Miami, Feb. 14, 2022 – Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Director of Changemaking Education and Social Innovation, Sandra LaFleur, will represent MDC at the prestigious SXSW EDU Conference (March 7-10 in Austin, Texas). She will be part of the panel Educating Changemakers for Global Impact on Monday, March 7, from 3:30 – 4:30pm CT.
LaFleur, one of three panelists recruited to participate by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), will join WPI President and moderator Laurie Leshin; Gita Bangera, Founding Dean, Research, Innovation, Service and Experiential (Rise) Learning at Bellevue College, and Gundolf Graml, Associate Vice President/Dean for Curriculum and Strategic Initiatives at Agnes Scott College. Together, they will discuss “our collective responsibility to find new ways to guide learners to turn their ideas into action, moving beyond the traditional to drive sustainable curricular and cultural reform that better serves students and the world.”
LaFleur is focused on the College’s changemaking ecosystem across its eight campuses for both curricular and co-curricular opportunities. Her extensive professional experience with strategy setting, operational planning, organizational growth and change management, as well as program design, innovation and research position her as a leader in supporting and implementing high-impact practices to improve student learning and engagement. She has been at MDC since 2016.
“At MDC, all students can be changemakers and we support that through the way we teach,” LaFleur said. “Our mission is to prepare tomorrow’s workforce and global citizens. High-impact practices such as project-based learning are a natural connection to changemaking – it’s how we develop the essential competencies of our changemakers.”
The SXSW EDU Conference & Festival takes place each March in Austin, TX as a four-day event offering compelling sessions, in-depth workshops, engaging learning experiences, mentorship, film screenings, future-focused competitions, an expo, networking opportunities, and so much more. SXSW EDU is a component of the South by Southwest® (SXSW®) family of conferences and festivals. Internationally recognized as the convergence gathering for creative professionals, SXSW EDU extends SXSW’s support for the art of engagement to include society’s true rock stars: educators! For more information visit: https://www.sxswedu.com.