UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Ashley Patterson and Efraín Marimón, champions of equity and anti-racist pedagogy in the College of Education at Penn State, are taking their social justice work to the next level.
Patterson, associate professor of education (curriculum and instruction), and Marimón, associate teaching professor of education (curriculum and instruction), will travel this summer to South Africa to meet with higher education faculty and students and learn about various social justice efforts they’re currently undertaking.
“We were serving on the Committee for Truth and Reconciliation set up through the Penn State Presidential Commission on Race, Bias and Community Safety and we started brainstorming, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could learn from countries with similar racial wounds and use that professional experience to inform the work, both at the University level and college level?’” said Marimón.
Patterson and Marimón met seven years ago at faculty orientation. “Given our shared passion for educational equity and social justice, we connected instantly,” Marimón said.
Patterson and Marimón co-direct the new social justice in education minor and serve or have served on several diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging committees and task forces in the college and University. They both are members of the College of Education Equity Team and Marimón currently serves on the Faculty Senate Curriculum Task Force charged with creating an anti-racist curriculum at Penn State.
Marimón directs the Restorative Justice Initiative and its Prison Education Program, and Patterson leads the Equity Team’s Curriculum subcommittee and represents Penn State in a statewide learning community navigating the implementation of the newly identified Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Educator Competencies. They both serve as system designers for Penn State Dickinson Law’s Antiracist Development Institute book series.
They have been recognized for their leadership and achievements in community engagement and social justice work, including the Emerging Faculty Award for Engaged Scholarship, Sustainability Leader’s Faculty Leadership Award; and Penn State’s Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching. They also each won the college’s Cotterill Leadership Enhancement Award – Marimón in 2019 and Patterson in 2020. The award was established in the college by Joan and David Cotterill to recognize faculty or staff for exemplary performances and leadership efforts, and includes resources for professionally related activities, including participation in conferences, seminars and sabbaticals.
Neither Patterson nor Marimón had been able to use the Cotterill funding they received because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so it’s available to fund this project, they said.
“This trip is very important and related to our core mission,” said Kim Lawless, dean of the College of Education at Penn State. “Exploring and learning through international partners how they are working through some of our areas of inquiry and impact in their own context is an incredible way to think about learning networks.”
Patterson and Marimón chose South Africa for a number of reasons that relate to their social justice work in the college.
“We’re visiting both Johannesburg and Cape Town to explore South Africa’s rich — and recent — history in making strides to reconcile its racist societal institutions,” Patterson said. “In addition to visiting key historical sites and museums, we have a colleague from the College of Engineering who travels there yearly and another from the Department of Education Policy Studies who traveled there this year who have put us into contact with people who will be able to facilitate meeting opportunities to talk about various social justice efforts they’re currently undertaking.”
In addition, Patterson’s dissertation adviser traveled to the country yearly for almost a decade, and she also provided contacts for Patterson and Marimón.
Their itinerary includes visits with deans, lead administrators, faculty members, instructional designers and others at the University of Johannesburg, University of Limpopo, Belgium Campus ITversity University, University of Pretoria and University of Cape Town. They also will visit the Apartheid Museum and tour Soweto, including Nelson Mandela’s house, as well as District Six Museum.
“With these meetings, we hope to be able to begin establishing relationships that will turn into long-term engagement,” Patterson said.
The pair is also anticipating meeting with Durban University of Natal to learn about how they enact outreach law and civics education coursework, observing high school classes that embed social justice into the curriculum, and learning more about the Prison to College Pipeline Program by observing classes and engaging with program administrators.
“It's hard for me to imagine what a truth and reconciliation process can look like,” said Marimón. “But knowing that South Africa went through that process of finding ways to heal, that's pretty compelling. Looking at that through the lens of education and higher education I think is unique, and we are interested in trying to see how that can work with the anti-racist mission of the college.”
Patterson said their work in South Africa pushes geographic boundaries. “We’re connecting different parts of the world that have geopolitical boundaries but have a shared history, even if the history of South Africa and the United States isn't a one-to-one relationship,” she said. “But as far as being places that need to come to a racial reckoning with the ways that racial prejudice, racism, and oppression based on race, have functioned and been grappled with in both of these places, that's one of the boundaries that we're pushing back on.”
The faculty members said they are hoping to bring back the knowledge they gain in South Africa to continue exploring themes or possibly implement some of what they learn in some of the programs in the college.
They said they also hope to be able to inform “some still unanswered questions around the University about how we move forward toward being an institution where racial injustice is recognized and where we're setting out a pathway for how we can positively impact the wrongs that racial injustice have done to our community,” Patterson said.
“I'm similarly interested in being able to provide leadership both in the college and at the University level with some guidance on what it would mean to support racial justice and anti-racist work in terms of designing more equitable systems and do right by faculty, staff, students and the greater community,” Marimón said. “We want to lead with love and with the idea of healing that comes from the work itself, as we envision a better world and see the opportunities for bridging some of these divides.”
Another motivation for Patterson is simply the opportunity for learning.
“We are so committed to providing people who are learning with us, especially students, opportunities to apply and practice the things that they're learning. And I think that we don't do as good of a job of making space for ourselves to be in an immersive learning space. We're often the leaders or facilitators of that learning, pouring so much energy into other people. Maybe it's unique, at least for us, that we're taking a moment to pour into ourselves,” Patterson said. “I also think it's really important not to remain in an echo chamber. It's easy for me just to surround myself with people who say all of the things that I already say and have all the ideas I've already encountered. That, to me, is not learning.”
Patterson and Marimón said they are grateful to the College of Education for the support they’re receiving for this project.
“Both of us having Cotterill Award funds is hugely facilitative of this trip. Without that, I don’t think this would be happening,” Marimón said.
“We’re grateful to Dean Lawless and Dean (David) Monk before her, for giving us the green light go ahead to do some of the out-of-the-box work that we want to do in the college. And we appreciate Assistant Dean (María) Schmidt’s support as well, especially for funding some of the work we’ve been doing that has really paved the way for this next step,” Patterson said.
“Our focus in the College of Education is building educational programming in which all students can thrive,” Lawless said. “As we move to do that within our context, learning from and with other entities, nationally and internationally, that are focused on many of the same efforts, allows us to amplify and accelerate change for everyone involved. I am excited about this project, and cannot wait to see the fruit it bears.”