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Registration has opened for the CU Social Justice Summit on Jan. 31, and organizers have announced that noted author, scholar and educator will give the keynote talk at the virtual summit for the four-campus CU community and system administration.

The biennial summit is open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and university staff and frontline employees from CU Boulder, CU Denver, UCCS, the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, the CU system office in Denver, and to alumni and community members.

Event organizers recommend that participants register early for the CU systemwide summit. More information about the full schedule of sessions will become available on the summit webpage over the coming weeks. Participants may also attend community meetups on Jan. 30 to engage in dialogue with peers and colleagues from around the CU system.

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Bettina Love, the William F. Russell professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, will give a keynote talk titled, “We Gon’ Be Alright, But That Ain’t Alright: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom.”

Love is the author of We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom and Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Hip Hop Identities and Politics in the New South. Her presentations center on abolitionist teaching, education reform, anti-racism, , Black girlhood, queer youth, hip-hop feminism, art-based education to foster youth civic engagement, and issues of diversity and inclusion.

During its , the Kennedy Center named Love one of its making the world a more inspired, inclusive and compassionate place.

“We are honored that Dr. Love will share her insights with the CU community on how to build communal, civically engaged schools and colleges that affirm and support the experiences and perspectives of students, staff and faculty with minoritized identities as we strive toward liberation,” said Sonia DeLuca Fernández, senior vice chancellor for diversity, equity and inclusion at CU Boulder.

Love’s work has appeared in Educational Researcher, Urban Education, The Urban Review and the Journal of LGBT Youth, among other books and journals, and she has provided commentary to National Public Radio, PBS, and other media outlets. She co-founded the in 2020 to support teachers and parents confronting injustice in their schools and communities and created the .

In 2016, the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University named Love its Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow; in 2017, Love participated in a lecture on liberatory education alongside the late celebrated writer and scholar bell hooks; and in 2018, Georgia’s House of Representatives presented Love with a resolution for her impact on the field of education.