KEYNOTES
More announcements coming soon!
adrienne maree brown
VIRTUAL, Wed. Oct 29
adrienne maree brown is growing a garden of healing ideas. Informed by decades of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction scholarship and doula work, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Loving Correction as ideas and practices for transformation. adrienne is the NYT-bestselling author/editor of several published texts, a ritual singer-songwriter, co-generator of the Lineages of Change Tarot Deck, and co-creator/host of How to Survive the End of the World podcast with Autumn Brown. adrienne's latest books Loving Corrections and Ancestors are now available from AK Press.
Dr. Kim Hunter Reed
In Person/Hybrid, Wed. Oct 29
Dr. Kim Hunter Reed is Louisiana’s Commissioner of Higher Education. She is currently the only female in the country to have served as a state higher education leader in multiple states. Reed is a proven advocate for students who has worked effectively at campus, state, and federal levels. She was recognized nationally as the 2020 Exceptional Leader by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO).
Along with the Louisiana Board of Regents, Reed leads the state’s talent development efforts, focused on increasing educational attainment, erasing achievement gaps, and increasing prosperity. To reach the state’s goal of doubling the number of credentials awarded annually by 2030, she promotes transformational policies and deep collaboration, advancing the Regents’ talent imperative.
In support of that vision, Louisiana’s institutions are focused on strengthening the state’s education-to-employment pipeline, accelerating student success, advancing innovation through research and discovery and contributing significantly to the state’s economic recovery.
Reed is a nationally recognized student advocate with extensive higher education and government experience. In addition to leading the Colorado Department of Higher Education, she served in President Obama’s administration as deputy undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Education, where she also led the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Collectively, Reed has served in senior leadership roles with four governors across two states.
In January 2023, Reed was named as one of the nation’s Top 10 Black higher education leaders by Forbes, which stated “Louisiana’s top higher ed exec is unrivaled, the absolute best among state-level leaders.”