SOE News

We had a good discussion at a full faculty meeting yesterday, November 19, 2009, about a vision and set of goals to serve as a framework to which we will orient the strategic assessment that we are beginning. The assessment will provide an opportunity to clarify these goals in the coming year, to deliberate about our mission and specify the ways in which we, as professional school of education, can best contribute to the improvement of public education.  The assessment will provide an opportunity for us to examine our current practice and performance relative to those goals, and to design concrete strategy for the plans we make for our development. Underlying the ambition that the Executive Committee and I hold for the School of Education is the conviction that we are capable of demonstrating what is to be a school that breaks out of the historic isolation that schools of education have suffered. This isolation has left ed schools disconnected from the worlds of education policy and practice, on one hand, and the world of the academy––both the disciplines and other professions, on the other. The skepticism about ed schools is an important contemporary problem, but it is one that many colleges of education either ignore or regard as an attack that requires a defense. We believe that to do either is perilous. At U-M, we want to lead the way in taking on the challenge of showing the worth of schools of education. Through the focus of our programs and scholarship, we would contribute to redefining the role of a school of education, embracing our status as a professional school, and combining a focus on practice with the assets of being part of a great research university. There will be opportunities throughout the coming months to participate in discussions about the mission and about our programs and goals and I look forward to working with the School of Education faculty, as well as our students and staff, on this agenda.

During the upcoming holiday season, when thoughts often turn to helping those in need, our SOE community will be supporting our own faculty and staff who are facing particularly challenging times. The School of Education Staff Development Committee is coordinating two main initiatives and is seeking your help and contributions.

The first initiative will support family members of our faculty and staff who are serving in the military. The committee will be collecting gifts (or monetary donations toward the purchase of those gifts) to send in care packages to these enlisted men and women. We have already identified two SOE staff members who have loved ones serving overseas and will be sending packages to their platoons. Please contact Gretchen Ewart if you have or know of other SOE community members who have family members serving in the military.

The second initiative will support members of SOE staff and faculty who are in special need this year due to particularly difficult circumstances.  We will be collecting donations to provide a range of items to these individuals.  We have identified three possible families in need, but again, if you know of other SOE community members who are in need, please contact Gretchen Ewart with details.

If you would like to participate, please see Gretchen Ewart in the Dean’s Office (suite 1110) to receive the list of needed items for the family members. You may also make a cash donation and members of the Staff Development Committee will purchase items on the list. All purchased items and cash donations need to be dropped off to Gretchen Ewart or Jeanie Laubenthal (room 2014) no later than Monday, November 30th, 2009. The Staff Development Committee will  package all items for the military during the first week of December and ship them by the military mail’s established dates of December 1 and 4.

I am so impressed with the different ways in which our community is generous with others. I do appreciate that SOE members also have pressures on them in these difficult economic times and I trust that you will choose ways to contribute that make the best sense for you.

Staff Development Committee members:

Gretchen Ewart
Alfreda Fleming
Nancy Fleming
Lori Helvey
Jeanie Laubenthal
Terri Ridenour
Kathryn Taylor

Dean-made baked goods are back!  I hope that you can take a break from your studies or work and join your colleagues, classmates, and friends for a coffee break on Monday, November 30, 2009, from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. in the south hallway (outside of Whitney—room 1309). This is the third in a series of informal coffee hours cosponsored by the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Development and Alumni Relations. Feel free to drop by for a quick snack or linger for a longer conversation. Of course coffee and a dean-made baked treat will be provided. I hope to see you there.

Have a safe and restful Thanksgiving break. I am grateful to this community for your support, hard work, commitment, and caring.  We have had our challenges and sad times and losses over the last year, but I am continually moved and impressed by the care and concern that people in our community show to one another.  Thank you.

School of Education faculty, student, and staff leadership has asked the community of all who are employed by the school to participate in this year’s United Way campaign. We want to signal our commitment to our community by contributing to the United Way or other charitable organization. Our letter asking you to participate explains the reasons for this request, as well as how to choose which organization(s) receive your contribution. This year it is possible to make a pledge or a contribution online. Updates to our participation rates are available on the SOE News blog and can be seen on thermometers posted in the south hallway. Please join our collective effort and make your pledge now!

I have been on the road a lot these last few weeks. On October 23, 2009, I attended the National Academy of Education (NAEd) meeting, where there were excellent discussions of common core standards, the directions for federal spending on education, and teacher education reform. I am a member of an NAEd working group that released a white paper on teacher quality at the meeting—you can read more about that on the SOE News blog.

The following week, I attended the Spencer Foundation board meeting, where we discussed the Spencer Foundation funding initiatives. I encourage you to read the foundation priorities as they offer good possible sources of funding for lines of work in which many of you are engaged.

Then, on November 4 and 5, I was in Seattle where I visited with the education program officers at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as people at Microsoft Corporation. I made several presentations, including one with about 175 area teachers and school leaders. The meetings were productive and I am optimistic about the connections between our agenda and their priorities and we all saw promising possibilities for collaboration with both foundations. We will be continuing to explore these when I make a return trip in January.

Next I attended the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education in Vancouver, where I presented on two panels, one as a discussant on the issue of the future of schools of education at research universities. I was also able to appreciate once again the prominence of our Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE) and how visible CSHPE faculty and students are in the field. Of course, as Eric Dey was a prominent member of the higher education research community, there was a tremendous outpouring of shock, sorrow, sympathy, and support in reaction to his untimely passing on November 5.

Then, Thursday afternoon and Friday, November 12 and 13, I was at the meeting of the American Association of Universities deans of colleges of education in Washington, D.C., where we discussed performance assessment in teacher education, research priorities at the Institute for Educational Sciences, and met and talked with the Undersecretary of Education, Martha Kanter, about some of the goals of the department under Arne Duncan’s leadership.

On Thursday, November 19, 2009, Angela Calabrese Barton, professor in teacher education at Michigan State University, will present the third seminar in this year’s Teacher Education Initiative seminar series “Learning to Reach all Learners: Equity and Diversity in the Teaching of School Subjects.” Her talk, “Teaching Elementary and Middle School Science to All Learners,” will start at 2:00 p.m. in the Tribute Room (room 1322).

Dr. Calabrese Barton’s research focuses on issues of equity and social justice in science education with a particular emphasis on the urban context. Drawing from qualitative and critical/feminist methodologies, she conducts ethnographic and case study research in urban community- and school-based settings that targets the science teaching-learning experiences of three major stakeholder groups: upper elementary and middle school youth, teachers learning to teach science for social justice, and parents engaging in their children’s science education. She also engages in curriculum research and development that links literacy in nutrition and science in the upper elementary and middle school classroom.

I hope that you can join us for this important talk as we further explore how we can prepare teachers to work actively and effectively to intervene on inequities in opportunity to learn, with a particular focus on inequities based on based on race, ethnicity, language, and social class.

I am asking all SOE faculty to make every possible effort to participate in the faculty meeting next Thursday, November 19, 2009, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Tribute Room (room 1322). The Executive Committee and I would like to engage you in a critical discussion and decision about the future agenda of this school. We are seeking your reactions, suggestions, and ultimately, your endorsement of and engagement with the future vision, goals, and plans for the School of Education. The discussion will be fundamental to the generation of a strategic plan for the next decade and I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Please join me in wishing Mike Dubin, director of development, all the best as he runs the New York City Marathon this Sunday, November 1, 2009. Mike was chosen by the Michael J. Fox Foundation to be a member of Team Fox. He has been working hard over the last few months not only to prepare his body for the marathon but also to raise awareness and funds for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Best of luck, Mike!

Update: Mike successfully completed the marathon. Michael J. Fox waited along the course to meet Mike and cheer him on. A short video of their meeting is available.

Mike Dubin meets Michael J. Fox

For everyone who is appointed here in our school (faculty, staff, and graduate students): The school’s leadership (consisting of faculty, staff, and student leaders) are urging you to consider contributing to the United Way or other charitable organization this year during the university’s annual drive, currently underway. It is vital to our school and to the university that we show our commitment to our surrounding communities in these difficult economic times. Although the drive is identified as the United Way drive, you do, in fact, have the ability to choose any 501(c)3 charitable organization. Contributions can be made online. Absolutely any amount of money will be deeply appreciated and used and the amount of your donation (or whether you choose to donate at all) is completely confidential. What is important here is that we strive to attain a high level of participation, not that we give a particular amount of money. Laura Roop is our SOE community representative in the campus-wide campaign and will be leading our efforts to step up to the challenge of giving back to the organizations and causes who are doing much- needed work in our community.  She’ll provide updates on our progress toward our goal across the next weeks. Please help the School of Education to participate strongly and visibly as a group in this year’s United Way campaign.