberal arts and the Great Books, having worked in Canada, Japan and Slovakia in addition to the U.S. In the Slovak Republic, he had the privilege to build a Great Books program, develop a strategic plan, and fundraise for a school whose mission was to renew liberal arts education after decades of totalitarian rule.