William F. Pinar Endowed Curriculum Studies Fund
This fund provides sustaining support to the curriculum studies program to gather scholars, leaders and educators for efforts to understand curriculum in new light and inspire creative visions for equity, social justice, sustainability and peace. It sponsors lectures, conference keynotes, workshops and other activities for creating an interdisciplinary intellectual culture in which students and faculty from various educational institutions to engage curriculum as a complicated conversation in local, national and international communities.
William F. Pinar
Current Tetsuo Aoki Professor in Curriculum Studies and former two-term Canada Research Chair at the university of British Columbia, Dr. William F. Pinar is a giant in the field of curriculum studies, not only in the United States and Canada but also worldwide. He initiated the Reconceptualization of Curriculum Studies movement in the 1970s with the launching of Journal of Curriculum Theorizing and the Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practices. In shifting the focus of curriculum from instrumental rationality to existential and critical understanding of lived experience and subjectivity, his teaching, leadership and scholarship have profoundly transformed the landscape of the curriculum studies field. His legendary work at Louisiana State University (1985-2005) led to the creation of the William F. Pinar Archive at the LSU Library.
For the intellectual advancement of a worldwide field of curriculum studies, in 2001 Dr. Pinar founded the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies and its American affiliate, the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies. Leading the internationalization of curriculum studies movement, he has completed a series of projects to study the intellectual histories and present circumstances of South Africa, India, China, Brazil, Mexico (with a book on each) and Canada (ongoing). A prolific and passionate scholar, he has published more than 40 books and received numerous awards, including the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and the AERA Outstanding Book Award in 2005 for What is Curriculum Theory?
Dr. Pinar has tirelessly supported younger generations with open-mindedness, generosity, and commitment. Particularly, he has supported the OSU Curriculum Studies faculty and students for many years. Naming this endowed fund after Dr. William F. Pinar is to honor his work, leadership and inspiration that are life-changing for educators and students, and to answer his call for engaging in an ongoing process of subjective and social preservation and reconstruction.
The Inaugural Lecture
Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook from the University of Ottawa delivered the first lecture on October 3, 2022: “Truth and Then Reconciliation Research: An Emerging field of Curriculum Studies.” The lecture video can be found here.
Nicholas Ng-A-Fook is professor and vice-dean of graduate studies at the University of Ottawa. President of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (2016-2018), president of the Canadian Association Curriculum Studies (2013-2015) and co-chair of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies Conference in 2015, Dr. Ng-A-Fook is a leader in Canadian curriculum studies, as well as the broader international field. His scholarly work involves reframing Canadian curriculum studies, advocating for indigenous education and reconciliation curriculum, engaging in transnational and international education and using digital technologies for civic engagement.
News
Dr. Pinar hosted a book launch for a recent PhD graduate, Liesa Smith