Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WORCESTER STATE COLLEGE CO-HOSTS EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE

(Worcester, MA - October 4, 2007) Worcester State College (WSC) will co-host a conference with the World Council for Curriculum and Instruction (WCCI) North American Chapter October 24-26, 2007, at the Worcester Crowne Plaza Hotel.

The theme of the conference is “Leading with Love: Creating a Just and Peaceful Society.”  There will be 38 workshops and paper presentations addressing such issues as peace education, science, education reform, educational leadership, English Language Learners, and service learning. Participants represent colleges and schools from Canada, Nigeria, the Philippines, Columbia, Iraq, Sweden, and the United States.

Dr. Peter Heffernan, the opening key note speaker, is a professor at the University of Lethbridge, Canada. His work has focused on reconciling the challenges and celebrating the possibilities of intercultural dialogue and understanding. He has recently been honored by his peers with the Prix Robert Roy Award of the Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers.

Dr. Joshua Oje Aisiku, the closing key note speaker, is a professor at Worcester State College. He has over thirty years of university teaching and research experience and has published extensively on curriculum development and teacher education. 

The goals of the conference are:

• To provide a variety of opportunities for educators in the North American Chapter to work together to ensure that education contributes to the promotion of equity, peace, social justice and the universal realization of human rights. 
   
• To facilitate exchange across national borders of existing and newly created professional knowledge in the realms of both theory and practice relevant to the needs of a multicultural world community.
   

·     To stimulate and facilitate communication and collaboration with professionals to foster intercultural, interracial, interreligious, and international understanding and cooperation.

·     To employ education as a vehicle for the promotion and realization of social justice
and human rights.
 

WSC President Janelle Ashley will attend the opening reception at the Crowne Plaza on October 24. WSC Vice President for Academic Affairs Julie Wollman will represent the College at the closing reception on October 26 at the Worcester Art Museum.

For more information and to register for the conference, go to http://www5.semo.edu/wccina/index.htm.

Contact: Professor Sue Fan Foo at 508-929-8071 or sfoo@worcester.edu.

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