Opening Keynote: Brittany Packnett Cunningham

Brittany Packnett Cunningham is a powerhouse at the intersection of culture, policy, and social change. A trusted voice in justice and leadership, she moves audiences to rethink power, equity, and what it truly means to lead with impact. As founder of Love & Power Works, host of the critically acclaimed podcast UNDISTRACTED, and an on-air political analyst, Brittany brings a sharp, engaging perspective to the most pressing issues of our time. She has shaped conversations at the highest levels—from advising the White House and U.S. Congress to driving corporate and cultural change with brands like Gucci, Spotify, and Olay. Through compelling storytelling and deep expertise, Brittany doesn’t just talk about change—she mobilizes audiences to create it.

Brittany’s journey is one of unwavering commitment to justice. From serving on President Obama’s 21st Century Policing Task Force to shaping national narratives on racial and gender equity, she has been at the forefront of movements that matter. She has led social impact initiatives at BET Media Group and Teach for America, worked alongside Vice President Kamala Harris as a senior advisor, and played a key role in the Ferguson Commission following the unrest in 2014. She partners with brands such as Olay, Spotify, Procter & Gamble, and Warner Brothers to ensure their corporate philanthropic efforts have maximum impact by channeling critical resources and funding to grassroots social justice movements, and further extends her work through social impact board memberships with Gucci, Sephora, The Children’s Defense Fund, and New Disabled South.

Recognized as one of TIME’s 12 New Faces of Black Leadership, Brittany has graced the covers of British Vogue and Essence, and has been honored by Politico, Marie Claire, The Trayvon Martin Foundation, The National Urban League, and Beyoncé.com. Her insights have enriched the pages of New York Magazine, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, and enhanced documentaries like Oscar-shortlisted Stamped from the Beginning, Netflix’s Amend, HBO’s Pod Save America and Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas, and Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly.

Brittany’s TED Talk, “The Revolution of Confidence,” has been translated into 22 languages, amassed over eight million views, and was ranked among the top ten talks of the year. A three-time fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, she spoken to audiences worldwide, imparting lessons of social change and redefining power. Her debut book, We Are Like Those Who Dream: Black Women’s Blueprint for a New Power, set for release in 2027, cements her position as a leading voice in reimagining leadership and progress. Her rallying call remains, “Let’s go get free.”

Closing Keynote: Chinyere Oparah

Dr. Chinyere Oparah is the Founder and CEO of the Center for Liberated Leadership, where she provides executive and trauma-informed coaching, leadership development, and organizational strategy for higher-education and mission-driven leaders. With more than 30 years of experience as professor, dean, VPAA, and movement builder she brings extensive expertise in leading change in volatile and politically charged contexts; building high-trust, high-performance teams; fostering engaged and equitable campus climates; developing community-driven strategic plans; and guiding organizational restructuring with heart.

A sociologist and social-justice-oriented activist scholar, Dr. Oparah developed the Liberated Leadership paradigm, a humanizing, purpose-centered approach to transformational leadership. Her coaching practice supports leaders in identifying and overcoming internal and external barriers so they can unleash their innate wisdom and power and lead with authenticity, clarity, and joy. She is also the creator of NeuroSpicy Leaders, serving autistic and ADHD leaders.

Recognized nationally for her visionary and deeply human approach to leadership, Dr. Oparah integrates lived experience, systems thinking, and embodied practices to help leaders thrive without burning out.

ACPA26 Session Description
Rooted and Rising: Anchoring Transformational Leadership Without Burning Out

In a time of political pressure, institutional turbulence, and rising exhaustion in higher education, many leaders feel unmoored from the values that first called them into this work. In this interactive keynote-style session, Dr. Chinyere Oparah introduces the Liberated Leadership paradigm – an approach that helps leaders stay grounded in courage, clarity, and purpose while navigating complex change. Centering practices such as disrupting harmful norms, re-imagining leadership possibilities, co-designing with others, pausing for clarity, and replenishing for sustainability, Dr. Oparah invites participants to consider how to lead boldly without burning out. This session offers strategies for staying anchored in one’s deepest values, leading alongside others rather than in isolation, and cultivating a grounded presence in an era of uncertainty.

Featured Session: Things We Imagined with Candance N. Hall and Charles H.F. Davis III

Things We Imagined is a feature-length documentary film about Black college and university professors and the futures they imagined for themselves. The film takes a narrative approach, drawing primarily from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with more than 30 faculty members from across the United States. Also included are behind-the-scenes moments from academic conferences, campus visits, and everyday interactions between colleagues and friends.

The film premiered at the 2025 Association for the Study of Higher Education conference in Denver, Colorado and is currently accepting invitations for campus screenings during the 2026-2027 calendar year.

Candace N. Hall, Ed.D.
Dr. Candace N. Hall is is a faculty member and graduate program director of the higher education and student affairs program at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. Dr. Hall’s her research focuses on recruitment, retention, and support of faculty across institutional types to understand
faculty job satisfaction. In 2023, Dr. Hall created and produced the award-winning documentary clusterluck, which highlights the experiences of Black faculty and unpacks what community means for Black scholars within their departments at predominantly white institutions. Dr. Hall is the creative director and producer of the documentary film Things We Imagined.

Charles H.F. Davis III, Ph.D.
Dr. Charles H.F. Davis III is a faculty member in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan. Dr. Davis is an award-winning scholar whose teaching, research and creative practices focus on issues of race, racism, and anti-Blackness in higher education and its social contexts. In partnership with TVOne/InteractiveONE, Dr. Davis wrote and produced Saving Tomorrow, Today, a documentary film examining the challenges and possibilities of Black youth in urban education. He serves as the film director and director of photography of the documentary film Things We Imagined.

 

Featured Session: Be Anchored: In Healing and Activism

Join us for a panel moderated by Dr. Wilson Okello and featuring dr. becky martinez, Dr. Julie Owen, and Rev. Dr. Jamie Washington. Together we will consider ways in which we can reflect and recharge, engage and be present during this moment in higher education. You won’t want to miss the conversation!

Moderator: Wilson Kwamogi Okello

Wilson Kwamogi Okello, Ph.D. is a transdisciplinary artist and scholar whose work draws on Black critical theories to examine knowledge production, human development, and the conditions that structure what it means to be human. His scholarship attends to how Black critical approaches render visible the epistemic foundations of humanity, while also imagining otherwise possibilities for Black being. In this way, his work explores how theories of Blackness reconfigure understandings of well-being, inquiry, curriculum, and pedagogy, creating new conditions of possibility in education and society. Across these concerns, he advances methodological orientations attuned to liveliness, relationality, and care, offering alternatives to extractive and dehumanizing research practices in education.

Widely published, Dr. Okello is the author of the award-winning On Blackness, Liveliness, and What It Means to B

e Human: Toward Black Specificity in Higher Education (SUNY Press), which received the 2025 Outstanding Book Award from Division B of the American Educational Research Association. 

Currently, Dr. Okello is an associate professor of Education and African Studies at Penn State University, where he directs the Black Study in Education Lab, a research and praxis hub exploring the potentialities of Blackness in educational research, practice, and policy. His early-career honors include the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Early Career Award, the Council on Ethnic Participation Mildred García Award for Exemplary Scholarship, and recognition as an Emerging Scholar by the American College Personnel Association.

Panelists: 

becky martinez

becky martinez (she/her) is an organization development consultant—equal parts gentle and fierce—bringing both heart and depth to every client engagement for over 20 years. She approaches her work with a blend of insight and openness that creates space where people feel seen, heard, and challenged in all the right ways. Her knowledge of leadership and systemic dynamics along with experience, skills, and tools are accompanied by her down-to-earth approach for connection, learning, healing and change.

Before her work as a consultant, becky was a student affairs administrator at California State University, San Marcos; the University of California, Irvine; and Occidental College. She currently serves as the President of the Social Justice Training Institute (SJTI), a Foundation Board Member with the American College Personnel Association, an Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) qualified administrator, and a certified coach for the Social and Emotional Intelligence Profile. As a first-generation white-collar professional, dr. martinez takes great pride in contributing to inclusion focused on social class identity and class(ism), particularly within the context of higher educatio

n. For more information about dr. martinez and Infinity Martinez Consulting, visit: www.infinitymartinez.com 

Julie Owen
Julie Owen, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at the School of Integrative Studies, George Mason University, where she coordinates the curricular leadership program. She is also graduate faculty with Mason’s Higher Education Program and is affiliate faculty with Women and Gender Studies. She has received ACPA’s Annuit Coeptis Award (2011), Diamond Honoree Award (2014), and the Coalition for Women's Identities (CWI) Research and Scholarship Award (2026).

Owen has 30 years of higher education experience and has published 8 books, 70 refereed publications, and has given over 150 invited and scholarly presentations. Her most recent books are Activism, Burnout, and Community: Stories of College Student Activists (Routledge, 2024; with coauthors Drs. Chen, McCarron, & Grande); A Research Agenda for Leadership Learning and Development Through Higher Education, co-edited with Dr. Susan R. Komives (Edward Elgar Press, UK, 2023); and We are the Leaders We’ve Been Waiting For: Women and Leadership Development in College (Routledge, 2020) which was recently translated into Japanese (Nakanishiya Shuppan Publishing, 2025). She is committed to using her voice to advocate for positive social change leading to more equitable leadership for all, and to consider how identities and social power shape practice. Her research explores the intersections of

leadership identity and women’s adult development, as well as the scholarship of liberatory leadership teaching and learning.

 

Rev. Dr. Jamie Washington
He is the middle child and only son of Annette and James Washington and Grandson of Elizabeth and Thurman Williams. He serves as the President & Founder of the Washington Consulting Group (WCG). WCG was named by the Economist as one of the Top 10 Global Diversity Consultants in the world. Dr. Washington has served as an educator, administrator, and consultant for 42 years.  He served as an invited instructor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Lancaster Theological Seminary.  He is the President Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Social Justice Training Institute and a Past President ACPA.

He has received many awards and honors.  He is a member of Omicron Delta Kappa, Golden Key, Alpha Phi Omega, Phi Delta Kappa, and a life member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity Inc.

Rev. Dr. Washington also serves as the Pastor of Unity Fellowship Church of Baltimore and is an Elder in the Unity Fellowship Church Movement.  He is the grandfather

 of 8 and great uncle to 9.  He enjoys spending time with his grands, cooking, music, laundry, all dogs and is binge watching TV programs.