Invitation to SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity)

Professional Development Seminars 2024-2025

We would be delighted if you would join us for a series of nine monthly SEED seminars over the course of this academic year (2024-2025). SEED seminars provide a safe and nurturing space for exploring our own and our children’s educations through a structured study group format. In the words of co-founders Peggy McIntosh and Emily Styles, SEED seminars are designed to engage the

…head, heart, and soul. Participants examine inner and outer ways in which systems bear on lives inside and outside of school. SEED work develops ways of understanding complex relations between self and system with regard to race, class, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability/disability, and cultural experience.

When and Where?

SEED groups will meet monthly September - May 2024-2025. This year, all SEED seminars will be following a hybrid learning model in which some sessions will be virtual and some will be in-person. Please let us know if virtual attendance for in-person sessions would be required for your participation, and we will make that happen. Virtual SEED sessions will take place on either Zoom or Google Meets for 2 hours, and in-person SEED sessions will last approximately 3 hours in the F/M Area and include a nourishing meal. Your consistent participation in all nine seminars is fundamental to building the relationships and shared understandings needed to support the community and school-wide cultural transformation for equity that we seek. We will also host a SEED Summit for all past and current SEED participants in the Spring.

Want to Know More?

Both SEED I and SEED II seminars will be offered. CEUs will be available for year-long participants (up to 48 CEU hours). Additionally, 1-3 graduate credits may be available in the Spring for an additional cost. Registration costs for SEED seminars are $199. Group rates for local institutions are available as well. Please do not let cost deter you-partial or full scholarships are available. Some seminar materials will be provided to you digitally; books read as a group may be borrowed from your local library, our SEED library, or purchased on your own. For testimonies from former F/M Area SEED participants, please view this SEED Video. 

Please apply by 4:00 p.m., Wednesday, September 11 by completing this application form. If you have questions, please contact Kris Thompson at seoultous@gmail.com or call/text 701-412-3623.

June Jordan's answering machine message famously said: "Calling on all silent minorities... we need to have this meeting at this tree ain't even been planted yet." Please accept this invitation to join us in planting seeds of justice in our community.

In solidarity,

F/M Area SEED co-facilitators Yoke-Sim Gunaratne, Amanda Williams, Louis Ochoa, Jill Wenger, Kris Thompson, Sara Kubicek, Rebecca Gardner, Cali Anicha, Jennie MacFarlane, and Justin James