Denison University welcomes author Vanessa Siddle Walker, to discuss "Renewed Vision: Brown Through the Eyes of Black Educators" on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1954 Supreme Court decision. Sponsored by the Black Studies Program, the departments of education and sociology-anthropology, and the Women's Studies Program, Walker will speak at 8 p.m. on Thursday (Oct. 7) in the Burton Morgan Lecture Hall (150 Ridge Road on the Denison campus). The lecture is free and open to the public.

Walker is currently the Winship Distinguished Research Professor in the Division of Educational Studies at Emory University. She focuses on the historical and cultural influences on the teaching and learning of African American students, particularly in the preintegration school environment. "What black educators wanted for black children at the dawn of desegregation appears to be what white parents take for granted," says Walker. "That is, they wanted their children to be educated in environments where facilities and resources would support educational attainment and where their children would be taught by well-trained teachers who nurtured children's belief in their capacity to achieve. This ideal has not yet been achieved. To the contrary, in some ways the problem has become even more pernicious since supporters of the status quo may now point to the unconstitutionality of segregation and insist that this should be the extent of state action."

Winner of the prestigious Grawmeyer Award for Education in 2000, and the Young Scholars Award from the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools, Walker also has been a former National Academy of Education Fellow. She earned her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and both her master's and doctoral degrees from Harvard University.

Walker's bookTheir Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated Southwas published in 1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. She also was co-author ofFacing Racism in American Education.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

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