Greetings – Dean’s Message September 2010

Dear all,

The end of September brings together many of our donors for Foundation weekend. This year we celebrated a 75-year milestone of giving and it was truly an impressive few days. We are very fortunate to have a solid community of alums and friends of the College who proudly support the excellent work we have always done. Indeed pride and joy was the tenor of the whole event. I must say that it was truly reaffirming to witness the leadership and spirit exhibited by our new President, Michael Hogan, and to sense a renewed optimism for the future. Although we are all still keenly aware of the financial circumstances that dog us, it was a timely reminder that the fundamentals of our university are rock solid.

I was particularly proud to see our graduate students’ conference, and the supporting gift provided by Dr Patricia Cross from Berkeley California, figure prominently in the video that was presented to demonstrate the value of gift giving. Our College was also among those that received a major gift, announced as part of this year’s celebration.  We shared a $250,000 bequest from James and Nancy Frakes of Rockford to support scholarships for students in the College of Education and College of Engineering in Urbana and the College of Medicine at Rockford.

See http://www.news-gazette.com/news/university-illinois/2010-10-02/major-gifts-ui-highlighted.html I first met James and Nancy at a dinner I hosted at my home last year. They talked poignantly then, as they did this last weekend, about the need to revitalize Rockford and other towns like theirs across the nation. In particular they were concerned about the shortage of teachers, the performance levels of students and curriculum policies that they feared narrowed options.

Our Board of Visitors also met and is planning a series of fundraising events to build up our student scholarship fund. Indeed, all the alumni and friends that we caught up with again were brimming with ideas about how to help us raise money to support faculty, students and of course our building fund.  Associate Dean Joan Tousey, Director of Advancement, Alex Schmidt and all the Advancement team need to be commended for attending the many events organized and for their advocacy on our behalf.

Speaking of buildings, I do hope you are all surviving the prolonged maintenance work being done.  Thank you for your patience. I spend a lot time these days pondering how best we use the spaces that we now occupy, are improving and plan to expand.  Like you, I spend many hours of my typical working week in my office, in our building, communicating electronically with Susan Michaels who is the next room – or with any number of folk occupying my corridor, or any of the rooms, on any of the floors, of any of our campus buildings. Mostly, it seems it does not really matter where they are or where I am. Indeed this sort of ubiquitous ‘communication’ happens in my home as well, and now, since broadband arrived in the olive fields, even in my small village home in Greece where we spend summer vacation. Some might regard this new way of working and relating as ‘new efficiencies’ or more ‘productivity’, maybe even more creativity given the often multimodal and inventive ways that we send and receive all manner of messages. So what kind of space do we really need for the future – physical space that is – and for what purpose? Moreover, what kind/s of community are we becoming? Many bemoan the fact that we are no longer in ‘the building’, so to speak, even as we work harder and harder for our students and are very closely connected with each other in our scholarly work. In fact, under these shifting technological conditions, and with fewer faculty/staff, we have doubled both our research and our teaching these last few years. Much of the additional work we do is ‘off campus’ in some way. I would be truly interested to hear your views about this conundrum and how we might consider the ways we work and congregate in relation to our new building plans.

So, on that note, thank you so much to all who attended our lively September Faculty meeting. Given that is was held on a Friday afternoon, it certainly had a strong turn out.  The respect and commitment you show to each other by attending is appreciated. It was great also to see (and what can we possibly call him that is adequate?) our colleague, Professor Stan Ikenberry, return to join us in the meeting. What an inspirational model faculty member he continues to be despite all the heavy responsibilities he still has, assisting our new president.

When I found out the President Hogan’s’ wife, Virginia Hogan, was a special education teacher for many years, I invited her to visit our College and get to know our work and mission.  She accepted right away and spent time with us a couple of weeks ago talking to Professors Susan Fowler, Jim Shriner, Lisa Monda Amaya and Violet Harris. Mrs. Hogan is certainly a professional woman keenly interested in the school system and deeply knowledgeable about education policy and practice – a real asset to our College, University and local school communities . Thanks to all who attended and for sharing your stellar work with her – I know she left very impressed.

Congratulations to all of the following for their recent achievements. Your steady success enhances all of us. Thank you.  It is wonderful to note in particular this round, that one of our education philosophers is part of an NSF grant and that the Centre for Small Urban Education is building up stronger links with our scholarly work as well as partnering with the community to turn around learner performance in our local schools.

·      – Liz Stine Morrow, National Institution of Aging, Age Differences in Resource Allocation During Reading , $150, 00 Increment  $2, 559, 302 Project total

·      – Amy Santos/Micki Ostrosky Rosa Milagros, Tweety Yates, sub contract, Head Start Teaching & Learning Center, $750,000

·      – Nick Burbules, Kristina Gunsalus, NSF, National Professional and Research Ethics Portal, $4,000,000

·      – Deb Bragg, Illinois Community College Board , Evaluation of Illinois’ Adult Education Bridge Grants – Year 2, $50,000

·      – Lisa Monda Amaya , $50, 00 Ball Foundation & $50, 00 State Farm grant to support research and mentoring work of Centre

·      – Lisa Monda-Amaya Stacy Dymond Jan Gaffney Jim Halle & Karrie Shogren, U.S. Department of Education, Preparing Leaders in Education, Access, and Data- based Decision Making in High-Need Schools – Project LEAD,  $1.2 million

·      – Eyal, Amir, Dorothy Espelage , National Science Foundation, Analyzing Partially Observable Computer-Adolescent Networks $195,082

·      The Centre for Global Studies has provided a total of $60, 475 support for a number of projects.
– Michael Peters, Global Teacher Dialogue Program and Visiting Scholar Initiative
– Susan Noffke, Infusing Global studies into the Pre-Service Teacher Program,
– Marilyn Parsons, the Indonesian Joint Degree.

– Mark Dressman has received much attention and praise for his involvement with of the 20 Hong Kong exchange students that we are hosting this Fall See, ‘Study abroad opens up new teaching methods’.

·      – Brendesha Tynes has been cited in several articles stemming from an Associated Press report about online race relations.

·      – Anne-Haas Dyson has been noted as the keynote speaker at the Penn State Lehigh Valley ‘Diverse Literacies Conference’:

< http://www.mcall.com/features/books/mc-literary-events-0926-20100925,0,2141943.story>

·     –  Jeannette McCollum’s mother-in-law was featured in a documentary that tells the story of a groundbreaking church-state case:,http://news.illinois.edu/news/10/0929documentary_Jay_Rosenstein.html

·      – Paige Spangler, BER staff member was published in the December issue of ‘Journal of Play Therapy.’

·      – Amy Santos has been appointed as a Teaching Academy Faculty Fellow for 2010 –2011 to continue supporting her colleagues through our teaching academy.

And there is more success to report  – Chancellor Easter has approved the Selection Committee’s nomination of Kristy Marie Treven for this year’s Lincoln Academy Student Laureate Award.  Kristy was nominated by Suzanne Lee from the department of Special Education. Her biographical sketch included the following information:

Kristy Treven has distinguished herself academically with a perfect 4.0 grade point average and many academic recognitions, including James Scholar and membership in many honor societies. Kristy will graduate in May 2011 with a Bachelor of Science degree and teacher certification in special education; she has completed advanced coursework in Spanish, and will qualify for a teaching endorsement in that field as well. Kristy has excelled in leadership activities. She has volunteered in Costa Rica, teaching children with disabilities at El Centro de Enseñanza Especial De Heredia.  She is an active volunteer and leader with many campus and community organizations, including her campus church, the Champaign County Down Syndrome Network and Best Buddies. In her practicum work, she has assumed leadership responsibilities; children with disabilities in three different schools have benefitted from hundreds of hours beyond what is required by her program.

Well done Kristy – the Chancellor told me personally how much he was impressed by your entry!

I would also likely to bring to your attention the significant number of international scholars that are among us. Welcome to all. At the College level, Professors, Fazal Rizvi and now Scott Johnson, with the help of the international team, are doing a superb job connecting our faculty and students to opportunities around the world. Thank you to the entire faculty involved in international projects and hosting the many visitors that are here at the moment. I hope you all get chance to meet some of these visitors and to benefit from opportunities for scholarly exchanges. (See attached)

My own international Ph.D. Student, jointly supervised with Prof. Gerasimos Kekkeris from the Democritus University of Thrace, Keratso Georgiadou, defended her dissertation on the ‘Role Of Computer Education In The Empowerment Of Muslim Women In Greek Thrace: Pathways To Social Participation’ this month with the result of ‘Arista’.  It was the first dissertation in English for the University. A proud moment for all, including her parents who attended the defense. For me, the two days travel to and from Greece was worth it, to be able witness this achievement.

As you know the Stewarding Excellence initiative has a number of new project teams – Barbara Geissler has been appointed to one examining Short Term Budget Issues and I have been appointed to another team exploring the formal introduction of University Program Reviews.

The Youth Literature Festival is on again this year – the significant collaboration with libraries and schools, a huge number of volunteers and a significant number of gifts, have made this event possible. Thank you so much to all involved for your dedication and excellent planning. We also thank The News Gazette, Daily Illini, WILL and the local television stations that are promoting the festival. For details see http://youthlitfest.education.illinois.edu/ Many nationally known authors (as well as emerging young authors), illustrators, poets, and storytellers will be participating. All events are free and open to the public and will be held at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on the UofI campus. The list of writers is very impressive indeed and much excitement has already been generated in the schools about meeting with these authors. Please join us on Saturday, October 9, 2010 (10:00 am – 4:00 pm)

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