New! Ploghoft Diversity Lecture: Charles King

Charles King – the founder, president and chief executive officer of The Educator Academy in Kansas City, Missouri – will present “Teaching Students from Historically Marginalized Backgrounds: Lessons from Urban Classrooms and Teachers who have Thrived.” The lecture is free and open to the public.

King leads organizational strategy, policy engagement and long-term sustainability efforts to strengthen the educator workforce. As the CEO of The Educator Academy, he oversees strategic planning, board governance, fundraising and operations, guiding the multi-million-dollar organization and securing more than $3 million in new philanthropic investment to expand impact annually.

He previously served as program director at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where he helped design and launch a teacher residency program and navigated state policy and accreditation processes. Earlier in his career, he spent more than a decade with KIPP Texas Public Schools in Houston as a teacher and school leader, building high-performing teams and driving student achievement.

King is pursuing a Doctor of Education in higher education leadership and policy at the University of Kansas and holds degrees from Houston Baptist University and Morehouse College.

About the Ploghoft Diversity Lecture series

Northwest’s Ploghoft Diversity Lecture series is funded through the lasting generosity of the late Dr. Milton Ploghoft and his wife, Zella. The series features speakers and activities that broaden the educational perspectives of Northwest teacher candidates and inform all students about the issues facing the education of students from diverse environments.

Dr. Ploghoft, a 1949 Northwest alumnus, authored a number of textbooks in the social studies and lived abroad for many years, founding the College of Education in Kano, Nigeria, lecturing at Saigon University and leading its international programs in such places as Chile, Cameroon, Botswana, the Yucatan, Swaziland and in what was then South Vietnam. In 1992, he became the founding editor of the African Education Research Network. He was a professor emeritus at Ohio University at the time of his death in 2018.

Zella, who passed away in 2010, completed her elementary and secondary education at Horace Mann Laboratory School at Northwest.