2026 Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice 

June 16 - 18, 2026

at the University of California, Riverside

Sponsored by The California Endowment and the UCR School of Education 
ITOC is an on-going professional development space designed to support wellbeing, strengthen racial literacy, and cultivate racial justice leadership capacities of teachers of Color and teacher educators of Color. A unique collaboration between the disciplines of Teacher Education, Educational Leadership, and Ethnic Studies, this national conference rigorously selects and supports ITOC Fellows across the U.S. and beyond each year.

Applications for our 2026 Summer Convening & 2026-2027 Virtual Programming are now open!

Apply Here!

ITOC Fellows Selection Criteria:

This is a program that centers the experiences and wellbeing of Black, Indigenous, or people of Color (BIPOC) educators. Fellows are selected based on the following criteria:
ITOC Fellows and Teacher Educator Fellows:​

• Demonstrate an advanced level of racial literacy
• Have an asset framing of communities of Color
• Commit to critical and theoretically driven approaches to transforming schools
• ITOC Teacher Educator Fellows work in a university setting training K-12classroom educators

2026 Summer Conference Keynote Speakers

Dr. Kēhaulani Vaughn 
Associate Professor, University of California, Riverside

Kēhaulani Vaughn is an Associate Professor of Indigenous Feminisms in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She is also the Co-Director of the California Center for Native Nations at UCR. She is a Kanaka ‘Ōiwi scholar whose research engages Pacific Islander and Indigenous feminist theorizations of land, environment, and regeneration. Dr. Vaughn’s research examines how diasporic Native Hawaiians and Oceanic relatives create and maintain kinship with California Indians and their lands as Native feminist projects of regeneration. Her research has been awarded fellowships by the Ford and Spencer Foundations. Before her role as faculty, she worked as a practitioner in higher education, and this informs her research and teaching related to Indigenous education. As a community-engaged scholar, Dr. Vaughn is involved and has co-founded numerous community organizations seeking to improve the lives of Pacific Islander and Indigenous communities. Her family resides in Riverside on the lands of the Tongva, Cahuilla, and Luiseño peoples. ​

Dr. Laura Emiko Soltis
​Executive Director, Freedom University 

Dr. Laura Emiko Soltis is Executive Director of Freedom University, an award-winning, modern-day freedom school for undocumented students who are banned from equal access to public higher education in Georgia. With the aim of “ending modern segregation in higher education” – and of a future where undocumented and documented students can learn in the same classrooms – Freedom University provides tuition-free college preparation classes, college and scholarship application assistance for students seeking higher education opportunities in private universities or outside Georgia, and social movement leadership development for undocumented students.

A human rights educator originally from a rural Minnesota town of 1100 people, Emiko was raised in a blue-collar, biracial household as the child of a Japanese immigrant mother and a Vietnam war-vet father who was a second-generation Czech immigrant. She developed passions for working-class politics, immigrant rights, and classical music in equal measure. Emiko's work experience in low-wage industries alongside diverse immigrants in restaurant work, janitorial services, and farm labor inspired her to study interracial labor movements and international human rights. A proud public school kid, Emiko was honored to receive the Foundation Fellowship scholarship at the University of Georgia, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2006. She went on to receive her Ph.D. from Emory University in 2012, where she wrote her dissertation on the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ movement for farmworker justice in South Florida.

She joined Freedom University as a volunteer faculty member in 2013. Following the departure of the founding faculty and the closure of Freedom University in June 2014, Emiko re-established Freedom University in Atlanta in September 2014, introducing a human rights framework to its mission and pedagogy, and connecting undocumented youth to Black student movement veterans of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Atlanta Student Movement. She also founded Freedom University’s social movement leadership training program and expanded the curriculum to include a creative arts program, STEM classes, and mental health workshops in a year-long academic program.

​Restoring our Roots

Restoring Our Roots (ROR) is an inter-district network of Black, Indigenous, People of color (BIPOC) Minnesota educators. Restoring our Roots is a collectivist space that aims to “restore our roots” by cultivating community, utilizing our cultural capital and centering our collective assets as practices of sustainability and liberation. ​

2026 Summer Conference Includes:

• Keynote Talks
• Workshop Sessions
• Racial Justice Action Plan Working Group Sessions
• Health, Wellness, and Creative Arts Programming
• Femtorship Program
• Breakfast and Lunch Daily
• One Community Dinner

 2026-2027 Virtual Programming Includes:

• Online programming throughout the school year including community building, speakers, and mini-sessions
• 2 Public Talks in Collaboration with UCR's K-12 Ethnic Studies Speaker Series
• Femtorship Program (fall and spring large group meetings and femtors/femtees independent meetings)
• Well-Being Collective
• Book Club

Registration Fees for Selected Fellows

Registration Rates
Please note that we offer financial hardship pricing. However, if this is still inaccessible, please email us at [email protected].
Early Bird Pricing (April 3rd - May 10th):
Summer Conference Registration:

• $400 Registration Rate
• $200 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employer)

2026-27 Virtual Yearlong ONLY:

• $200 Registration Rate
• $100 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employer)

Combined 2026 Summer and 2026-27 Virtual Programming: 

• $500 Registration Rate
• $275 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employee)

Standard Registration Rates (May 11th - June 3rd):
2026 Summer Conference Registration:

• $450 Registration Rate
• $250 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employer)

​
2026-27 Virtual Yearlong ONLY:

• $250 Registration Rate
• $125 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employer)

Combined 2026 Summer and 2026-27 Virtual Yearlong:

• $600 Registration Rate
• $350 Financial Hardship Registration (cannot be sponsored by employer)

Conference Housing: 

We will offer a variety of local hotel room blocks ranging from $96 to $199/night for ITOC Fellows.

Apply Here!

Health and Safety Concerns: As an organization, we are committed to racial justice, which includes an intersectional analysis. As we learn and are led by intersectional scholars of disability justice, we are striving to center access in our practices and gathering spaces. For ITOC’s Summer 2025 convening, out of an abundance of care for our community, we encourage those attending to test for Covid-19 at home before coming, stay home if you are not feeling well, and be mindful about people’s boundaries around touch and space. We also will be providing masks and Covid-19 tests on site. 

Ways we are enhancing our practices:

• Registration tables outside in the mornings, and in a breezeway the rest of the day
  
• Masks, hand sanitizer and tests provided at the registration table
  
• Masks and hand sanitizer in all rooms 
  
• Leadership team will test before the conference begins
  
• Virtual programming all year long, including talks, workshops, bookclubs, femtorship, and wellness