Literacy Colloquy: DeLeon Gray

At their best, collaborative relationships between school districts and universities are important for advancing research on one hand, and educational practice on the other. This fireside chat highlights some approaches that the iScholar team is using to establish and maintain strong ties with teachers, students, and administrators in Durham, NC. iScholar is an ongoing research-practice partnership established in 2016 to address developmentally appropriate strategies for supporting the motivation and engagement of students in predominantly Black and Latinx public schools. Attendees will learn about and discuss the critical role that intermediary organizations can play in (1) supporting the culturally sensitive use of data beyond achievement test scores, grades, and school attendance, (2) developing user-friendly resources that help democratize practitioner-researcher conversations about student belonging, motivation, and engagement, and (3) facilitating a motivationally supportive climate that positively impacts both scholastic achievement and student agency.

Dr. DeLeon Grayis a Scholar in Residence in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education. He also holds an appointment as Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at North Carolina State University and is the Equity and Inclusion Chair for the American Educational Research Association’s Division C (Learning and Instruction). Gray is also an incoming Associate Editor for Contemporary Educational Psychology.He is a graduate of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) (B.A., Interdisciplinary Studies), and The Ohio State University (M.A., Quantitative Research, Evaluation, and Measurement; Ph.D., Educational Psychology). So far, Dr. DeLeon Gray has secured over 2.5 million dollars in funding to support his research program, which examines how adolescents and emerging adults perceive and interpret their social encounters in academic contexts. His research program has been recognized by the receipt of prestigious honors including the Research on Socially and Economically Underrepresented Populations Award (RiSE-UP) from the Association for Psychological Science and a 2018 Best Article Awardfor his collaborative publication in Educational Psychologist entitled, “Black and Belonging at School: A Case for Interpersonal, Instructional, and Institutional Opportunity Structures.” He was also featured in Black Enterprise Magazine as one of 100 men of color who are “living up to a standard of excellence and using their talents and influence in their respective industries to shift the perception of men of color to create and encourage a positive narrative.”  Prior to that, Gray received a dissertation fellowship from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation. This project was later awarded the 2013 Outstanding Dissertation Award in Human Development from the American Education Research Association (AERA Division E). Most recently, he received the Change Agent Award of Appreciation from St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, NC for his engaged scholarship in predominantly Black and Latinx schools.

Link to flier to the presentation: Dr.DeLeonGray-LiteracyColloquy-Oct1, 2019