Nygreen, Green, Valdiviezo, and Altshuler win EPiC-SD Award

Content

Congratulations to professors Kysa Nygreen, Keisha Green, Laura Valdiviezo, and EDUC doctoral student Dana Altshuler (not pictured)! Their Ethnic Studies (ES) Program at Holyoke Public Schools was recognized with a new award from UMass ADVANCE: the Equitable Practices in Collaboration and Shared Decision-Making (EPiC-SD) Award. Only four faculty teams were recognized with this accolade in spring 2022.

According to UMass ADVANCE, "Research shows that when all voices are heard, including the voices of women and BIPOC faculty, decision-making is better and has more effective outcomes. The award recognizes effective and equitable shared decision-making practices in faculty-led groups of three or more. The winning teams each will receive $500."

ICYMI: the Ethnic Studies Program was also featured in a recent Boston Globe article.

More about the ES Program: "Holyoke Public Schools Ethnic Studies Program Research-Practice Partnership is a multiracial and mutilingual research team conducting a community engaged ethnography on implementing Ethnic Studies in K-12 settings. They provide faculty and teacher-led professional development and have supported the development of a Community Advisory Board with teachers, activists, parents, students and faculty. Their research findings contribute to improving policy and practice related to Ethnic Studies program implementation in secondary schools and provide insight about how educators, students, families and community allies can organize for justice-oriented educational change locally and beyond."

According to Keisha Green, a co-Principal Investigator on the project, "ES is making a difference in Holyoke. The ES program is a true model of community-school-university partnership. The ES program connects the classroom to the community engaging local historians, activists, artists, public intellectuals, and parents. In particular, students are more engaged and connected to the curricular content. ES classrooms affirm and reflect the lived experiences and cultural backgrounds of Holyoke youth. ES in HPS provides a curriculum that centers youth, care, is culturally responsive and sustaining, and is interdisciplinary, highlights Puerto Rican history, language and culture, and builds the critical consciousness of HPS ES students who as a result of being in the program develop the knowledge, self-awareness, and skills to be leaders and agents of change in their own lives and communities."