IACEA Con23

IACEA CONFERENCE 2024

Listening, Loud And Clear

THE Adult Education conference in Illinois. We are excited to see you in-person in Springfield. Please register for an event designed for the practitioners of Adult Education, the educators who make everything work and the students who we serve.

March 6th-8th, 2024
Wyndham City Center, Springfield

Heather Martin, Conference Chair, IACEA President-Elect
Elgin Community College
[email protected]

Join us for our 1st in person conference since 2020!

Over 400 adult educators, tutors, administrators, and workforce development

members attend this conference from all of Illinois. This is an excellent opportunity

to display your products and meet adult educators and workforce development

members from throughout the state. We hope you will join us.

Our Keynote Speaker

Dr. Rolundus R. Rice is a thought leader, professor and university administrator. Dr. Rice has used these platforms to inspire thousands of students to earn high school diplomas, baccalaureate and advanced degrees, respectively.

Dr. Rice’s childhood and youth presented challenge after challenge. During school, he spent years going through behavior and learning disorders programs in the Dekalb County School System in Metropolitan Atlanta before dropping out of high school. Later on, pursuing his GED got him back on track and his career in education and beyond has flourished ever since.
Dr. Rice graduated from DeVry University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Magna Cum Laude. He then earned the Master of Arts in History from Alabama State University and the Doctor of Philosophy in History from Auburn University. Dr. Rice was the second African American to receive the Doctor of Philosophy in the discipline of History from Auburn University and the first GED recipient to earn a Ph.D. in Auburn’s 166-year history.

At 33, he was appointed Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama -- one of the youngest academic deans at an accredited four-year institution in the United States. At Talladega College, he was instrumental in securing a $1.25 million implementation cluster grant from the United Negro College Fund’s (UNCF) Career Pathways Initiative to fund projects to increase Talladega College students’ chances of finding meaningful employment upon graduation. He is currently serving as the Chief Operating Officer/Vice President for Student Affairs at Tuskegee University.

Dr. Rice is a professional historian who has taught a variety of courses, including World History, United States History, The Civil Rights Movement, Martin and Malcolm, The Cold War, American Constitutional History, and American Religious History, respectively. Dr. Rice has also been identified as a subject-matter expert on the Civil Rights Movement. His research and publishing agenda are focused squarely on the Modern Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Rice’s book, Hosea Williams: A Lifetime of Defiance and Protest was published by the University of South Carolina Press in 2021. This book is the first scholarly biography on one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest lieutenants and organizer of Bloody Sunday and the subsequent Selma to Montgomery March.

Dr. Rice has also worked in the non-profit sector, specifically with The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia, where he served as the Special Assistant to Dr. Bernice King – the youngest child of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King.