We offer a variety of projects and resources, workshops and consulting services, and scholarship grounded in equity and social justice in schools and communities. For more about our philosophies and ideas, visit our Philosophy page.

Our Bios

[ Wendy Amosa | Johanna Eager | Paul C. Gorski | Heather Hackman | Haseena Hamzawala | Julie Landsman | Leah Delia Larson | Jill Madsen | Seema G. Pothini | Robert W. Simmons III | gisella zuñiga]

[click name to send email]
Founder, EdChange and the Multicultural Pavilion
Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia
Paul's Personal Web site

is an assistant professor of Integrative and Interdisciplinary Studies in George Mason University's New Century College. He has been an active consultant for ten years, conducting workshops and providing guidance to schools and community organizations committed to equity and diversity. He created and continues to maintain the Multicultural Pavilion, a Web site focused on multicultural education. Paul is actively involved in the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME), and serves on its board of directors as President-Elect. He is Associate Editor, Technology, for NAME's journal, Multicultural Perspectives, and Associate Editor, Multicultural Literature and Reviews, for Multicultural Education. Prior to his current position at Hamline University, Paul taught for the University of Virginia, the University of Maryland, and George Mason University. He earned a doctorate in Educational Evaluation at the University of Virginia. He continues to publish and present in education-focused forums on topics ranging from whiteness and racism studies to multicultural curriculum transformation. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia, with his cats Unity and Buster.

Areas of specialty:

• Poverty, class, and anti-poverty education and activism
• The connection between self-transformation and institutional transformation
• School and community reform for the elimination of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other inequities
• The digital divide and educational technology
• Multicultural curriculum transformation
• Leadership development and the training of trainers for equity and diversity in education

Haseena Hamzawala [click name to send email]
Teacher, Saint Paul Academy and Summit School
Saint Paul, Minnesota

Haseena Hamzawala draws on a diverse background in the field of education in her work as an education consultant. She has worked with schools around the country on multicultural, social justice curriculum development, diversity and community assessment, and progressive strategies for building equitable curricula and pedagogies. After receiving her teaching license in Communication Arts and Literature, she designed curricula and taught Language Arts at Mounds Park Academy, a progressive college preparatory school. She then spent two years in the Philippines as part of the United States Peace Corps, conducting workshops for educators on TOEFL, creative writing, environmental education, and related topics. Haseena has recently worked in the central office of the Anoka Hennepin Independent School district, where she served as the Multicultural Resource Specialist, providing district-wide leadership on equity and diversity staff development, identifying and implementing best practices in multicultural curriculum and pedagogy, and promoting equity and social justice. She then taught at-risk and adjudicated youth at Summit Academy OIC in Minneapolis. She currently teaches English at Saint Paul Academy and Summit School in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Areas of specialty:

• Multicultural curriculum development and implementation through integrated language arts
• School-wide evaluation and assessment for equity and diversity
• Social studies, history, and civics teaching and learning for equity and social justice
• Critical and equity pedagogy
• Multicultural curriculum transformation
• Staff development

gisella zuñiga [click name to send email]
Everywoman's Center, University of Massachusetts
Amherst, Massachusetts

While her earlier work is in Special Education and Bilingual/Multicultural Education, gisella zuñiga currently works in higher education at Everywoman’s Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was a Special Education Teacher Trainer as a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras where she collaborated with NGO’s to open a Resource Room and taught HIV prevention to youth. She has worked with undocumented families ensuring access to education and providing maternal support services. She currently provides equity and diversity training and assessment in educational systems and community organizations with a particular interest in developing online learning and training curriculum and online service provision. Her approach challenges with care and empowers people to make change. While her interests and experiences are eclectic, her mission is defined by her commitment to social justice and equity.

Areas of specialty:

• Sustainable social justice organizational planning and assessment
• Power dynamics in helping relationships
• Crisis intervention and listening skills across cultures
• Social justice curriculum development
• Online service provision in the helping fields
• Effective and empowering coaching and supervision

Julie Landsman [click name to send email]
Educational Equity and Diversity Consultant and Author
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Julie Landsman taught in the Minneapolis public schools for 28 years. She has recently taught at Carleton College and has been an adjunct professor at Hamline University and St. Thomas in St. Paul. She has just published the book, Growing Up White: A Veteran Teacher Reflects on Racism with Rowman and Littlefield. Her books, Basic Needs: A Year With Street Kids in a City School and A White Teacher Talks About Race, are memoirs about her days in Minneapolis Public Schools. She co-edited White Teachers in Diverse Classrooms: Creating Community, Combating Racism with Chance Lewis, released in April 2006. She and Chance are completing a DVD and workbook to accompany their text. She has edited two books for young people: From Darkness to Light and Welcome to Your Life with David Haynes. She's also published Diversity Days, a book of activities to help teachers create a community of voices in their classrooms and Tips for Creating a Manageable Classroom. Julie recently won a Loft Literary Center Career Grant, which she used to give talks in various schools and literary centers in New York. Her poem, "Laos on the Radio" appeared in the February, 2004 issue of Paj Ntaub, a magazine centering on Hmong experience and culture. Her short story "Suspension" recently won the New Letters Award in Fiction. Landsman has been a featured speaker on White Privilege in many venues. She is a frequent contributor to Educational Leadership magazine.

Areas of specialty:

• Building inclusive schools, classrooms, communities
• Anti-racism activism: how do we do it?
• Creating community in the classroom
• White privilege: how it plays out in our lives
• Fighting the racism of low expectations
• Creating classrooms of hope

Robert W. Simmons III [click name to send email]
Assistant Professor, Department of Teacher Education (Curriculum and Instruction)
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, Michigan

Robert W. Simmons III is an assistant professor in the College of Education at Eastern Michigan University. Robert’s doctoral dissertation explored the experiences of African American teachers. His current research agenda is focused on exploring the experiences of African American teachers and urban education. Robert taught middle school science in Detroit, MI, in the Detroit Public Schools, as well as 2nd grade and 4th grade in the Dominican Republic and Minnesota. In addition to teaching in K-12, Robert has explored international education issues through work in the Dominican Republic, Japan, and Costa Rica. Robert's experience as an award winning science teacher, nominated twice as the national teacher of the year, adds to his expertise and understanding of what it takes to be a successful teacher in urban schools and working with African American students. Robert is a contributing author to White Teachers in Diverse Classrooms: Creating Community, Combating Racism (2006).

Areas of specialty:

• Urban education
• Education of African American children
• Multicultural curriculum development
• Eliminating the achievement gap
• School-community partnerships
• African American teachers

Heather Hackman [click name to send email]
Associate Professor, Department of Human Relations and Multicultural Education
St. Cloud State University
St. Cloud, Minnesota

Heather Hackman teaches courses in social justice and multicultural education, heterosexism and homophobia in the US, race and racism in the US, and oppression and social change. She received her doctorate from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2000 and has been teaching at St. Cloud since then. She has consulted locally and nationally on issues of racism and white privilege, LBGT issues in education, and power issues in education. She has sat on the boards of Minnesota NAME as past president and Rainbow Families and has served on numerous committees committed to multicultural and social justice work. She has published in the area of social justice education theory and practice and is currently working on two books, one addressing LBGT issues in multicultural education and another addressing E-12 professional development around anti-racism and white privilege education.

Areas of specialty:

• Racism and white privilege
• LBGT issues in education
• Power and privilege dynamics in education
• E-12 anti-racism and white privilege professional development

Seema G. Pothini [click name to send email]
Educational Equity and Diversity Consultant and Author
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Seema G. Pothini's passion for creating equitable classrooms and schools drives her commitment as an advocate for underserved youth. Her extensive experience improving student success in historically underperforming schools began by teaching elementary school in Houston, TX. She was elected Teacher of the Year in her region and was appointed to the superintendent's advisory committee, which addressed the achievement gap in Houston's schools. Seema also has trained new teachers to work in underserved communities, providing a foundation of teaching skills and self-awareness regarding how their biases can impact equity in the classroom. In addition to classroom teaching, she has worked as a K-12 cultural integration specialist. She improved student outcomes by creating family, school, and community partnerships, by providing staff development, and by facilitating student groups. Seema is a qualified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory and serves on boards for the Minnesota chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education and Avenues for Homeless Youth, a shelter in Minneapolis.

Areas of specialty:

• Parent/guardian and community involvement in schools
• Assessing intercultural competence using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI)
• Student success through high expectations and interest
• Strategic planning to move from "celebrating diversity" to ensuring equity
• Conflict resolution amongst students, families, and staff from diverse backgrounds

Leah Delia Larson [click name to send email]
Educational Equity and Diversity Consultant and Author
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Leah Delia Larson has been teaching since 2001 and has worked for Minneapolis Public Schools, the New York City Board of Education, and The Rio Grande City CISD in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. She has experience working with urban and rural students, migrant farm workers, and students in self-contained special education settings with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Leah is passionate about individualizing student instruction and using constructivist approaches to integrate technology into teaching. Teaching in a wide variety of settings has helped her build a repertoire of strategies for constructing classrooms that are both positive and productive. She is currently completing work at Dominican University of Chicago, IL, and the College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, MN on a Maters of Library and Information Science--School Media, and expects to receive her degree January, 2007. Her research interests are GLBT stories in young adult literature and using education to bridge the digital divide.

Areas of specialty:

• Spanish-English bilingual education
• Teaching technology across the digital divide
• LGBT stories in young adult literature
• Best practices in teaching ESL and Special Education
• Teaching social justice through literature and writing

Wendy Amosa [click name to send email]
Lecturer
School of Education
The University of Newcastle, Australia
Wendy's University of Newcastle Web Site and CV

Wendy Amosa is a lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. Wendy's doctoral studies examined student engagement with multiethnic literature, a study which formed the platform for her research and consultancies in the field of multicultural education. Her current research agenda is focused on closing the achievement gap for students of educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, and reforming multicultural education policies across Australia to meet transformative goals of critical multicultural education. As an investigator on several research projects, Wendy's research focuses on issues such the quality of teaching, Indigenous cultural knowledge, student achievement and equity in education.Her expertise in the areas of multicultural education and pedagogy has been shared with teaching and research communities through her journal publications, numerous presentations at national and international conferences, and consultancy work with schools.

Areas of specialty:

• Transformative multiculturalism
• Effects of culturally relevant pedagogies on student achievement
• Student engagement with multicultural texts
• Indigenous cultural knowledge
• Closing achievement gaps
• Authentic pedagogy

Jill Madsen [click name to send email]
Teacher, New Visions Charter School
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Doctoral Student, Hamline University
New Visions School Web Site

Jill Madsen has worked in early childhood education for ten years. She spent six years spent as a classroom teacher and four years as Director of an Early Childhood Education Program grounded in equity and social justice. Her research focus has been embedding equity and social justice education into early childhood and primary education. Currently, she is a classroom teacher at New Visions Charter School. Jill presents annually at the Rainbow Families conference. She has also been a member of the National Association for Multicutlural Education for five years and has served on the Minnesota Chapter Board of Directors for the past year and a half.

Areas of specialty:

• Moving beyond "teaching tolerance" and "celebrating diversity" and toward equity and social justice education in schools
• Embedding equity and social justice education into all aspects of classrooms and schools
• Educational strategies for early childhood education
• Teaching language arts through a critical lens
• Creating safe, welcoming, and inclusive classroom communities for all students and families

Johanna Eager [click name to send email]
Coordinator, Office of Equity and Integration
Roseville Area Schools
Roseville, Minnesota
Roseville Area Schools Office of Equity and Integration Web Site

Since 1993 Johanna Eager has been extensively involved as a professional educator with equity issues in K-12 education. She serves as a consultant to many school districts and presents at professional association meetings on topics related to educational equity. Johanna is certified and has extensive experience with some of the most successful diversity- and equity-related programs for schools. She's been an administrator and interpreter of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), a facilitator for seeking consensus between groups in conflict, and a facilitator for the SEED (Seeking Educational Equity & Diversity) program. Additionally, Johanna taught high school Language Arts for ten years, holds a Master's of Science in Diversity Education (Special Studies), and teaches various cultural diversity courses as an adjunct assistant professor for Saint Mary's University. Johanna lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Areas of specialty:

• School and organizational diversity needs assessment
• Design and implementation of systemic equity models integrated into the individual goals of an organization, school, and/or district
• Best practices for eliminating the academic achievement gap
• Listening processes for increased cultural understanding
• Professional development on race, white privilege, class, sexual orientation, language, gender, and other dimensions of identity
• Adminstrative cultural understanding in providing an inclusive school environment