University of Wisconsin–Madison
Courtney Parker West

Courtney Parker West

Ed-GRS Fellow

Courtney Parker West

Courtney Parker West (she/her/hers) is a 5th-year PhD student in Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis who has spent the past 15 years working in public education, education non-profit, community and institutional organizing, and intersectional anti-racist DEI consulting in eastern North Carolina and across the nation. Courtney’s research interests include how educators of color create spaces of healing and spiritual practice to sustain health and wellness, particularly in light of the current political landscape. Additionally, Courtney explores lessons learned, cautionary tales, and a sense of yearning in Star Trek as it pertains to racial realism, the power of speculative fiction as a liberatory tool, and the Black radical imagination when it comes to what’s possible for public education. Courtney seeks to leverage podcasting and intergenerational storytelling in community-based research and narrative inquiry to expand how we build bridges between and among community members and institutional agents pursuing policy changes that better reflect the dreams we foster around possibility.

Prior to her professional work, Courtney attended the University of Iowa and graduated with honors as a first-generation college student with degrees in Religion Studies (with a focus on Judaism), English (with a focus on Black American literature), Creative Writing and a minor in African American Studies. Her undergraduate thesis focused on the portrayal of Black men in Vietnam War films and the impact of Black-led religious civil rights movements advocating for the end of the Vietnam war. She has a certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa Undergraduate Writers’ Workshop and is a freelance writer whose work has been published in Huffington Post, Quartz, Daily Dot, and Catalogue Magazine.

Courtney is most passionate about intersectional, cross-generational anti-racist work, coalition-building, and healing activism especially as it pertains to communities who have been subjected to multi-generational trauma and institutional exclusion. She is an opinionated introvert who loves wine, reading & reflecting, and watching Star Trek reruns.

Honors

Publications

Chapter: “Flooding the Zone With Coordinated Media Messages” for Manufactured Outrage: How Understanding the Conservative Industrial Complex Can Help Educators Fight Back” by Elena Aydarova, T. Jameson Brewer, Emily M. Hodge and Serena J. Salloum.