MAECC

2026

HARBORING EXCELLENCE

Our flagship gathering.

Mid-Atlantic Educators of Color Conference

Against the Current: Restore, Strategize, & Rise in a Time of Resistance

April 2-3 | Baltimore, MD

We invite educators from across the region to join two days of learning, connection, and community. Designed for educators of color and DEIBJ practitioners, MAECC provides a supportive space to explore identity, leadership, equity, and belonging within educational institutions.

The conference features dynamic speakers, interactive workshops, and dedicated opportunities for networking and community building—all aimed at strengthening and sustaining equity-centered work in schools.

Opening Keynote:

Dr. Chrissy M. Thornton

President & CEO, Associated Black Charities

A dynamic leader, advocate, and strategist, Dr. Thornton has dedicated her career to advancing equity, expanding opportunity, and strengthening economic empowerment for Black communities across Maryland. Through her visionary leadership at ABC, she has elevated critical conversations around wealth equity, health disparities, and systemic change, mobilizing partnerships that generate meaningful and measurable impact.

Dr. Thornton’s keynote will both challenge and inspire attendees to reflect on the role of educators and institutions in creating pathways to equity that reach beyond the classroom and into the heart of our communities.

Closing Keynote:

Dr. Liza Talusan

Educator | Speaker | Author | Coach

Dr. Talusan is an award-winning educator, author of The Identity-Conscious Educator: Building Habits and Skills for More Inclusive Schools, and a nationally recognized expert in leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion. With over 25 years of experience guiding individuals and institutions through transformative learning, Dr. Talusan invites educators to engage in courageous self-reflection and develop the skills necessary to create inclusive and thriving school communities.

Her keynote will inspire attendees to examine the power of identity-conscious practice and how we can all lead with intentionality, compassion, and accountability.

MAECC 2027 Call for Proposals

Against the Current: Restore, Strategize, and Rise in a Time of Resistance

Open Date
Close Date

In the face of real and sustained attacks on DEI, honest history, and educators and students of color, this theme holds three things at once: restoration, strategy, and rise. We gather to restore — to fill back up, to be seen, to remember why we chose this work. We gather to strategize — to be subversive in the quiet, deliberate way educators of color have always been subversive: by staying, by teaching truth, by building community that institutions cannot dismantle. And we gather to rise — to leave more prepared, more connected, and more committed to carrying this work forward. Restoration without strategy is retreat. Strategy without restoration is burnout. MAECC 2027 holds all three.