Ramona Cutri to Chair the Annual Utah NAME Conference

Ramona Cutri

Utah can expect to see a large influx of students from refugee families within the next five years, according to Ramona Cutri, board member of the Utah chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). With such a large incoming population of multicultural students expected, the State must prepare to deal with their unique needs. This preparation was the central purpose of this year’s annual conference of the Utah Chapter NAME Conference, which took place on March 7-8.

NAME is an organization dedicated to improving multicultural education through a unique philosophy composed of six points or goals (http://www.nameorg.org/):

• To respect and appreciate cultural diversity
• To promote the understanding of unique cultural and ethnic heritage
• To promote the development of culturally responsible and responsive curricula
• To facilitate acquisition of the attitudes, skills, and knowledge to function in various cultures
• To eliminate racism and discrimination in society
• To achieve social, political, economic, and educational equity

Cutri was nominated to chair this conference by Utah NAME’s board of directors.

“Our goal was to have a conference that addressed important issues that teachers face daily in the classroom,” Cutri explained. Teachers need instruction on how to better satisfy their students’ needs, especially needs of English-learning and culturally diverse refugee students. The conference sponsors, Westminster College School of Education and the Utah State Office of Education, agreed with the goal.

The Utah chapter is one of the largest NAME chapters in the nation, according to Cutri, and as such was able to host a particularly far-reaching conference. “The exciting thing is that it was a state-wide conference, dedicated to teachers to help them utilize the strengths of the diversity that exists in their schools and [to] deal with issues that such diversity can bring,” Cutri said. “It helped teachers from Salt Lake to Provo, from Duchesne to San Juan.”

The conference included workshops presented by individuals from throughout the state on topics ranging from refugee students to cultural conflict resolution. Dr. Christine E. Sleeter, a nationally renowned scholar in multicultural education, gave the keynote address.

5 March 2008