Education of Children in Poverty Symposium at Buckley Center

The event is free and open to the public, but advance reservations are requested.

Ruby Paine Photo courtesy: University of West Florida

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - The University of Portland will host Beyond Ruby Payne: Poverty & the Education of Our Children on Saturday, Oct. 27 from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the Buckley Center Auditorium on campus, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd.

The event will examine the strengths and concerns of Ruby K. Payne's groundbreaking book A Framework for Understanding Poverty, which is widely viewed as a powerful training workshop tool for educators dealing with children from poverty.

In addition to Payne's work, the symposium will also offer other practical approaches to poverty in Portland-area schools and communities.

National poverty educator and University alumna Donna Beegle opens the day with a keynote address. A panel discussion offering different perspectives on teaching children in poverty follows, and attendees will then participate in an interactive breakout session.

Beegle, whose personal story was chronicled nationally, has become one of the country's foremost experts on poverty and its effect on education. After growing up in generational poverty, leaving school for marriage at age 15, having two children and continuing to cope with poverty, she found herself at 25 with no husband, little education, and no job skills.

What followed in ten short years were self-confidence, a G.E.D., an A.A., a bachelor's degree (with honors) in 1990, a master's degree in communication with a minor in gender studies (with honors) in 1992, both from the University of Portland, and completion of a doctorate degree.

The event is free and open to the public, but advance reservations are requested. Those wishing to attend should contact Chris Olinger at (503) 943-7107 or olingerc@up.edu.