Dr. Katrina Sanders has just recently received her Ph.D. in Education Policy Studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She describes her interests this way: "I look at the history of educational policies and how they impact current policy." History, she maintains, is very important in comprehending how and why our school systems operate the way they do. Sanders says, "I always tell my students if you know your history, then you understand you present." Having taught English for five years at the high school level, Sanders is quite familiar with the present school system. Her course was called "American Culture and Education," and focused on different cultural groups and their experience with education. Some of the cultural groups the course dealt with include: Native American, Hispanic, African American, Irish American, and teen and single mothers. Not only did Sanders concern herself with multicultural and racial issues, but also those of class and gender. With a class size of 36, Sanders often found that small group activities facilitated students' recognition and understanding of how race, class, gender, and culture influenced and continue to influence their educational experiences.
From IU, Sanders heads to the University of Iowa to begin work on a two-year post doctoral research fellowship at their College of Education. During this time, Sanders hopes to continue work on her dissertation project, which was entitled "Building Racial Tolerance Through Education: The Fisk University Race Relations Institutes, 1944-1969." This thesis is a historical analysis of the program begun by Charles S. Johnson in the 40's. Johnson, a black sociologist, organized an institute where race relations, problems and issues were discussed by scholars, teachers and community leaders in an effort to assuage the growing racial tensions in Chicago. The institute, which has recently been restarted, tries to come up with concrete solutions to racial issues. Sanders says, "I feel that this project is most beneficial and timely, seeing as we are entering a new millennium and we're still dealing with race relations problems."