A panel discussion on race in the classroom will be held on Thursday, Jan. 26, at 4:30 p.m. in the James J. Johnson Auditorium at Coastal Carolina University. The discussion will be led by Christian Smith and Emma Howes, assistant professors of English at CCU and is free and open to the public.

The discussion will explore how students and faculty members experience and handle questions about race in their day-to-day classroom interactions. A few of the questions to be considered are: Is today's classroom a post-racial realm in which students are treated equally no matter who they are? Do students and faculty members feel comfortable sharing experiences of race in the classroom? What pedagogical strategies can help create a learning environment in which students and faculty members can explore questions on race and identity freely?

Smith teaches and researches composition studies, rhetorical theory and digital rhetoric. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Louisville, a master's degree at Murray State University and a doctorate in the composition and rhetoric program at the University of South Carolina.

Howes teaches and researches composition and literacy studies, materialist feminism and feminist theory, archival research methods and the histories of women from the Southern Appalachian region. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

This Tea & Ethics session is sponsored by CCU's Jackson Family Center for Ethics and Values. The purpose of the center is to cultivate and promote awareness in the community of the importance of personal and professional integrity.

The Johnson Auditorium (Room 116) is in the E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration building, located at 119 Chanticleer Drive E. on the main Conway campus. For more information, contact Brian Edgerton, assistant director of the Jackson Family Center, at 843-349-4149 or bjedgert@coastal.edu, or visit coastal.edu/humanities.