Education Series Capstone guest, Dr. Michele Foster, EdD, Executive Director, UMKC Education Research Center

Urban Connections Education Series Capstone guest, Dr.Michele Foster, Ed.D., Sherman Family Endowed Chair in Urban Education Research
Executive Director, Urban Education Research Center
UMKC School of Education, discusses critical urban education challenges, issues and solutions.

Urban Education Research Center Mission
MISSION

To create reliable, usable knowledge, provide technical assistance, conduct cutting edge research and analysis, develop data rich approaches, and disseminate this information with the goal of promoting excellent schooling and improving the lives, opportunities, and communities of urban residents throughout the United States, with a focus on the Greater Kansas City community.

PROGRAM GOALS

To familiarize members of the UMKC community, the Greater Kansas City Community partners, and the general public with critical urban challenges and prepare these groups to be better informed on urban issues and solutions.
To empower these groups to advocate for urban communities, particularly communities of color, throughout the Greater Kansas City Community and nation.
To work collaboratively with SOE and UMKC faculty and others to organize and conduct research on critical urban issues facing the Greater Kansas City Community and other cities in the United States and abroad.
To collaborate with non-profit organizations, agencies, foundations, the media, and other partners on urban research undertaken at the SOE and UMKC.
To expose graduate students to cutting edge research and involve them in research activities.
To promote these ends, the UERC will:

Sponsor lectures and organize conferences, brown bag lunches, seminars, and discussion groups.
Develop and seek foundation, government, philanthropic and corporate funding that uses the Greater Kansas City Community as its laboratory.
Educate outside constituents about these activities.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

There will be one governing body referred to as the Executive Committee, comprised of UMKC deans, faculty, and administrators and representatives from the SOE’s partner school districts. In addition, there will be two volunteer boards to support the UERC’s work: a National Research Advisory Board, whose members are leaders in the field from around the country, and a Community Advisory Board, whose members are Greater Kansas City civic/philanthropic/community leaders.

on Research, Executive Director, Urban Education Research Center, UMKC School of Education

Dr. Michele Foster was a professor in the Center for Educational Studies at the Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California. She earned her masters and doctoral degrees in Anthropology and Education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Before teaching at Claremont she taught Education as well as Africa and African American Studies at the University of California at Davis. Also she has worked as a multicultural curriculum specialist and serves as principal investigator on numerous research projects. Dr. Foster is the recipient of awards from organizations that include the Carnegie Corporation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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