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KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Matthew R. Kay

Saturday, April 6th, 10:00 am

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Matthew R. Kay is a proud product of Philadelphia’s public schools and a founding teacher at Science Leadership Academy (SLA). At SLA, he teaches an innovative inquiry-driven, project-based curriculum.

He is also the Founder and Executive Director of Philly Slam League (PSL), a non-profit organization that shows young people the power of their voices through weekly spoken word competitions. The PSL is the only season-long, school-based slam poetry league in the United States.

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Matthew Kay is author of Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Conversations about Race in the Classroom and We're Gonna Keep On Talking: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Elementary Classroom.

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FEATURED OPENING SESSION

Hillary Blecker

Friday, April 5th, 10:30AM

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Hillary works with individual leaders and organizations in various capacities, including as a leadership coach, facilitator and trainer. Hillary’s primary passion and focus has been on working with leaders to proactively identify and face internal and external obstacles to creating an anti-racist culture within their spheres of influence. She has supported racial equity work in organizations and specifically has sought to work with white leaders managing multi-racial teams committed to anti-racism. Together, they work to address conflicts and set clear expectations to be catalysts for lasting impact and culture change.  She is founder of Hillary Blecker Consulting.

 

Hillary holds a BA in Public Health Social Sciences from Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Public Health in Community Practice from the University of Washington, and a graduate certificate in Diversity Leadership from Temple University. Hillary is a certified professional coach through Leadership that Works and accredited with the International Coaching Federation as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC). 

Hillary has been a student of Resmaa Menakem’s, the author of the bestselling My Grandmother’s Hands, and a practitioner of his somatic abolitionism for three years. This communal approach and practice works on processing and metabolizing the ways white supremacy lives in our bodies.

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