Due to forecasted weather conditions, the university has implemented REMOTE STATUS on Friday, December 19, 2025. Students, faculty, staff, see email for more information.
About the Conference
We are excited to host our fourth annual Black Boys and Men National Symposium on June 10-12, 2026. The symposium continues to grow and we hope you can join us!
Grand Valley State University seeks to bring together youth service providers, K-12 educators, higher education faculty and staff, and community leaders to understand and interrogate the “systems” that impact the lives of Black boys & men in order to deconstruct and rebuild for their success.
Through a lens of intersectionality, the Black Boys & Men National Symposium looks holistically at the lives of Black boys & men in a variety of educational and other contexts. The symposium is focused on creating a vision for equitable transformation throughout the educational pipeline, from K-12 to higher education and beyond. The symposium is designed to be a place of personal and professional growth for those who walk alongside Black boys & men to engage in discussion, learning, and action.
Goals for Symposium
Goal 1: Bring national partners together to outline a plan for success and create a pipeline to include K-12, higher education, and beyond.
Goal 2: Acknowledge the historical realities that have shaped outcomes for Black boys and men to create new realities.
Goal 3: Identify systemic barriers in order to generate discussion, ideas, and solutions for equity.
Goal 4: Create change agents by sharing leading practices and creating the capacity to create new and better outcomes.
Goal 5: Deconstruct and rebuild systems to create the conditions necessary for the success of Black boys & men.
