Black Excellence: A Heritage to Celebrate; a Future to Build

Carl E. James holds the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora in the Faculty of Education at York University where he is also the Equity Advisor to the Dean; and for 3 years before, he was the Senior Advisor on Equity and Representation in the Office of the Vice President of Equity, People & Culture. In addition to teaching in the Faculty of Education, Carl holds cross-appointments in the Graduate Programs in Sociology, Social and Political Thought, and Social Work. He has served as Affirmative Action, Equity & Inclusivity Officer (2006-2020); was the founding Director of the York Centre on Education & Community (2008-2016), and Director of the Graduate Program in Sociology (2007-2008). A Distinguished Research Professor, James is known for his mentorship of students and colleagues.

A former youth and community worker, Carl holds a PhD in Sociology and is widely recognized nationally and internationally for his research contributions in the areas of race, racialization, racism, and inequity as they affect the educational, social, athletic, occupational and health experiences of Black community members. Building on this premise, his work explores the ways in which accessible and equitable opportunities in education and employment account for the lived experiences of racialized – particularly Black – community members; the limits to the Canada’s multiculturalism and its promise of equity; the complementary and contradictory nature of sports in the schooling and educational attainments of Black youth; and the health situation and related access to healthcare of Black community members. In advocating for systemic changes in schooling and education, Carl brings attention to the difficulties, obstacles, and barriers that stifle the interests, expectations, ambitions, and dreams of Black youth at all levels of the education system in Canada. He has also researched and written on the experiences of Caribbean peoples in Canada, as well as on the education and inter-island migration patterns and experiences of people in the Caribbean.

As the Jean Augustine Chair, James works on programs which serve to support the journeying and transition experiences of Black students from their early schooling years through to graduation from high school and postsecondary institutions. One such program is Securing Black Futures in which, with RBC funding, he collaborates with colleagues from McMaster University, Dalhousie University, University of Calgary, University of British Columbia, Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and University of Ottawa to enhance the university experiences of Black students; and in the case of elementary, middle and high school students, partner with schools and community organizations on initiatives geared towards high school graduation and the possibilities of obtaining postsecondary education. A particular area of interest is increasing Black youth’s interest in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM).

Jennifer D. Adams is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair of Creativity and Science and Professor at The University of Calgary, Department of Chemistry, affiliated with the Werklund School of Education.

She is the PI of the Creativity, Equity and STEM Lab, where she and her team research equity in STEM teaching and learning environments, emphasizing identity-affirming, anti-deficit, and justice-oriented approaches. In addition, she is in leadership on several national projects, including “Securing Black Futures,” which seeks to increase the visibility and support the flourishing of Black students in STEM and the Canadian Black Scientists Network, where she is involved with a national data collection project about Black students’ STEM experiences, serves the steering committee as a co-leader on STEM education Pathways and Postsecondary projects and is the PI of the STEM Beyond Borders initiative that will examine research, policy and practice in Canada and the United States around equity and justice in STEM education and careers for Black students.

Dr. Adams was recognized by the Calgary Black Chambers with an award for Black Achievement in STEM. In addition, she is an NSF Early CAREER award winner. She has served on the executive board of the National Association of Research in Science Teaching and on advisories for NSF-funded grant projects that focus on racial and gender equity in STEM. She also serves on the editorial board for Cultural Studies in Science Education, Journal of Research in Science Education and International Journal of Informal Science and Environmental Learning. Her prior appointments include Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York, the American Museum of Natural History, and The New York City Department of Education.

Dr. Terrell R. Morton is an Assistant Professor of Identity and Justice in STEM Education in the Department of Educational Psychology in the College of Education. Dr. Morton graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a M.S. in Neuroscience from the University of Miami, and a Ph.D. in Education concentration Learning Sciences and Psychological Studies from UNC Chapel-Hill. Dr. Morton identifies as a Scholar-Activist! His research and work focus on identity as it informs the persistence and engagement of racialized and minoritized students in STEM postsecondary education. He draws from critical race theory, phenomenology, and human development to ascertain Black students’ consciousness and how it manifests in their various embodiments and actions that facilitate their STEM postsecondary engagements.

As a scholar-activist, Dr. Morton works to transform the positioning and understanding of Blackness in mainstream education, specifically STEM, seeking justice and joy for Black women, Black students, and other minoritized individuals given the social-cultural-political-historical positioning of their identities. He advocates for identity, justice, and joy to be fundamental for education. He also works to transform STEM learning environments, creating spaces that are recognized and understood as extensions of students’ identity rather than sites of oppression that perpetuate hostility and exclusion.

learn more

Dr. Worsley received a North Carolina Environmental Educator certification from the NC Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). DEQ Secretary Michael Regan presented her with this award.

Worsley researches informal science education with middle-school aged youth in STEM. She works with historically marginalized youth in an informal makerspace at a local Boys and Girls Club and refugee center. “The EE Certification program has provided me the content knowledge to help bridge the gap of people’s perspectives about environmental education and building environmental literacy,” she says. “After participating in the certification program, I think about environmental issues with a diverse mindset.”

The EE Certification program is administered by the DEQ Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs and encourages professional development in environmental education and acknowledges educators committed to environmental stewardship. This program establishes standards for professional excellence in environmental education for classroom teachers and non-formal educators.

In 1977, NASA struggled to recruit scientists, engineers and astronauts for their new Space Shuttle Program. That’s when Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek’s Lt. Uhura, challenged NASA by asking the question: “Where are my people?” and embarks on a four-month campaign to recruit the first Black, Latino and Asian men and women to fly in space.

learn more

Judge David St. Pierre put himself through school, in part, by playing guitar in a band. When he was about 18, he was arrested for allegedly being in possession of a “prohibited weapon”: St. Pierre had just come off the stage at a big show and was wearing a studded wristband.

It was then determined—of course—that a studded wristband was not a prohibited weapon and the charges were eventually dismissed. However, the event made clear to St. Pierre the immensity of the power of the state to interfere with one’s liberties, and beyond that, the fact that it was his lawyer who was essentially the only one checking those powers. “I thought that if I could do that work someday, it would be very important work.”

St. Pierre attended the University of Alberta to get his undergraduate degree in psychology, but then took some time off before going to law school. In that time, he worked as a musician, and music still plays a significant role in his life. After a few years as a professional musician, St. Pierre attended the University of Calgary Law School. While at law school, St. Pierre participated in the students’ legal advice program, helped to found the Black Law Students’ Association of Canada, and was part of a task force that was drafting human rights legislation in Alberta. After getting his law degree, St. Pierre practiced criminal law in Vancouver.

In 2009, St. Pierre stepped into the role of judge, welcoming the great challenge of being an impartial adjudicator after being an advocate for 15 years. St. Pierre, Justice Selwyn Romilly, Matthew Nathanson, and two anonymous donors established the St. Pierre, Romilly, Nathanson Entrance Award in Law for Black Students. 

Charmaine A. Nelson is a Provost Professor of Art History in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and Director of the Slavery North Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Black Maple Magazine, one of the only national platforms aimed at black Canadians. From 2020-2022, she was a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Transatlantic Black Diasporic Art and Community Engagement at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) University in Halifax, CANADA where she founded the first-ever institute focused on the study of Canadian Slavery. She also worked at McGill University (Montreal) for seventeen years (2003-2020). 

Nelson has made ground-breaking contributions to the fields of the Visual Culture of Slavery, Race and Representation, Black Diaspora Studies, and Black Canadian Studies. She has published seven books including The Color of Stone: Sculpting the Black Female Subject in Nineteenth-Century America (2007), Slavery, Geography, and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica (2016), and Towards an African Canadian Art History: Art, Memory, and Resistance (2018). She is actively engaged with lay audiences through her media work including ABC, CBC, CTV, and City TV News, The Boston Globe, BBC One’s “Fake or Fortune,” and PBS’ “Finding your Roots”. She has blogged for Huffington Post Canada and written for The Walrus. 

In 2017, she was the William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University and in 2021 a Fields of the Future Fellow at Bard Graduate Center (NYC). In 2022 she was inducted as a Fellow in the Royal Society of Canada and elected as a Member of the American Antiquarian Society.

Chair of the Joint Program in English and Education and Associate Professor at the University of Michigan’s Marsal Family School of Education. A former Detroit Public Schools teacher and National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, she serves as co-editor of Research in the Teaching of English. She is the author of The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (NYU Press, 2019), which won the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Children’s Literature Association Book Award, among other accolades. Her most recent books are Harry Potter and the Other: Race, Justice, and Difference in the Wizarding World (University Press of Mississippi, 2022) co-edited with Sarah Park Dahlen, and Restorying Young Adult Literature (NCTE, 2023), co-authored by James Joshua Coleman and Autumn A. Griffin.

Her expertise on race and representation in children’s and young adult literature has been sought after nationally and internationally. She has been interviewed by MSNBC, the BBC, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Chicago Tribune, to name a few. She is a former reviewer for Kirkus’ children’s book section, and has written book reviews for the Los Angeles Times. She is a past National Book Award for Young People's Literature judge, and served as a board member of the United States Board on Books for Young People from 2020-2022.

In addition to her work on books for young readers, she has published widely on race, discourse, and interaction in classrooms and digital environments. In conjunction with the National Writing Project, Amy Stornaiuolo (Penn GSE), Elyse Eidman-Aadahl (NWP), and Sarah Levine (Stanford), she is a co-principal investigator on a major James S. McDonnell Foundation Teachers as Learners grant, the Digital Discourse Project (DDP), a longitudinal collaborative inquiry into how partnering teacher consultants studied their own discourse practices with data and platforms as they facilitated online discussions during and after the COVID-19 era. She is also conducting empirical, digital, and archival research for her next monograph, The Shadow Book: Reading Slavery, Fugitivity, and Liberation in Children's Books and Media, which will focus on how traumatic historical events such as slavery in the teaching of literature are introduced through children's picturebooks, popular media, and the social Web.

Suzette Mayr is the author of six novels including her most recent, The Sleeping Car Porter, longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award, finalist for the 2023 Governor General’s Award for Fiction, and winner of the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the George Bugnet Award for Fiction, and the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. The novel was also shortlisted for the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, and the Republic of Consciousness Prize (US and Canada). Mayr’s other novels have won the ReLit Award and City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize, and been nominated for numerous other awards. Mayr has done interdisciplinary work with Calgary theatre company Theatre Junction, and visual artists Lisa Brawn and Geoff Hunter. She has also published articles in journals such as Horror Studies, Studies in Canadian Literature, and The Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. She is a former President of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta. Mayr teaches Creative Writing at the University of Calgary, and is a Killam Laureate. She also plays the clarinet. Poorly, but enthusiastically.

Cheryl Foggo of Calgary is an award-winning Canadian storyteller. She embraces various forms of narrative – journalism, books, film, television and theatre – to tell compelling stories of Alberta’s Black pioneers. By shining a light on the Prairies’ rich and diverse Black history, she helps us understand the relevance of this history to our lives, and the significance of contributions by Black people to Canada. Cheryl Dawn Foggo was born in 1956 in Calgary and raised in Bowness. Her father Roy was a mailman and her mother Pauline worked for the Calgary Board of Education as a library assistant. Cheryl is a descendant of the Black Migration of 1910, when approximately 1,500 African Americans fled hatred in the southern United States. Both sets of her maternal great grandparents joined that migration, travelling from Oklahoma to settle near Maidstone, Saskatchewan. The third of six children, Cheryl grew up among a family of storytellers. She loved watching her mom’s siblings tell stories about their early lives in Western Canada. “It was like a show. You’d sit around the living room and one of them would act out all the parts,” she says. Cheryl hoped she would become a storyteller, too.

Saje Mathieu is a dedicated educator and historian whose work centers the experiences of African-descended people in the Americas and Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She specializes in the Black Diaspora, war, immigration, race, globalization, social movements, and political resistance. She is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, and a Faculty Fellow at Harvard University’s Warren Center for Studies in American History. Prof. Mathieu earned a joint Ph.D. in History and African American Studies from Yale University and specializes in twentieth century American and African American history with an emphasis on immigration, war, race, globalization, social movements, and political resistance. Her first book North of the Color Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870-1955 examines the social, cultural, legal, and political impact of African American and West Indian sleeping car porters in Canada. It analyzes black immigrant railway workers’ transnational vision of trade unionism and their political mobilization in Canada during the first half of the twentieth century. Her book, The Glory of Their Deeds: A Global History of Black Soldiers and the Great War Era examines the experiences of black soldiers and civilians during World War One, both in Allies and Central Powers nations. The book explores how race shaped the politics of enlistment and engagement in the British, Canadian, African, Caribbean, French, American, and German armies. It also discusses how blacks, whether combatants or intellectual-activists, challenged prevailing racialist ideas and practices during the Great War era. In addition, the book investigates how black soldiers and intellectual-activists responded to international outbreaks of racialized violence in Europe, Southern Africa, and North America as important moments for galvanizing new transnational models of political resistance that redefined black civil rights globally. Together, black soldiers and radicals beat back an international color line—whether defined as colonialism, apartheid, or Jim Crow—viewing each regime as inextricably linked in geopolitical terms. Prof. Mathieu has earned several international awards and is a former fellow at the University of Heidelberg’s Center for American Studies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and at Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute. She is also the recipient of the Arthur ‘Red’ Motley Exemplary Teaching Award.