The symposium is in honor of Peter Murrell, Ph.D., the founding dean of Loyola’s School of Education, who died in October 2015. The event aims to bring together professors, educators, community members, and youth activists to challenge old notions of school organization and instruction, and present new ways of forming relationships and refining teaching practices. The day-long Symposium will feature a keynote lecture from Gloria Ladson-Billings, Ph.D., Kellner Family Distinguished Chair of Urban Education in the department of curriculum and instruction at University of Wisconsin-Madison. A well-known author and editor, Ladson-Billings has won numerous scholarly awards and honorary degrees, including the Brock International Prize in Education in 2012. Ladson-Billings’s lecture will explore radical reconstruction of teacher education, and discuss why a more in-depth focus on youth culture is key to preparing teachers in culturally relevant ways.