A leading authority on student testing and race will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 21, at the West Virginia University Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center auditorium.

Asa G. Hilliard III , the Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University, will lecture onThe Image of African American Youth 50 Years After Brown v. Board of Education.

A panel discussion will follow. Panelists will be Michael Belmear, vice president for student affairs at Fairmont State University; Nick Evans, associate dean for undergraduate education in WVU s Eberly College of Arts and Sciences; Opal Jones, a public schoolteacher; and Gabrielle St. Leger, a WVU graduate student. Florita Montgomery with the WVU Extension Service will be the moderator.

Both the lecture and panel discussion are free and open to the public. A reception will precede the lecture at 6 p.m. outside the auditorium. This is the second event in WVU s yearlong celebration of the 50-year-old Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education; the decision outlawed segregation in public schools.

Hilliard is a faculty member in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education at Georgia State.

Both a teacher and a psychologist, he has helped to develop several national testing systems, including proficiency assessment for professional educators and developmental tests for children. He has worked in forensic psychology and been an expert witness on the winning side in several landmark cases on test validity and bias.

Hilliard is also a historian and a founding member of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations. He co-developed an educational television series,Free Your Mind, Return to the Source: African Origins,and has produced videotapes and educational materials on African history.

He has written several books and articles on testing, ancient African history, teaching strategies, public policy, cultural styles, and child growth and development. He has also consulted with leading school districts, universities, government agencies and private corporations on valid assessment, curriculum equity and teacher training.

Hilliard obtained a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Denver and previously taught there. He also taught at San Francisco University for 18 years and served two years as superintendent of schools in Monrovia, Liberia.

Visithttp://www.wvu.edu/~socjust/brown_v_board_aug20.htmfor more on WVU s Brown v. BOE celebration.