Conference Description
Program Fee: Free; pre-registration required
Register Here: 2025 EPS Conference Registration Form (google.com)
Proposal Submission: 2025 EPS Conference Call for Proposals – Google Forms
For more information, please visit place.education.wisc.edu
Education for Every Generation stems from the Seventh Generation cultural value of the Indigenous philosophy of the Haudenosaunee Tribe ([h-oh-D-EE-n-oh-SH-oh- n-ee]). This keeps in mind the next seven generations to guide our decisions and actions today, inspiring us to ask questions such as: How are we guided by those who came before us? How do our actions impact those to come? What can education look like for every generation?
The 2025 EPS Conference pushes us to traverse across space and time and to consider what it means to be educators, scholars, and advocates for generations to come. In a time of conflict, with grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren facing violence all over the world, we hold the responsibility to deeply reflect on the following questions: How do we map a better future for the generations to come? How do we think about alternative educational opportunities amid complex times? How do we consider what we are borrowing from future generations?
This year’s conference brings together a wide variety of voices and scholarship with several keynote panels, speakers, and breakout sessions, including:
1) Indigenous advocates and educators who will illuminate the efforts of language revitalization and the importance of behaving as elders-in-training
2) International voices who will help us only scratch the surface of what it means to navigate moments of conflict
3) Art and Education and Policy in Practice presenters who will help us dream of what is possible
Conference Highlights
The conference will feature Indigenous Language Advocates, EPS faculty, alumni, and student keynote speakers.
Keynote Panel: Across Native Nations: Language Revitalization Efforts
Native Nations work toward Language Revitalization to ensure a pathway forward for future generations. This panel invites panelists and participants to recognize how similar efforts are occurring across Native Nations and how collaboration could offer critical discussion around what is and isn’t working while generating valuable insight.
Speakers: Jessi Falcon & Samson Falcon (Hoocąk Language Division); Gimiwan Burnette (Executive Director of Midwest Indigenous Immersion Network); Jennifer Gauthier (College of Menominee Nation, Director of the Sustainable Development Institute)
Moderator: TBD
Narratives & Discourses of Conflict
As educators, policymakers, leaders, and human beings, we find ourselves on the frontlines of conflicts, whether they emerge in classrooms, communities, or the frontlines of environmental damage or war. Through the ‘Narratives of Conflict’ panel we want to open critical space to question the metaphors and narratives that shape how conflicts are told. We want to hear the unheard, bear witness to the pain, and work together to imagine more humane forms of co-existence
Speakers: Viacheslav Zahorodniuk (UW-Madison, Philosophy), Annu Matthews (University of Rhode Island, Professor of Photography), (Pending: MFA Student)
Moderator: Diana Rodriguez-Gomez
Student and Teacher Perspectives on How Hmong and Asian American Cultures are Taught in Schools, and How they Should Be
Presenters: Nicole Louie (Associate Professor, C&I) and Chundou Her (graduate student in C&I); Tony DelaRosa (graduate student in ELPA); YJ Kim (Assistant Professor, C&I); Stacey Lee (Professor, EPS); Paj Ntaub Research Team (point person: Matthew Wolfgram)
Meet these presenters in the Wisconsin Idea Room and learn more about their work!
In April 2024, 2023 Wisconsin Act 266 was signed into law. This act amends state statute 118.01(2)(c)8 to include Hmong Americans and Asian Americans.
At all grade levels, an understanding of human relations, particularly with regard to American Indians, Black Americans, Hispanics, Hmong Americans, and Asian Americans.
With this act, every public school district in Wisconsin must teach about Hmong Americans and Asian Americans at the K-12 level.
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Passage of this bill is a tiny step towards combating Asian and Asian American invisibilization in Wisconsin schools. Now what would it look like to have Hmong and Asian Americans centering curriculum? What would a fair curriculum consist of?
This event will showcase how educators can be involved in positive advocacy, within and beyond their classrooms, to shape the policy implementation. Through small-group engagement sessions, scholars and educators from the UW-Madison School of Education will explain basic aspects about the bill and its implications and share ways of fostering ongoing advocacy to make the bill a success, through and outside of curriculum development.
Join the conversation! Themes include how schools treat Hmong and Asian American history and culture, what teachers need to know about Hmong history and culture, how to embody a pro-Asian American lens in schools, HMoob college student experiences in Wisconsin, and more.
Educational Justice in Practice with EPS
Description forthcoming
Speakers: Drs. David O’Brien, Naomi Mae, Rachel Williams
Moderator: TBD
Schedule
8:00-8:45 a.m. Registration & Networking
Light breakfast, Tea and coffee provided
8:45-9:00 a.m. Conference Welcome, 159 Wisconsin Idea Room
Department Chair Nancy Kendall, Educational Policy Studies – School of Education
9:00-10:15 a.m. Across Native Nations: Language Revitalization Efforts, 159 Wisconsin Idea Room (Hybrid Session)
Jessi Falcon & Samson Falcon (Hoocąk Language Division); Gimiwan Burnette (Executive Director of Midwest Indigenous Immersion Network); Jennifer Gauthier (College of Menominee Nation, Director of the Sustainable Development Institute)
Moderator: TBD
10:15-10:30 a.m. BREAK, Transition to Breakout Session A
10:30-11:30 a.m. Breakout Session A: Student Presentations
Here’s What I’m Thinking #1
Presenters share preliminary ideas and receive feedback through audience discussion and written forms.
Roundtables
Attendees choose to join a roundtable with a topic of interest to them. The discussant at each table will briefly introduce their chosen idea, issue, or theme, and then offer questions to spark spirited and creative discussion.
Panel: TBD
The panelists will each present their work and then engage one another and the audience in conversation.
11:30-11:45 a.m. BREAK, Transition to Wisconsin Idea Room
11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Narratives of Conflict (Hybrid Session)
Viacheslav Zahorodniuk, Annu Matthews, PhD – University of Rhode Island (Pending: One additional Speaker)
Moderator: Diana Rodriguez-Gomez
12:45-1:25 p.m. Lunch
1:30-2:30 p.m. Mini Workshops
Policy in Practice & Action with Act 266 – Wisconsin Idea Room 159
Art & Education – Room L138
Time for relaxation – need a space to process? Hang out in the Morgridge Commons between lunch and the next session
2:35-3:35 p.m. Breakout Session B: Student Presentations
Here’s What I’m Thinking #2
Presenters share preliminary ideas and receive feedback through audience discussion and written forms.
Roundtables
Attendees choose to join a roundtable with a topic of interest to them. The discussant at each table will briefly introduce their chosen idea, issue, or theme, and then offer questions to spark spirited and creative discussion.
Panel: TBD
The panelists will each present their work and then engage one another and the audience in conversation.
3:35-3:45 p.m. BREAK
3:45-4:45 p.m. Educational Justice in Practice with EPS 159 Wisconsin Idea Room (Hybrid Session)
TBA
Moderator: TBD (EPS)
4:45-4:50 p.m. Closing
Dean Haddix, School of Education
2025 EPS Conference Committee
Makamae Sniffen, Max Yakubovskiy, Mya Halvorson, Pamela Reyes Galgani, Pushpamitra Das, Zaira Magana Carbajal