Heather W. Hackman, Ed.D.
Heather Hackman received her doctorate in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. For 12 years she served as tenured professor in the Department of Human Relations and Multicultural Education at St. Cloud State University. While at SCSU she taught courses on social justice and multicultural education, heterosexism and homophobia in the US, race and racism in the US, social justice education, and oppression and social change. In 2005 she founded Hackman Consulting Group and began to consult nationally on issues of equity and social justice with an emphasis on issues of racism and whiteness, gender oppression, climate justice, classism, and heterosexism / homophobia. In 2012 she resigned from SCSU to consult and train full time and now addresses a wide array of equity and social justice issues in myriad contexts such as education, government, non-profit, philanthropy, for-profit, and communities of faith. Dr. Hackman has published in the area of social justice education theory and practice, sexism and gender liberation in the widely read Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, racism in health care (with Stephen Nelson), whiteness and climate change, whiteness and trauma (with Susan Raffo), and has contributed chapters to Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice (2015) and The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys (2017). Dr. Hackman is also currently a companion book for her training with Routledge that will be published the summer of 2021. In 2009, she was awarded a Research Fellowship with the Great Place to Work Institute and has developed workplace racial equity training rubrics augmenting GPTWI’s frameworks. She received the Kappa Delta Pi “Professor of the Year” award four times while at St Cloud State and is nationally known for her teaching and training. She has served on boards for several social justice organizations, participated in numerous professional committees focused on social justice work, and was an Advisory Board member for the White Privilege Conference.
Thursday, January 21, 2021 | Morning Session
The Essence of a Racial Equity Lens: Examining Race, Racism and Whiteness in Education
As someone in teacher education for many years, here is what I know: the majority of our public school teachers are white (while our students demographics are rapidly changing), they care deeply about all of their students, and most of them had teacher education experiences that did not prepare them to be effective in racially complex settings. I left teacher education to help address this gap in racial equity knowledge and this session is an overview of the advanced introductory content offered in our consulting work across various P-16 contexts. Far from being a "D & I" training, in these two hours we will explore the basics regarding race and the racial narratives, systemic racism and its impacts on BIPOC communities, and systemic whiteness and its various manifestations. Of course a specific focus on education will help participants better understand, develop and utilize a racial equity lens (REL) in all aspects of educational work. If time provides, there will be breakout opportunities and room for questions.
