Education for Every Generation

When: March 7, 2025 8:00 am – 5:00 pm CT

Where: Education Building, WI Idea Room 159, 1000 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706

Program Fee: Free; pre-registration required

Register Here: 2025 EPS Conference Registration Form (google.com)

Education for Every Generation stems from the Seventh Generation cultural value of the Indigenous philosophy of the Haudenosaunee Tribe ([h-oh-D-EE-n-oh-SH-oh- n-ee]). This keeps in mind the next seven generations to guide our decisions and actions today, inspiring us to ask questions such as: How are we guided by those who came before us? How do our actions impact those to come? What can education look like for every generation?

The 2025 EPS Conference pushes us to traverse across space and time and to consider what it means to be educators, scholars, and advocates for generations to come. In a time of conflict, with grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren facing violence all over the world, we hold the responsibility to deeply reflect on the following questions: How do we map a better future for the generations to come? How do we think about alternative educational opportunities amid complex times? How do we consider what we are borrowing from future generations?

This year’s conference brings together a wide variety of voices and scholarship with several keynote panels, speakers, and breakout sessions, including:

1) Indigenous advocates and educators who will illuminate the efforts of language revitalization and the importance of behaving as elders-in-training

2) International voices who will help us only scratch the surface of what it means to navigate moments of conflict

3) Art and Education and Policy in Practice presenters who will help us dream of what is possible

Native Nations work toward Language Revitalization to ensure a pathway forward for future generations. This panel invites panelists and participants to recognize how similar efforts are occurring across Native Nations and how collaboration could offer critical discussion around what is and isn’t working while generating valuable insight.

Speakers: Jessi Falcon & Samson Falcon (Hoocąk Language Division); Gimiwan Burnette (Executive Director of Midwest Indigenous Immersion Network); Jennifer Gauthier (College of Menominee Nation, Director of the Sustainable Development Institute)

Moderator: Makamae Sniffen

As educators, policymakers, leaders, and human beings, we find ourselves on the frontlines of conflicts, whether they emerge in classrooms, communities, or the frontlines of environmental damage or war. Through the ‘Narratives of Conflict’ panel we want to open critical space to question the metaphors and narratives that shape how conflicts are told. We want to hear the unheard, bear witness to the pain, and work together to imagine more humane forms of co-existence

Speakers: Viacheslav Zahorodniuk (UW-Madison Institute for Research in the Humanities, Postdoctoral fellow), Annu Palakunnathu Matthew (University of Rhode Island, Professor of Photography), Tanya Habjouqa, (UW-Madison, MFA Candidate)

Moderator: Diana Rodriguez-Gomez

Opening Remarks by Representative Francesca Hong

Presenters: Nicole Louie (Associate Professor, C&I) and Chundou Her (graduate student in C&I); Tony DelaRosa (graduate student in ELPA); YJ Kim (Assistant Professor, C&I); Stacey Lee (Professor, EPS); Paj Ntaub Research Team (point person: Matthew Wolfgram)

Meet these presenters in the Wisconsin Idea Room and learn more about their work! 

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In April 2024, 2023 Wisconsin Act 266 was signed into law. This act amends state statute 118.01(2) (c)8 to include Hmong Americans and Asian Americans: Each school board shall provide an instructional program designed to give pupils… At all grade levels, an understanding of human relations, particularly with regard to American Indians, Black Americans, and Hispanics, Hmong Americans, and Asian Americans.

Passage of this bill is an important step towards combatting Asian and Asian American invisibilization in Wisconsin schools.

Through small-group engagement sessions, scholars and educators from the UW-Madison School of Education will explore how schools treat Hmong and Asian American history and culture, what teachers need to know about Hmong history and culture, how to embody a proAsian American lens in schools, HMoob college student experiences in Wisconsin, and more.

Description forthcoming

Speakers: Drs. David O’Brien, Naomi Mae, Rachel Williams

Moderator: Zaira Magana Carbjal

Exhibit: March 10-29, 2025

*Art Department is hopeful that this exhibit will be installed by the time of the conference, but official exhibition dates are listed above.

In partnership with the Art department, the Education for Every Generation conference is hoping to host the Stranger Among Strangers Exhibit ahead of its launch date!

Exhibit description: New York City serves as more than just a passageway—it represents my personal portal to explore the concept of freedom in the United States. My deep appreciation and admiration for the city come from a distant perspective in Iran, rooted in my knowledge of street photographers, American films, and social media. New York City is the primary destination for outsiders—a metropolis renowned for its ceaseless energy, evoking memories of my homeland. I hail from Tehran, Iran’s most densely populated city, with a population of 12 million during the day and 10 million at night. I document the cultural landscape of New York City through the lens of an outsider from Iran, with a distinctly different Islamic cultural background. My experience in the city has been marked by a newfound sense of freedom, accompanied by a series of novel, wired, and challenging encounters that, though normal to others, are unfamiliar to me. 

Fatemeh Fani Master of Fine Arts in photography University of Wisconsin-Madison 

Instagram: fatemehhh_faniii 

Website: https://fatemehfani.weebly.com/

Email address: ffani@wisc.edu