Place & Placelessness The Ground Under Your Feet

There are songs and sayings that belong to this place, by which it speaks for itself and no other. Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet. - Wendell Berry

Welcome to the 2022 Doctoral Symposium

Please note this site is a living document with continual minor updates, so check back often to stay up to date!

Symposium Synopsis and Considerations

• Boone, North Carolina, the physical home of Appalachian State University, this year celebrates the sesquicentennial anniversary of its founding.
• The campus has selected as its annual Common Reading book Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community, an ethnographic history of one of the oldest African American communities in western North Carolina – a community that lies on the mountainside overlooking our campus.

• This fall’s Founder’s Day observances therefore had an additional emphasis on the history of our institution’s connection to all of the people who have built and maintained it – especially those whose presence and contributions have been historically marginalized.
• Our deepest personal and professional relationships are ceaselessly mediated by technology, from Google Drive to social media to Zoom.
• We continue to live in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated a move to virtuality in in K12 and higher education that was already underway,.
• The Doctoral Program is growing dramatically through its online offerings, and now a majority of its students do not live near Boone – and some may never have visited before the day of their commencement.

So right now, in the Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, we are thinking a lot about our “where.”

Tightly or loosely focused, clearly or dimly lit: all our work happens somewhere, even as what we mean by our where is contested, disappearing, and emerging anew – all at once. As we reflect on these tensions, we wonder:

• What is a “place,” anyway? What did a “place” used to be? What is it now? What is it becoming?
• What places do we – individually and collectively, through our pasts and our futures – belong to? What of those places belongs to us?
• Where does your work happen? And how has your understanding of “where” changed?
• What does it mean, today, to “found our hope on the ground under our feet”?

WHEN: November 11-12, 2022 | 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm EST each day

WHERE: Online web conferencing via Zoom (links will be sent after participants have registered below for this event).

COST: Free to everyone

OVERVIEW SCHEDULE: Friday, Nov. 11

OVERVIEW SCHEDULE: Saturday, Nov. 12

Detailed Symposium Schedule: Friday, Nov. 11

1:00 - 1:15 pm - Welcome & Intros by Dr. Chris Osmond, Professor and Associate Director, Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, Appalachian State University

1:50 - 3:00 pm

Concurrent Sessions A

It Shook Us as Far as Making a Future: Affect and Experience in Contaminated Appalachia

Dr. Beth Campbell - Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Appalachian State University

Finding Black Mountain: The Spirit of Progressive Education in the 21st Century

Dr. John Henson '19 - Senior Lecturer & Digital Media Specialist, Department of Media, Career Studies, and Leadership Development, Appalachian State University

The Poetics of Place: An Exploration of the Death of a School Using Affect Theory and Rememorying

Ms. Kacie Kisielewski - Assistant Principal, Yancey County Schools and Doctoral Candidate

Concurrent Session B

PANEL: "Where do you work?": Place, Presence, & Productivity

Dr. Amy Washburn '05 - Director of Digital Teaching and Learning, Reich College of Education, Appalachian State University

Dr. Patrick O'Shea - Professor of Instructional Technology, Media, Technology, and Learning Design and Program Director in the Leadership and Educational Studies Department, Appalachian State University

Dr. Kimberly Nava Eggett '22 - Instructional Technology Facilitator, Claxton Elementary School

Dr. Rebecca Burry '22 - Digital Teaching and Learning Coach, Iredell-Statesville Public Schools and Adjunct Instructor, Appalachian State University

3:00 - 3:10 pm Break

3:10 - 4:15 pm

Concurrent Sessions A

Shifting the Narrative From Broken Youth to a Broken System: Dismantling Deficit-Based Narratives of Youth with High ACEs using a Decolonization Approach

Ms. Whitney Greene - Science Instructor, Trident University and Doctoral Candidate (to be awarded '22)

Challenging the Status Quo of Advanced Courses Enrollment Practices in High School: A Look at the Successes, Challenges, and Surprises That I Have Encountered Thus Far on My Journey

Mr. Jon Fleisher - Teacher, Kings Mountain High School and Doctoral Candidate

Storyplace: Building Community Through Creativity, Sacredness, and Environmental Justice

Dr. Heather Thorp '22, Ed.D. LCSW, REAT - Field Director, Department of Social Work, Appalachian State University

Concurrent Session B

Mr. Jesse Barber - Current Student, Master of Arts in Appalachian Studies, Appalachian State University

"Will the Circle be Unbroken?": A Visual Contemplation of Home

4:15 - 4:30 pm - Closing with Dr. Chris Osmond

2:10 - 3:00 pm

Concurrent Session A

Education Faculty Reflections on "Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community"

Dr. Chris Osmond - Professor and Associate Director of the Doctoral Program, at Appalachian State University

Dr. Robin Groce - Associate Professor, Department of Reading Education and Special Education, Appalachian State University

Concurrent Sessions B

A Faculty’s Reflective Journey on Developing Anti-Racist School Leaders: A Self-Study on an Educational Leadership Curriculum

Mrs. Karen Anderson (she/her/hers) - Director of the Wake Leadership Principal Preparation Program, North Carolina State University and Doctoral Candidate

The Social Perception of Black Males in Society and the Experiences of Black Male Leaders in K-12 Spaces

Mr. Dramaine Freeman - Academic Advisor, Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, Appalachian State University and Doctoral Candidate

3:00 - 3:10 pm Break

3:10 - 3:30 pm - Presentation of the 2022 Alice P. Naylor Outstanding Dissertation award and reflections with Dr. Alex McAllister- 2021 Naylor Award Recipient

2022 Naylor award recipient, Dr. Laura Shears

3:30 - 4:20 pm

Concurrent Sessions A

Leading with Hope - Exploring a Grounded Theory of Trauma Informed Leadership for School Principals

Mr. Chris Bottoms - Principal, Stokes County Schools and Doctoral Candidate

Resilient Human Experience: The Methodological Considerations for the NC Family and Consumer Sciences Movement

Mrs. Michelle Derouin (she/her/hers)- Career and Technical Education Program Manager, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools and Doctoral Student

Concurrent Sessions B

Stand Your Ground: Researcher Voice, Passion, and Reflexivity

Ms. Gwynne Shoaf - Teacher Cadet State Coordinator, North Carolina Foundation for Public School Children and Doctoral Candidate

Troubling "Place" With the Foucauldian-Influenced WPR Methodology in Policy

Ms. Sherry Robertson - Director of Financial Reporting, Western Carolina University and Doctoral Candidate

4:20 - 4:30 pm - Closing with Dr. Chris Osmond

Please contact Elizabeth Hayes at hayesle2@appstate.edu with any questions.