Saluting a Social Justice Leader

LMU School of Education graduate Laura McGowan-Robinson (Cohort 10) is the recipient of the Ed.D. Program’s Outstanding Educational Leader for Social Justice Award in recognition of her work as a social justice leader.McGowan-Robinson has dedicated her life to creating more equitable opportunities for students of color and low-income communities. Her dissertation, “African American Parental Engagement in a Public Middle School: Contributing Factors,” was chaired by Dr. Franca Dell’Olio and examined how African American parents in a high poverty, urban, charter middle school, came to understand practices and beliefs at their child’s school, while building relationships with other parents and school staff.

In 2020, McGowan-Robinson founded Diversity in Leadership Institute (DLI) and she serves as Chief Executive Officer of the organization she started as a personal mission to address the issue of representation, equity and inclusion among TK-12 administrators in California.

On Tuesday, August 11, DLI presents ‘The Tea’ an online discussion, which is co-sponsored by LMU School of Education’s Institute for School Leadership and Administration (ISLA) and Educators for Excellence (E4E). The Tea is a virtual round-table discussion on racial diversity in the educational leadership pipeline.

“It will be a candid round-table discussion among African American and Latinx TK-12 leaders to highlight their experiences, successes and challenges as educators of color,” said McGowan-Robinson. Educators will share their perspectives on the building and sustaining of racially diverse educator and leadership pipelines in TK-12. DLI staff and university administrator credentialing program directors will listen, “as the stories of these leaders will help inform the work of administrator and teacher leadership programs.” Participation is by invitation only.