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April 2022 Good News in the College of Education

Students touring DePaul campus
On March 2, Jaylon Joyner, an alumnus of the MS in Sport, Fitness, and Recreation Leadership Program and Athletic Director and teacher at Christ the King College Preparatory High School, brought 14 of his student-athletes to campus for an educational experience. This is an extension of a mentoring program he initiated entitled Achieve Better Beyond Athletes. The event was underwritten by a grant Jaylon received from Athlife Inc. Associate Professor Anna Marie Frank, EdD arranged for the students to visit the Athletic Academic Advising facility in the Sullivan Center and talk with the staff. This was followed by a full tour of the campus, which ended in the cafeteria where they ate dinner before they left for the Men's Basketball game at the Wintrust Area. This experience helped students better understand the support provided to student athletes while in college and what a university campus is like. 

On March 15, adjunct professor Paul Emerich France released the second edition of his book, Reclaiming Personalized Learning: A Pedagogy for Restoring Equity and Humanity in Our Classrooms. In the book, he challenges conventional thinking on personalized learning, challenging educators and administrators alike to humanize personalized learning, moving away from web-based adaptive technology and towards a pedagogy that prioritizes human connection and learner agency. The work features a foreword by Carol Ann Tomlinson, the author of The Differentiated Classroom, and endorsements from Tony Wagner, Doug Fisher, and Jo Boaler.

Erin Rice opening gifts
On March 16, members of the faculty and staff gathered in person for the first time in over two years to celebrate the impending arrival of Executive Assistant to the Dean Erin Rice’s baby boy. Guests who attended the super-hero themed shower were encouraged to bring a copy of a favorite children’s book to help jump-start the baby’s library. Congratulations Erin and Kevin! We can’t wait to meet your little one.

Instructional Assistant Professor Donna Kiel, EdD was asked by the Director of the Library of Congress, Teaching with Primary Sources program to be the keynote speaker at their annual retreat.  Kiel was selected based on the success of her RISE TPS Racial Justice Program: Using Primary Sources to Build Empathy.  She will present her framework and the ways primary sources engaged teachers, students, and parents in critical conversations leading to greater empathy and understanding.

A team of students from the Counseling Program (Courtney GriffinVeronica McMillionAnya Ross, and Angela Sundstrom) won First Place- Master’s Level in the National Ethics Competition of the American Counseling Association. The purpose of the competition is to educate members of the association regarding ethical issues and to engage graduate students (masters and doctoral level) in critically analyzing a potential ethical case and creating an appropriate ethical decision-making plan to respond to the ethical situation. Each student won a $100 honorarium, a certificate of recognition, complimentary registration for the 2022 ACA Conference, and will be recognized at an awards ceremony during the conference. Their names and the winning essay will be posted on the ACA website.

Cardenas and Soltero
Professor and Chair of the Department of Leadership, Language and Curriculum, Sonia Soltero, PhD who is also a member of Executive Board of the National Association for Bilingual Education, welcomed United States Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona at the annual conference in New York City on February 9th. Secretary Cardona addressed over 2000 bilingual educators, administrators, policy makers, community organizers, and international liaisons. Soltero, as part of the Executive Board, had the opportunity to have a private conversation to discuss pressing issues around the education of bilingual students in U.S. schools, including funding and strengthening bilingual teacher pipelines.

On Feb. 16th, Assistant Professor Autumn Cabell, PhD published an op-Ed in Ms. Magazine entitled “The Pandemic is Our Chance to Fix the Black Women in STEM Gap”. In addition, in honor of National School Counselors Week, Autumn Cabell was interviewed in Newsline's Ask an Expert segment about the role K-12 school counselors play in students' mental health.

PE students posing for picture
On February 22nd, Associate Professor Melissa Ockerman, PhD, along with 5 school counseling internship students, Erika Castillo, Kelly Cochrane, Eman Olaimi, E.V. Lauterbach and Jesus Galvan presented to Associate Professor Anna Marie Frank, EdD’s PE 372 undergraduate class about social emotional wellness and trauma-informed teaching strategies. Special thanks to students Kat Freeman and Leslie Franco for their contributions as well. We are hopeful it's the beginning of ongoing professional collaboration between PE teachers and school counselors!

On February 11, 2022, Assistant Professor Eric Brown, PhD appeared on WBEZ's Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons to talk about the mental health of students. The daily talk show brings listeners the news and conversations that matter most to their day-to-day lives.

Awardees with balloons
Every year, the American School Counseling Association (ASCA) awards school counseling programs that meet their gold standard with the Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) distinction, exemplifying the best of school counseling. This involves a rigorous application process. Currently, Illinois has only 23 of these programs but, Chicago Public School Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Academy of Social Justice located in the Englewood community received that award this year! The school's counseling team is comprised of two counselors and BOTH of them are DePaul school counseling alumnae; Alex Lloyd and Genevieve Spina! We're so proud of them and the incredible work they are doing. 

Doctoral Candidate Qianhui Tian Hub has been awarded the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Service-Learning and Experiential Education SIG 2022 Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award for her research submission titled “Digital Solidarity: Engaging With Literature to Explore Virtual Service-Learning in Higher Education”. She will be honored at this year's annual conference in San Diego which will be held in both in-person and virtual formats. Qianhui has also been invited to serve as a special guest on an episode of the AERA SLEE SIG 41 podcast, Experiential Commons, to highlight her research.

Peter Smith
Secondary Education alumnus Peter Smith, a second-year teacher at Lakeview High School in Chicago, was chosen by the Knowles Teacher Initiative as a member of its 2021 Cohort of Teaching Fellows. This year, 31 promising high school mathematics and science teachers who are just beginning their careers were awarded Knowles Teaching Fellowships. The Knowles Teacher Initiative supports a national network of mathematics and science teachers who are collaborative, innovative leaders improving education for all students in the United States. The Knowles Teaching Fellowship is an intensive and cohesive, five-year program that supports early-career, high school mathematics and science teachers in their efforts to develop teaching expertise and lead from the classroom. Through the program, Knowles Fellows have access to grants for expenses associated with purchasing classroom materials, engaging in professional development, and spearheading leadership activities that have an impact beyond their own classrooms.

A new edited book, Belonging in Changing Educational Spaces: Negotiating Global, Transnational, and Neoliberal Dynamics, co-edited by Professor Emerita Karen Monkman, PhD and Doctoral Program alumna Ann Frkovich, PhD was released on February 22, 2022. Among the various contributors who responded to the Call for Chapters and were accepted for inclusion are three COE alumni:  Frkovich (co-editor), Angee Kraemer Holland, EdD, and Jeremiah Howe, MA (Social and Cultural Foundations in Education).
"This book explores the impacts on personal and professional, local and global forms of belonging in educational spaces amidst rapid changes shaped by globalization. Encouraging readers to consider the idea of belonging as an educational goal as much as a guiding educational strategy, this text forms a unique contribution to the field. Drawing on empirical and theoretical analyses, chapters illustrate how educational experience informs a sense of belonging, which is increasingly juxtaposed against a variety of global dynamics including neoliberalism, transnationalism, and global policy and practice discourses. Addressing phenomena such as refugee education, large-scale international assessments, and study abroad, the volume’s focus on ten countries including Japan, Sierra Leone, and the US demonstrates the complexities of globalization and illuminates possibilities for supporting new constructions of belonging in rapidly globalizing educational spaces."

DePaul College Prep students and author
Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Teacher Education, Roxanne Owens, PhD is co-facilitating the Chicago Reads and Writes Book Club at DePaul College Prep with their librarian Anthony Powers. The students are reading Radium Girls by Kate Moore. The group meets every other Wednesday to discuss the book and participate in different learning experiences. On February 9, award winning local author Sara Aronson presented to the group about her writing process. On February 23, the students visited Professor Hilary Conklin, PhD's Social Studies Methods course and participated in a role playing activity related to the time period of their book. On March 9th, they will zoom with Kate Moore, the author of Radium Girls. ​