Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Spring meeting: progress towards the five-year plan strengthens commitment to improving education, celebrates faculty and staff honors and awards

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By Lauren Huffman

(April 30, 2010) Tuesday, April 27 commenced another spring faculty meeting with new awards, honors, promotions, and farewells. College faculty, faculty associates, and staff met to recognize the honorees and to learn of progress made toward meeting the College of Education Five-Year Plan.

College Council Chair Joe Pacha (EAF) introduced Dean Deborah Curtis, who thanked the audience for coming to the meeting and for their commitment to honoring the accomplishments of colleagues in the areas of research and service.

Dean Curtis shared her thoughts and discussed the progress made on the College of Education Five-Year Plan. She shared the goals of the plan and highlighted the five themes that were generated from it: promoting professions in education, educational inequality, partnerships, research, technology, and funding to support our efforts.

Dean Curtis acknowledged some of the multiple achievements that the College of Education has made toward fulfilling the Five-Year Plan. These statistics were derived from this year's annual report. Some of these include:

The College is ranked as the nation's top producer of teacher education baccalaureate degrees among AACTE member institutions.The College is the nation's largest preparer of special educators.University High School is ranked of the top 6% of laboratory high schools in the nation.The College has increased the diversity among tenure-track faculty.

"The College of Education is well on its way to transform 21st century learning," Dean Curtis added.

The remainder of the program was spent recognizing the following faculty and staff's accomplishments.

In celebration of their years of service, Dean Curtis recognized the retiring faculty and staff.

Amy Tuttle, Dean's Office, was nominated separately by both Karen Mills and Phil Parette. Amy was selected for developing two innovative web site solutions. Amy assisted Karen in a project that has enabled coordinators and administrators to gain access to placement information for Special Education Clinical Students, in which uses for in the future are endless. She also developed an online system that allows committees to review scholarship applications more efficiently. Parette noted, "The sheer volume of work reflected in her commitment to helping the COE Scholarship Committee move its work materials into an online format is commendable."

Sharon Naylor received the award for diligent services as a Milner librarian for the Educational Administrations & Foundations and Special Education Departments. In her work, Sharon has paved the way to establish the electronic resources that students use widely today. Trisha Klass nominated Sharon, and noted, "Our students were the first to benefit from library services that people take for granted now: electronic reserves, online texts, and interlibrary loan." She was commended for the work she has done, working one-on-one with students on their dissertations, and assisting faculty in their research and grant projects. Sharon's work truly advocates for the College of Education's interests.

Dawn Green received this award in recognition of the vital role she serves as liaison between the Unit 5 School District and Illinois State University. In her positions as director of Secondary Education and director of Human Resources at Unit 5, Dawn works to develop the Professional Development School (PDS) program by selling principals and school leaders nationally on the advantages of hiring PDS graduates. As a direct result of her facilitation and leadership, Illinois State and Unit 5 now operate PDS programs at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels. Molly Munson-Dryer nominated Dawn and describes her as, "a true boundary spanner.' Dawn is also a recent alumna of EAF's doctoral program, allowing her to understand the culture of teacher education at the university level.

Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky, assistant professor in the Department of Special Education, is a recipient of the Illinois State University Research Initiative Award for 2010. The award recognizes faculty members who have initiated a promising research agenda early in their academic careers.

Maureen Smith, academic advisor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction, is the recipient of the Herb Sanders Award for Outstanding Academic Advisement. The award recognizes advisors who show a compassion for students, who are assistive in their contact with students, and who support campus-wide academic advancement.

Erin Mikulec, assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction, received the 2009 Outstanding Professor Award from Delta Phi Lambda.

Donna Zawatski was elected division vice president for Junior High/Elementary General Music for the Illinois Music Educators Association. Donna also achieved her National Board Certification this year.

The Million Dollar Club
The Million Dollar Club recognizes individuals who have secured in excess of $1 million of extramural funding in support of research, instruction, or community service during their tenure at Illinois State. New inductees from the College of Education are:

Stacy BockDiane DeanMaribeth LartzStefanie Lee Berardi

Dr. Lara Handsfield's research has been published in some of the most prestigious journals in literacy, English-language arts, and education including the Journal of Literary Research, The Reading Teacher, and Language Arts. The acknowledgment of Lara's work in such rigorous professional outlets in the early phase of her career reflects that she has been consistently engaged in research throughout the four years of her appointment at Illinois State.

Dr. Tom Lucey's research has been disseminated widely in a variety of professional outlets at the international, national, and regional/state levels. Since coming to the College of Education, Dr. Lucey has established a robust research agenda as suggested by the record of publications that have consistently ranked in the top quartile of Illinois State faculty. He provides support to new faculty members in collaboration on research and in helping them to establish their own research agenda.

Dr. Tony Lorsbach's service commitments have been extremely valuable to the department over the last year. He served as program coordinator to the department's largest major, maintains his role as faculty liaison with one of Curriculum and Instruction's elementary professional development schools, and serves as chair of the department Curriculum Committee. Tony is also one of the co-chairs for the Brighton summer study abroad program.

Dr. Tom Haynes' service has also been invaluable to the department. He served as the program coordinator to three programs: secondary education, master's and doctoral programs in Curriculum & Instruction. For over ten years, Dr. Haynes has directed the Connections Project, a state-funded initiative designed to improve high school student achievement. Dr. Haynes is also active in a wide range of professional organizations in business education.

Dr. Linda Wedwick served as the coordinator of the Reading Master's Program and as the department representative on the Academic Senate and its executive committee. She also served on the College's Election Committee and Scholarship and Awards Committee. Linda is very active on both national (National Council for Teachers of English, National Reading Council, and the American Education Research Association Literacy SIG) and regional levels, as she served as the Illinois representative to the Assembly for Literature for Adolescents.

Venus Evans-Winters completed two book chapters, one referenced article, and four presentations related primarily to her research on schooling and African American girls. She will soon return to South Africa to conduct further research on the topic.

Lydia Kyei-Blankson has published three refereed articles, conducted five presentations, and given an invited presentation to the ISU Distance Education Task Force. Lydia's areas of research are technology and online learning, both of which relate directly to the COE Five-Year Plan.

Lucille Eckrich has worked with the Minority Mentor Program, the student group UNITE, and has organized the Chicago Bus Trip for preservice teachers. Her work creates practical field experiences for her students.

Betsy Lugg serves on the Academic Senate, the College Faculty Status Committee, and the University Hearing Panel on campus. She does service work outside of COE as she works for the State Farm Dissertation Award Committee, the Regional Office of Education, and field consulting for multiple school districts.

Craig Blum conducts active scholarship and research in the use of readily available technologies to teach young children, teacher education and positive behavioral support in the classroom, and using response to intervention for social and behavioral outcomes.

Jim Thompson has established an international reputation in support needs assessment and planning with children and adults with developmental disabilities. His Support Intensity Scale has been translated into 12 languages and is being used in 15 countries. He is currently editing a special issue of Exceptionality: A Special Education Journal on this topic.

Barb Fulk serves as the Department of Special Education as advisor for master's students. In her work she has benefited students by becoming exceptionally knowledgeable about state licensure, tuition waivers, and plans of study.

Emily Watts is recognized for her leadership role as faculty advisor for the student organization Students Serving Individuals with Disabilities (SSID). Emily teaches her students about the value of service, and how it can impact not only their students, but many different entities.

Both Karen Irvin and Michelle Mueller, fourth grade teachers, have been instrumental in the math department's research of understanding how students think of measurement. The reception of the National Science Foundation Grant has allowed for collaboration with Illinois State's math department and the fourth grade classrooms at Thomas Metcalf this year.

Peggy Finnegan prepares first year teachers for a career in art by helping them with lesson plans. She spent hours creating art projects for the Montage fundraiser and raised so much money that she is now creating prints of the projects to sell to the community.

Jane Ogunmokun's family and consumer science classes have been sewing, knitting, and crocheting hats for the cancer center. Her students spent time designing their own hats and then personally delivering them to the center. Jane works each year to make meaningful connections with the community that teach her students to be selfless and to help others in need.

Kimberly Rojas has been a leader in the instrumentation of technology in the Foreign Language classrooms. She has presented to a variety of conferences in the past. Some of her current works include Advanced Placement Hybrid in Spanish, and Using Student Feedback to Redesign Technology-rich Lessons.

Andy Davis has been a faculty leader in the development of critical thinking through writing in Social Studies classes. He has presented at numerous conferences. He has recently published articles with University High School students, including The Geography Writing Assessment and the Risky Rubric: Using a Discussion Board to Foster Student Understanding of the Palestinian-Produced Film "Paradise Now" and Using Graphic Novels to Teach the Crusades.



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