Quinnipiac University announces Bettina Love will be a Black History Month keynote speaker

For immediate release

Quinnipiac University announces Bettina Love
will be a Black History Month keynote speaker

Hamden, Connecticut – Jan. 9, 2019 – Bettina Love will be one of two  Black History Month keynote speakers at Quinnipiac University.

Love will speak at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 13, in the Mount Carmel Auditorium in the Center for Communications and Engineering, 275 Mount Carmel Ave.

“Our 2019 Black History Month speakers work to bring the voices and experiences of people on the margins of society to the center of our collective consciousness,” said Don C. Sawyer III, associate vice president for academic affairs and chief diversity officer. “Whether working with public school students or incarcerated men, our speakers have dedicated their lives to the service of humanity and see education as a tool of transformation. I’m honored to have Dr. Love and Mr. Richard Edmond-Vargas on campus this year, and I’m sure we will gain a lot from what they share with our community.”

Love is an award-winning author and associate professor of educational theory and practice at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on the ways in which urban youth negotiate hip hop music and culture to form social, cultural, and political identities to create new and sustaining ways of thinking about urban education and intersectional social justice. Her research also focuses on how teachers and schools working with parents and communities can build communal, civically engaged, anti-racist, anti-homophobic, and anti-sexist educational, equitable classrooms. For her work in the field, Love was named the Nasir Jones Hip hop Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University in 2016. She is also the creator of the hip hop civics curriculum GET FREE.

Love is one of the field’s most esteemed educational researchers in the area of hip hop education for elementary aged students. She is the founder of Real Talk: Hip Hop Education for Social Justice, an after school initiative aimed at teaching elementary students the history and elements of hip hop for social justice through project-based learning.

Love is a sought-after public speaker on a range of topics including: hip hop education, black girlhood, queer youth, hip hop feminism, art-based education to foster youth civic engagement, and issues of diversity. In 2014, she was invited to the White House Research Conference on Girls to discuss her work focused on the lives of black girls. In addition, she is the inaugural recipient of the Michael F. Adams award (2014) from the University of Georgia. She has also provided commentary for various news outlets including NPR, The Guardian, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Love is one of the founding board members of The Kindezi School, an innovative school focused on small classrooms and art-based education. She also is the author of the book, “Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Hip Hop Identities and Politics in the New South.” Her work has appeared in numerous books and journals, including the English Journal, Urban Education, The Urban Review, and Journal of LGBT Youth. In 2017, Love edited a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies focused on the identities, gender performances, and pedagogical practices of black and b rown lesbian educators. She is currently working on her second book, We Want to Do More Than Survive: A Pedagogy of Mattering.

Richard Edmond-Vargas will speak at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 6, at Burt Kahn Court on the Mount Carmel Campus, 275 Mount Carmel Ave.

Both events are free and open to the public.

About Quinnipiac UniversityQuinnipiac is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution located 90 minutes north of New York City and two hours from Boston. The university enrolls 7,000 full-time undergraduate and 3,000 graduate and part-time students in 110 degree programs through its Schools of Business, Communications, Education, Engineering, Health Sciences, Law, Medicine,Nursing and the College of Arts and Sciences. Quinnipiac consistently ranks among the top regional universities in the North in U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges” issue. Quinnipiac also is recognized in Princeton Review’s “The Best 381 Colleges.” The Chronicle of Higher Education has named Quinnipiac among the “Great Colleges to Work For.” For more information, please visit qu.edu. Connect with Quinnipiac on Facebook at facebook.com/Quinnipiac news and follow Quinnipiac on Twitter @QuinnipiacU.