JEN SANDLER, PH.D.

DIRECTOR, UMASS ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION AND SENIOR LECTURER DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST 313B MACHMER HALL // 215 HICKS WAY AMHERST, MA 01003

EMAIL: [email protected] PHONE: (608) 213-7625

EDUCATION

Ph.D. 2008 Educational Policy Studies University of Wisconsin-Madison • Dissertation: What Works? Who Decides? : Scientific Evidence, Local Governance, and the Politics of Knowledge in Social and Educational Reform

Master of Arts 2004 Educational Policy Studies University of Wisconsin-Madison • : Working ‘With the People’: Popular Education and Civil Society in Central Mexico

Jane Addams Fellow 1998-1999 Indiana University Center on Philanthropy

Bachelor of Arts 1998 Major: Philosophy Concentration: Gender and Women’s Studies , Grinnell, Iowa

UNIVERSITY TEACHING AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

Director, UMass Alliance for Community Transformation (UACT) 2012-present UACT is an organization of the Department of Anthropology at UMass Amherst. It is a participatory organization that brings together critical educators and activists at UMass and in surrounding colleges, community organizations mobilizing people directly affected by racial, economic, and environmental injustice throughout the northeast, and academics interested in community organizing, social justice facilitation, and critical epistemological practices.

UACT involves: - substantive partnerships with 5-10 off-campus organizations each year, through which students receive training and mentorship from experienced community organizers and new organizers engage in university-based training - a rigorous, multi-year facilitation training program for advanced students

1 - procuring funding for and overseeing staff and student leadership of about 15, including undergraduate students from five colleges, graduate students in Anthropology, and part-time paid staff - trainings, workshops, large public events, and five UMass Amherst classes that engage hundreds of students as well as 10-15 university departments and community-based organizations

Senior Lecturer 2012-present Department of Anthropology University of Massachusetts Amherst Amherst, MA Courses taught: Power and Inequality in the United States (large undergraduate lecture) Organizing for New Movement Leaders (online, national-scope, team-taught course) Relational Organizing (grad/undergrad/community seminar) Activism for Educational Justice in an Era of Education “Reform” (grad/undergrad) Critical Pedagogy for Peer Facilitators (undergraduate seminar) Grassroots Community Organizing (5 credit, multi-section undergraduate course including 3-5 regional organizing partnerships, Alternative Spring Break) Critical Knowledge Practices (undergraduate/graduate seminar) Community-Based Methods Workshop (graduate seminar) Leadership and Activism (undergraduate seminar) Teaching in Anthropology (graduate seminar) Advising: Serve on 5-8 MA and PhD student committees at a given time Advise 2-3 undergraduate thesis projects per year

Visiting Assistant Professor 2010-2012 Department of Education Lewiston, Courses taught: Race, Cultural Pluralism, and Equality in American Education (seminar) Globalization and Education (intermediate course) Educating for Democracy (seminar) Perspectives on Education (introductory foundations course) Activism in Urban Educational Reform (intensive short-term course)

Visiting Assistant Professor 2008-2010 Educational Studies Program Trinity College Hartford, Connecticut Courses taught: Race, Class, and Educational Policy (upper-level seminar) Education Reform, Past and Present (intermediate course) Immigrants and Education (upper-level seminar) Senior Research Seminar (research design/advising) Analyzing Schools (introductory foundations course) District Politics and Low-Income Parents’ Power (small independent study) PopEd: Consciousness and Activism (small independent study) Academic advisor (including capstone research projects): 10-15 students per year

Lecturer 2006-2007 Department of Educational Policy Studies

2 University of Wisconsin-Madison Course: School and Society (intermediate undergraduate course)

PUBLICATIONS

Sandler, J. (submitted). Why Aren’t U.S. College Students Rising Up?: Neoliberalism, Criticalism, and Possibilities for U.S. Student Activists.

Sandler, J. (in press). Epistemic Activism in the United States: examining meetings across the silos of civil society. In Knowledge and Civil Society, Eds. Johannes Gluekler and Heinz- Deiter Meyer.

Sandler, J. (2019). Critical Relational Solidarity: collectivist and transformative knowledge practices in and beyond the US academy. Collaborative Anthropologies, 12(1), 76-106.

Sandler, J. (2017). Studying Educational Policy through its Dissenters: the anthropology of U.S. educational policy contestation. In The Anthropology of Education Policy: Ethnographic inquiry into policy as sociocultural process. Eds. Angelina Castagno and Teresa McCarty. Routledge.

Sandler, J., & Thedvall, R. (Eds.). (2017). Meeting Ethnography: Meetings as Key Technologies of Contemporary Governance, Development, and Resistance. Routledge Studies in Anthropology, Taylor and Francis.

Sandler, J. (2017). Meetings All the Way Through. In Meeting Ethnography: Meetings as Key Technologies of Contemporary Governance, Development, and Resistance (p. 106-125). Routledge.

Sandler, J. and Renita Thedvall (2017). Exploring the Boring: An Introduction to Meeting Ethnography. In Meeting Ethnography: Meetings as Key Technologies of Contemporary Governance, Development, and Resistance. Eds. Jen Sandler and Renita Thedvall. Routledge. (p. 1-25)

McDonald L., Miller, H., and Sandler, J. (2015). A social ecological, relationship-based strategy for parent involvement: families and schools together (FAST). Journal of Children’s Services, 10(3).

Sandler, J. (2015). As the Tide Turns on the Violence of US Neoliberal Education: Un-organized white-led activism, from abstract critique to nonviolent resistance. Landscapes of Violence, 3(3), 7.

Sandler, J. (2015). Education and Violence: Editor’s Introduction. Landscapes of Violence 3.3: 1.

McDonald, L., Coover, G., Sandler, J., Thao, T., & Shalhoub, H. (2012). Cultural adaptation of an evidence-based parenting programme with elders from South East Asia in the US: co-producing Families and Schools Together-FAST. Journal of Children's Services, 7(2), 113-127.

Sandler, J. (2011). Re-Framing the Politics of Urban Feeding in U.S. Public Schools: Parents, Programs, Activists, and the State. In Robert, S., and Weaver-Hightower, M. (Eds.) School Food Politics: The complex ecology of hunger and feeding in schools around the world. : Peter Lang, p. 25-45.

3 Sandler, J. and Apple, M.W. (2010). A Culture of Evidence, a Politics of Objectivity: The evidence-based practices movement in educational policy. In Leonardo, Zeus (Ed.), Handbook of Cultural Politics in Education. New York: Routledge.

Sandler, J. (2010). Utopian Sketches Overcome by Shades of Gray (An essay review of John Hoffman’s John Gray and the Problem of Utopia). Pedagogy, Culture, and Society.

Sandler, J. and Mein, E. (2010). Popular Education Confronts Neoliberalism in the Public Sphere: The Struggle for Critical Civil Society in America. In Apple, M.W. (Ed.), Globalization, Social Justice, and Education. New York: Routledge, p. 163-188.

Sandler, J. (2009). Community-based Popular Education, Migration, and Civil Society in Mexico: Working in the Space Left Behind. In Apple, M. W., Au, W., Gandin, L. A., (Eds). Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education. New York: Routledge, p. 421-434.

Sandler, J. (2007). Community-Based Practices: Integrating dissemination theory with critical theories of power and justice. American Journal of Community Psychology, 40, p. 272-289.

SELECTED ACADEMIC/INVITED PRESENTATIONS

Beyond the streets, behind the screens: tracing relationality in the current February 2020 ‘movement moment’ of the United States Invited talk, Anthropology Department Seminar University of Connecticut, Storrs

“Evidence-Based Prevention Programs: Models for relationality, November 2019 collaboration, and parenting in diverse organizational landscapes” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting Vancouver, BC

“Evidence for the (public) good in grief services: epistemological-moral November 2018 at the intersection of science and social service provision” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting San Jose, CA

“Radical Education in Everyday Life” November 2018 Roundtable Organizer and Participant American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting San Jose, CA

“Score Anniversary Lectures 2018: Meeting Ethnography” September 2018 (with Renita Thedvall) Stockholm Center for Organization Research Stockholm University, Sweden

“Engaging the Multiplicities of Civil Society: Epistemic Activism and June 2018 Relational Knowledge Practices” Invited Paper

4 Knowledge and Civil Society 16th Annual Klaus Tschira Symposium on Knowledge and Space Heidelberg University, Germany

“Empathy Matters: Teaching Interventions in a Time of Intensive November 2017 Inequality and Divisions” Roundtable Participant American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting Washington, DC

“Evidence/Context/Collaboration: Thinking Through June 2018 the Process of Program Dissemination” Society for Prevention Research Annual Meeting Washington, DC

“Theory and Method in Meeting Ethnography" May 2017 (with Renita Thedvall) Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium Gothenburg, Sweden

“Beyond the University/Community Divide: Critical Epistemological Practice April 2017 in Times of Overdetermined Precarity” Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting Santa Fe, NM

"The Room Where It Happens: Toward a theory of the meeting" November 2016 (with Renita Thedvall) American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. Minneapolis, MN

“Three Stories of Transformation: Performing shifts in knowledge and power November 2015 through activist-engaged teaching in anthropology” (presented with undergraduate student Sandra Llewellyn) American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting Denver, CO

“Policy Activist Coalition Meetings: Rituals of alternative subject production” December 2014 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting Washington, DC

“Ethnographic Collaborations with Community Activists: November 2013 Engaging activists as teachers” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting Chicago, IL

“Private Money in Public Education: April 2013 Challenges for an ethnography of neoliberalism” Teacher Education and School Improvement Brownbag Lecture UMass Amherst

“The Theory and Practice of Civic Studies” July 2013 Invited Panelist, Frontiers of Democracy 2013 conference , Boston, MA

5 “Private Money’s Influence on Public Education Policy: On the November 2012 methodological challenges of an anthropology of elite neoliberal policy worlds” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting San Francisco, CA

“Keywords in International Educational Policy: Evidence” April 2012 Comparative International Education Society Annual Conference San Juan, Puerto Rico

“Evangelists for Truth as Certainty: Evidence-based November 2011 Social Policy in the United States” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting Montreal, Canada

“Knowledge Movements: Teaching the State How to Think” November 2010 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting New Orleans, LA

“Contesting Professional Knowledge in Urban Life: Mobilizing New December 2009 Legitimacy Frameworks from Science to the Street” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting Philadelphia, PA

“Cyber-sanctioning As a Governance Structure: Politics of Federal October 2009 Evidence-based Registries in Social Policy” Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Meeting Washington, DC

“When Elites Tangle with Activists: Community Organizing, School and February 2009 Social Reform, and the Powerful Pedagogy of Relationships” Ethnography in Education Research Forum University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA

“The Politics of Large-scale, Institutionalized Community Organizing March 2008 and Local Knowledge Initiatives: An Ethnographic Study.” American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting New York, New York

“The Politics of Knowledge in Federal Educational Policy: March 2008 The Evidence-based Practices/Policy Movement.” American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting New York, New York

“Humble Relationships: Examining Community-University Partnerships” June 2005 Biennial Conference of the Society for Community Research and Action University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois

“Engaging Parents in Schools Serving Low-Income, Diverse Children” April 2005 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting Montreal, Canada

6 “Moments of Policy Contestation in Central Mexico: Grassroots Claims to March 2005 Knowledge-Production in a Global Field” Comparative International Education Society Annual Conference Palo Alto, California

“Popular Education in Central Mexico” February 2005 Center for Urban Ethnography Annual Forum University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Meeting Ethnography: interrogating a ubitquitous modern ritual 2013-present Collaborative ongoing project with Renita Thedvall (Stockholm University) • Facilitated first invitational workshop at Stockholm Center for Organization Research, 2013 • Facilitated two scholarly invitational workshops at the Institute for Social Science Research at UMass Amherst, 2014 and 2015 • Published co-edited volume, Meeting Ethnography: Meetings as Key Technologies of Contemporary Governance, Development, and Resistance (Routledge, 2017) • Presented 10+ papers and organized several sessions at national and international conferences and meetings • Two papers in progress (as of 2020)

Resilient Parenting for Bereaved Families: Community Adaptation 2016-present Community Researcher Arizona State University REACH Institute Grants funded by New York Life Foundation • Designed ethnographic component of large evidence-based program adaptation study (total grant appx. $924,000) • Designed community engagement component of COVID/digital adaptation grant (total grant appx. $400,000) • Consulted on recruitment of diverse community agencies to study • Conducted eight site visits to collect two rounds of data on community-based agency organizational, political, socio-cultural contexts • Designed and facilitated two 2-day collaborative meetings between ASU research team and community agency representatives (bereaved parents and clinical staff) • Designed and facilitated strategy for diverse parent, professional, and executive consultations to ensure collaborative development of program and implementation structure • Engaged diverse community-based professionals in co-design of community resources page of web site • One article in progress (2019) A Collaborative Vision for Racial Justice Research at the Community-School Nexus: 2017 Engaging Springfield Youth in a Participatory Planning Process Faculty Research Grant ($12,000) Co-PI with Dr. Kysa Nygreen UMass Center for Racial Justice and Urban Affairs Facilitated a new collaboration between Springfield, MA high school students and Holyoke, MA high school students to share knowledge and practices related to restorative justice and other approaches to addressing the school-to-prison pipeline.

7 COMMUNITY, ECONOMY, HEALTH: Overcoming Ideological Righteousness 2016 for Individual, Social, and Ecological Wellbeing Culture Health and Sciences Mellon Bridging Grant ($23,630) Co-PI with Dr. Felicity Aulino Semester-long project including a community leaders’ digital storytelling project, academic study of engagement across health and other fields, and a week-long Faculty Seminar bringing together faculty across the Five Colleges to develop robust understandings of and recommendations for institutional and curricular support for an integrative, engaged approach to health and wellness.

Project Assistant 2003-2006 Wisconsin Center for Education Research University of Wisconsin-Madison Families and Schools Together (FAST) Program • Wrote design for qualitative research component of large randomized trial on the effects of a social capital intervention on school-wide academic achievement; proposal funded in 2008 by the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development • Designed and conducted qualitative evaluation of program dissemination structure, parent involvement, and community-based adaptations • Participated with research team in all phases of program implementation, evaluation, and reporting under grant from the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention • Conducted literature reviews, developed theoretical models and representations, and wrote and presented papers on the role of community-based practices in evidence-based interventions

FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS

Faculty Fellow 2013-2014 Interdisciplinary Studies Institute Seminar: Emancipation UMass Amherst

Faculty Fellow 2012-2013 Civic Engagement and Service Learning UMass Amherst

Harward Center Faculty Award for Course Development 2012 (Community Engagement and Diversity)

Faculty Development Award 2011-2012 Bates College

Dissertation Fellowship 2007-2008 American Association of University Women Education Foundation

Spencer Foundation Graduate Fellowship 2003-2007 UW/Spencer Doctoral Research Program

Dissertation Research Grant 2006 Vilas Graduate Student Council UW-Madison

8 Tinker-Nave Research Grant 2003 Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies Department UW-Madison

SELECTED NON-ACADEMIC COMMUNITY/ENGAGED PROJECTS

The STOKE Collective, LLC 2017-present Core Member/Trainer www.thestokecollective.org The STOKE Collective builds the capacity of organizations, programs within institutions, and organizing/activist groups to incorporate practices that are deeply relational, inclusive, and that center the knowledge and develop the leadership of people directly affected by the problems the group seeks to address.

Easthampton Public Schools Parent Advisory Group 2020 Founding member, district Equity Committee member

Easthampton Futures Project 2018 Process Designer and Facilitator

Wisconsin Apprentice Organizers Project 2004-2012 Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin AOP worked to create a strong culture of organizing in Wisconsin by training diverse professional community organizers who work within their own communities toward racial, economic, social, and environmental justice. • Board member, trainer, evaluator, grant proposal writer, program and curriculum developer

Volunteer and Researcher, Ayuda Mutua LLC 2003 Michoacán, Mexico • Participated in popular education projects in several rural and urban communities • Conducted ethnographic research for Masters thesis, focusing on the development of local educator-organizers

Art In Reality Program 1999-2002 Founder and Director Tucson, Arizona Art In Reality was a community-based arts engagement program that worked directly with dozens of high schools and youth-serving organizations, bringing together dozens of diverse artists, community leaders and activists, and 500+ young people each year.

Volcán Organizing Project 2001 Community Projects Organizer Volcán de Buenos Aires, Costa Rica Accompanied women’s cooperative, farmer’s cooperative, and local leaders as they addressed challenges of economic migration and ecological destruction as a result of Del Monte Pineapple Corporation’s establishment in the area.

9 PROFESSIONAL SKILLS, ASSOCIATIONS, AND SERVICE

Languages: English - Native speaker; Spanish - Intermediate reading/writing/speaking proficiency

Research and teaching-related software and database experience: NVIVO, Dedoose, many app-based teaching and organizing/management tools, Moodle/Blackboard, U.S. federal government agency archives and databases

Service and Memberships: Reviewer, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 2013-present Reviewer, American Journal of Community Psychology (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018) Reviewer, Emotion Space and Society (2010) Reviewer, Journal of Excellence and Equity in Education (2009) Professional Academic Memberships/Engagement (2009-present, *current): *American Anthropological Association, American Educational Research Association, Comparative and International Education Society, Society for Community Research and Action, Society for Prevention Research, Society for the Social Studies of Science

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