logo for “Extending His Reach: Promoting the Educational Legacy of Edmund W. Gordon" conference

The UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST), the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies, and the Gevirtz School of Education, UC Santa Barbara, are hosting a celebratory event titled, “Extending His Reach: Promoting the Educational Legacy of Edmund W. Gordon.” Professor Gordon’s extensive impact on public education and equity will be discussed by his distinguished colleagues and friends including Linda Darling-Hammond and Pedro Noguera. This virtual event, held November 1 & 2, is free. For more information including session topics and the schedule, please click here.

The first session on Tuesday, “Admissions Policy: Supporting Equity and Human/Institutional Development,” will be facilitated by Dr. Jeffrey Milem, Professor and Zimmer Dean’s chair of the Gevirtz School. It will focus on admissions policies in the light of University of California decisions, legal challenges, and potential alternatives to support access and excellence for students. The panel will include Michael Brown of the Gevirtz School’s Department of Counseling, Clinical and School Psychology and Department of Education Emerita Professor Rebecca Zwick.

The second session on Tuesday, “Advances in Technology to Foster Student Development,” includes Gevirtz School affiliate professor Richard Mayer on the panel.

The first session on Wednesday, “Cultural Context and Affirmative Pedagogies,” will be facilitated by Department of Education Professor Richard Durán and Mara Welsh Mahmood, Executive Director UC Links. The panel will include Department of Education Associate Professor Diana Arya.

The second session on Wednesday, “Learning and Instruction Innovations in Classroom Settings,” will feature Joaquin Noguera, a 2021-22 UCSB Center for Black Studies Research Postdoctoral Fellow/Visiting Faculty in Black Studies.

Edmund Gordon is the John M. Musser Professor of Psychology, Emeritus at Yale University, Richard March Hoe Professor, Emeritus of Psychology and Education and Founding Director of the Institute of Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University. From July 2000 until August 2001 Gordon was Vice President of Academic Affairs and Interim Dean at Teachers College, Columbia University. Professor Gordon’s distinguished career spans professional practice, scholarly life as a minister, clinical and counseling psychologist, research scientist, author, editor, and professor. He held appointments at several of the nation’s leading universities including Howard, Yeshiva, Columbia, City University of New York, Yale, and the Educational Testing Service. He has served as visiting professor at City College of New York and Harvard.

Currently, Professor Gordon is the Senior Scholar and Advisor to the President of the College Board where he developed and co-chaired the Taskforce on Minority High Achievement. Author and/or editor of over 15 books and over 175 articles Gordon is a psychologist and expert in child development who has worked throughout his career on the issues and challenges of underprivileged and minority students in American education. As a clinician and researcher, he explored divergent learning styles and advocated for supplemental education long before most scholars had recognized the existence and importance of those ideas. He was Chief of the Head Start Research Office under President Lyndon Johnson and from 2011 to 2013 he organized and mentored the (ETS) Gordon Commission, bringing together scholars to research and report on the Future of Assessment for Education. His most recent publication, Human Variance and Assessment for Learning, co-edited with Eleanor Armour-Thomas, Cynthia McCallister, and A. Wade Boykin (October 2019, Third World Press), is a further development of ideas generated from the Gordon Commission.