Redlands, CA – On July 1, 2025, Dr. Vajra M. Watson, Co-Founder and Steering Committee Member of The People’s Think Tank for Education Justice (PTT), began her term as the incoming Naslund Endowed Dean of the University of Redlands School of Education. The school seeks to “strengthen social and educational justice” by welcoming changemakers and “those who fight endlessly for equity in education.”
More information about Watson’s appointment has been presented in a message from the university at https://www.redlands.edu/about/office-of-the-president/presidents-messages/2025/introducing-our-new-soe-dean-dr-vajra-m-watson.
With this new appointment, the People’s Think Tank has a new partner to support, strengthen, and expand the movement for educational justice. This development represents an expansion of our Participatory Action Research (PAR) work by engaging more strongly with teaching and research in educational institutions.
We look forward to imagining new, partnered ways to create spaces led by community organizers, parents, young people, and the communities they serve, lifting up stories and strategies, building new knowledge and organizing models to create solidarity, dismantling anti-Black racism and systemic oppression in all its forms, and fostering collective love, sovereignty, healing, and well-being.
For more information about The People’s Think Tank and its ongoing work, please follow us on Instagram at @peoplesthinktank.
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Contact:
Shaun de Vera, Project Manager
The People’s Think Tank
sdevera@schottfoundation.org
For a PDF version of this Summary of Event, see below.