Social Sciences Webinar | Restorative Justice Practices Within Higher Education and the Arts: Addressing Complex Legacies of Harm
the chair
We are excited to invite you to a webinar led by the University of New Mexico and MDPI's open access journal Social Sciences (ISSN: 2076-0760), which will provide you with guidance on how to submit manuscripts to Social Sciences that promise to have a high impact on the scholarship in your research area.
We will provide this workshop in the context of our call for papers for a special issue at Social Sciences entitled, “Restorative Justice Practices in Higher Education and the Arts: Addressing Complex Legacies of Harm”. This special issue is informed by restorative justice practices, the scholarship of feminist decoloniality, and the histories of higher education and the arts. We locate discussions of universities confronting their past within social movements for educational equity and the arts, and the agency of creators and learners who demand their rightful place.
Articles in this special issue examine the experiences of groups that have been marginalized in higher education and the arts. Authors argue that complex legacies of harm, such as race, culture, citizenship, state and tribal sovereignty, globalization, and disability, require both personal and institutional reflexivity to unveil multidimensional experiences of perpetrators and survivors. We aim to publish the work of those charting a way forward to move beyond acknowledgment to correcting harm in higher education and the arts. It is our hope that this authors’ webinar will support contributors in this task.
Date: 5 August 2025
Time: 5:00 p.m. CEST | 9:00 a.m. MDT
Webinar ID: 891 1354 5300
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com
Meet the Event Chair
Meet Our Speakers
Prof. Dr. Teresa Neely
College of University Libraries & Learning Sciences, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA;
Teresa Y. Neely, MLS, Ph.D., (her, hers, she), is Professor of Librarianship, and assessment librarian in the College of the University Libraries and Learning Sciences (College), University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Dr. Neely is responsible for providing leadership and planning for assessment in all aspects of the College. She has worked in academic research libraries for more than 25 years and is the author/co-editor of seven books and conference proceedings, and numerous scholarly and peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, conference papers, working papers, and a white paper. Her most recent publications include In our Own Voices, Redux: The Faces of Librarianship Today (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), co-edited with Jorge R. Lopéz-McKnight; and, “I AM My Hair, and My Hair is Me: #BlackGirlMagicinLIS,” a chapter in Pushing theMargins: Women of Color and Intersectionality in LIS (Library Juice Press, 2018. Edited by Rose L. Chou and Annie Pho, this book is also the 2019 winner of the ACRL Women and Gender Studies Section Award for Significant Achievement in Women and Gender Studies Librarianship.
Ms. Mariann Skahan
Department of Anthropology, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA;
Mariann Skahan is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. In her dissertation, Language Education and Revival on the Jicarilla Apache Nation, Skahan focuses on the impact of historical and current language and educational policies on heritage language use for the Jicarilla Apache community. The dissertation offers a critical analysis on the impact of Native American educational policies and examines current community-based initiatives to de-colonize past educational trauma.
Ms. Skahan brings her prior experience working in higher education where she managed student programs supporting underserved/underrepresented populations and improving the matriculation of women in STEM. Ms. Skahan is passionate about educational access and equity for all constituent.
Prof. Dr. Kathy Powers
UNM Political Science, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA;
r. Powers is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. She also holds appointments in the UNM Program of Africana Studies, the School of Law, and the Center for Social Policy as well as the Department of Government at Georgetown University. She has been recently named a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C. Her international politics research focuses on the role of institutions and law in trade, human rights, and war. Her recent research specifically focuses on the role of politics and law in reparations efforts for mass atrocities globally and in the U.S. Professor Powers has published her research in diverse venues such as the Diverse Issues in Higher Education, NAACP Special Edition, Transmissions, Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Peace Research, International Interactions,
Foreign Policy Analysis, the Review of International Studies. She has also co-authored policy briefs for the New Mexico State Office of African-American Affairs on racial and health disparities of African-Americans in New Mexico. Professor Powers is the 2013 recipient of the UNM OSET New Faculty University Teaching Award and the 2010 recipient of the Faculty of Color Teaching Award from The Project for New Mexico Graduates of Color (PNMGC). Prof. Powers has also consulted universities on dealing with their legacies of human rights violations including the University of New Mexico and Georgetown University on how to use the classroom as a site of truth, reconciliation and restorative justice. She has served as a diversity consultant for the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C. Prof. Powers has also served as a data scientist for the Community Coalition in political brutality cases. She is part of the Interdisciplinary Working Group on Algorithmic Justice for the Santa Fe Institute. Prof. Powers has consulted the Criminal Justice Reform Committee of the New Mexico State legislature on the human rights implications of algorithms.
Ms. Pamela Agoyo
Division of Student Affairs, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA;
Ms. Pamela Agoyo (Cochiti, Ohkay Owingeh, Kewa Pueblos) is the Director of American Indian Student Services and Special Assistant to the President for American Indian Affairs at The University of New Mexico. In a career that has primarily focused on student affairs and student development, Ms. Agoyo has served The University of New Mexico in a number of capacities including: Director of Student Union Recreational Services, Recruitment Specialist for the Office of Admissions & Outreach Services, Director of Minority Recruitment and Retention, Scholarship Outreach Coordinator for the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, and Interim Co-Director of the Office of Advising Strategies. She is also the founding Faculty Advisor for UNM’s Alpha Pi Omega Sorority, Inc and Beta Sigma Epsilon Fraternity, the founding and previous Executive Director of the National Institute for Native Leadership in Higher Education (NINLHE), and a former Special Education Teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Prof. Dr. Daniel McCarthy
Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH,UK;
Prof. Dr. Daniel McCarthy is currently a Professor in Criminology in the Department of Sociology/Co-Director of the Centre for Criminology. He specializes in research in areas of policing, inter-agency working, and more latterly in the area of prison/family effects and incarceration. Prof. Dr. McCarthy also has interests in cross-national research, including emphasis on public attitudes to policing and punishment.
Sponsors and Partners
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This webinar was hosted via Zoom and required registration to attend. The full recording can be found below. In order to learn about future webinars, you can sign up to our newsletter by clicking “Subscribe” at the top of the page.
Guest Edited by: Prof. Dr. Assata Zerai, Prof. Dr. Teresa Neely, Dr. Kathy Powers, Ms. Mariann Skahan, & Ms. Pamela Agoyo
A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760). This special issue belongs to the section "Crime and Justice".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 17 October 2025