Our Mission and Story

Educators moving toward collective liberation

Mission statements, oh mission statements. We’ve sat with what’s “true” about what we commit to as the mission of this Institute and here’s where we are right now. The mission of the EIEJ is to support educators and youth serving adults to engage in critical self-reflection, dialogue, and practice around critical, queer, and anti-oppressive learning and practice. It’s to support and learn alongside one another as we “take stock” of and disrupt what counts as normal in our schools and classrooms when it comes to the relationship between identity and power and collective trauma. It’s about building intersectional networks of solidarity and community, because we are all implicated in historical oppression and we believe that we have to work together to heal. 

Who We Are

A Queer Endeavor’s EIEJ team is a collective of CU Boulder School of Education faculty, staff, and graduate students who represent diverse lived experiences in relation to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, culture, history, dis/ability, socioeconomic status, and language and who bring expertise and interest in critical, queer, and anti-oppressive educational practices.  

Learn more about the larger EIEJ team here!

Institute Background Story

In 2018, A Queer Endeavor (AQE) hosted its inaugural 2-day summer Institute focused on supporting K12 educators to learn to enact affirming practices for LGBTQ+ students. While participants indicated that the Institute prepared them to enact more equitable practices with regard to gender and sexual diversity, they also expressed a need for additional support to create affirming spaces for students who are marginalized based on many aspects of their intersectional identities. Responding to that need, in the summer of 2021, we launched A Queer Endeavor’s Educator Institute for Equity and Justice in Education (EIEJ). The new name reflected a necessary (re)vision: Educators moving toward collective liberation. The Institute offered learning opportunities related to gender and sexual diversity, anti-racism, bi/multilingualism, supporting first-generation students, dis/ability studies, and healing. In broadening our focus, we aimed to support intersectional effort-building in education, promote solidarity across justice-oriented movements, and practice engaged scholarship in the service of social change. ​

A Queer Endeavor 

Brittni Laura Hernandez, Bethy Leonardi, & Sara Staley

Meet the AQE team.

(in order from left to right) 
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Brittni Laura is a Scholar in Residence at A Queer Endeavor. Learn more about Brittni Laura here.

Bethy is an Associate Professor in Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. Learn more about Bethy here.

Sara is an assistant professor in Teacher Learning, Research, and Practice in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. Learn more about Sara here.

Sara and Bethy are co-founders and co-directors of A Queer Endeavor.

​Learn more about the larger EIEJ team here!
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