Multicultural Education Expert to Visit Ithaca

Scholar and educator Geneva Gay will be visiting Ithaca February 22 and 23 for a series of meetings and workshops at the College. She will also give a free public address, "Culturally Responsive Teaching," on Thursday, February 22, at 7:30 p.m. at the Southside Community Center, 305 South Plain Street. Her two-day visit is sponsored by the center along with several offices and departments at Ithaca College.

A professor of education and an associate of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington, Gay will meet with students in teacher education courses as well as students affiliated with the Office of Multicultural Affairs. She will also lead workshops with College faculty and staff, and with Ithaca City School District teachers and administrators. The purpose of her visit is to present and discuss the ideas in her latest book, Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice, which was published last May.

"I’m using her new book in one of my courses, and it is increasingly clear to me that Geneva Gay has extremely important ideas and information for all educators, parents, and caregivers," says Jeff Claus, associate professor of teacher education. "She presents absolutely vital knowledge and insight about the cultural dynamics of the teaching/learning process that can help all of us improve our schools and educational work with young people."

In addition to an earlier book, At the Essence of Learning: Multicultural Education (1994), Gay has written over 100 scholarly articles on curriculum theory, African American culture, and multicultural education. She is a strong advocate for using culturally responsive teaching to improve the school performance of underachieving students of color. Combining insights from multicultural education theory, research, and classroom practice, she demonstrates that students will perform better, on multiple measures of achievement, when teaching is filtered through their own cultural experiences and frames of reference.

Key components of culturally responsive teaching include teacher caring, teacher attitudes and expectations, formal and informal multicultural curriculum, culturally informed classroom discourse, and cultural congruity in teaching and learning strategies.

"Geneva Gay is one of the leading interpreters of diversity in the schools," wrote Carlos E. Cortés, professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Riverside, in a review of Gay’s newest book. "She challenges all teachers to consider their pedagogical and personal approaches to young people in our nation’s increasingly multicultural classrooms."

Gay received her doctorate from the University of Texas in 1972. In 1990 she was awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award of the American Educational Research Association.

In addition to the Southside Community Center, Gay’s visit is sponsored by the Ithaca College Diversity Awareness Committee, Office of Multicultural Affairs, Center for Teacher Education, Department of Occupational Therapy, Office of the Provost, and School of Humanities and Sciences dean’s office.

For more information call Jeff Claus at 274-1342 or e-mail claus@ithaca.edu.