Sigma Bulletin, November 20-26, 2006
A. DEAN'S UPDATES
B. CALENDAR
C. LOOKING AHEAD
A. DEAN'S UPDATES
1. Thank you for your attendance at recent faculty search candidate presentations. Please send your feedback to the search committees as follows:
For the Quantitative Research Methods position, please post your comments at:
http://sitemaker.soe.umich.edu/soe.quantmethods
For the Director of Teacher Education position, please post your comments at:
http://sitemaker.soe.umich.edu/soe.tecomments
Your comments are important for each search committee's deliberations as they consider evidence about the finalists for our positions.
2. The “full court press” recruitment initiative is taking off with energy. Last night over 20 undergraduate teacher education students formed a campaign team to get strong messages out around campus about the importance of teaching, and of the value of preparing to teach here at the University of Michigan. We will be making flyers, contacting student organizations, talking with faculty and advisors, flooding the residence halls with messages, and developing other short-term actions. Longer term ideas were also discussed and will be developed later. Look for signs of their work in the coming weeks, and if you would like to join or support their team's work, please let me know. Several of us -- Henry Meares, Bob Bain, Francesca Forzani, and I -- all met with the students last night. I appreciate this support! If you can join us for the next meeting, it will be held Sunday, December 3 at 5:00 p.m. and we will be working in groups on different parts of our strategy as well as reporting progress made.
3. There are understandably many questions on the minds of the members of our community since the passage of Proposal 2. To provide support and assistance, Provost Sullivan has established a direct phone line for deans to use for questions or concerns about any matter related to student, faculty, or staff business related to Proposal 2. Please let me know any questions you have and I will immediately pursue them. The deans and provost are also discussing next steps as a community and I will keep you informed of our discussions. Let me know of issues you wish me to bring to those discussions as well.
4. Dr. Carol Lee, associate professor of African American Studies in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, will present the second seminar in our yearlong series on teacher education on Thursday, November 30, at 2:00 pm in the Tribute Room. In her seminar, Dr. Lee will explore how teachers can use students' resources to connect them to complex academic work. She will help us consider how understanding this work of teaching can inform the preparation of beginning teachers.
On the day after the seminar, Friday, December 1, there will be a discussion session from 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. in the Brownlee Room, in which participants will talk in more depth about the issues Dr. Lee raises. Participation in the discussion is open to students, staff, and faculty, but the number is limited to 25. If you are interested in attending the discussion, please send an email to Francesca Forzani (
fforzani@umich.edu).
B. THIS WEEK'S CALENDAR
- November 21: CPEP colloquium: Robert Jagers," Social-emotional competence promotion among urban Black youth: Findings and frontiers from an integrity-based perspective" 12:00-1:00, Tribute (1322).
C. LOOKING AHEAD
- November 28: Graduate Brown Bag: Joan McCoy and Brian Jones Question/Answer session: “Navigating the Road to Completion of Your Graduate Program,” 12:00 - 1:30 P.M., Room 2327 (Brownlee). Email your question or topic to Joan ( jemccoy@umich.edu) prior to the event.
- November 28: Third video analysis session: Roy Pea of Stanford University via videoconference. 12:00-1:00, Room 4212. RSVP Orrin Murray omurray@umich.edu
- November 28: Life Sciences & Society Colloquium: “Student Religion, Faith, and Spirituality in the Classroom and Beyond: How Do Instructors Respond?” 3:00-5:00, CRLT Seminar Room, 1013 Palmer Commons. Information: http://lss.sph.umich.edu/
- November 29: Training in the use of the School of Education's identity package (letterhead, name badges, posters, etc.) by Chris Myers. 1:00-2:00, Whitney (1309).
- November 29: Quantitative Research Methods faculty candidate Daniel McCaffrey Pedagogical Talk (title to be announced), 12:00 - 1:00, Brownlee (2327).
- November 30: Quantitative Research Methods faculty candidate Daniel McCaffrey, Research Presentation, "An Expanded Class of Multi-Membership Models Applied to the Estimation of Teacher Effect." 12:00 - 1:00, Tribute (1322).
- November 30: Second seminar in the Teacher Education series: Dr. Carol Lee of Northwestern University, 2:00 pm in Room 1322 (Tribute Room). On Friday, December 1, we will hold a smaller discussion session in which we will talk in more depth about the issues Dr. Lee raises. Participation in the discussion is limited to 25. If you are interested in attending the discussion, please send an email to Francesca Forzani (
fforzani@umich.edu).
- December 6: CPEP Colloquium: Nick Ellis, "Language use, language change, language acquisition and language instruction: The dynamics of SLA," 12:10 p.m.-1:00 p.m., Room 1322 (Tribute). Information:
frodrig@umich.edu or 647-0626
- December 8: Educational Studies Colloquium: Geoff Williams, "Semiotic tools for exploring texts with young children," 12:00-1:00 p.m., Room 1322 (Tribute). Information:
mjschlep@umich.edu or 647-2449
- December 14: Educational Studies Colloquium: Jeffrey Stanzler, “Serious play: Using simulation to create compelling contexts for thinking,” noon-1:00 p.m., Room 2327 (Brownlee).
- January 12-14, 2007: 4th International Conference on Teacher Education and Social Justice, University of Illinois-Chicago, U.S.A. Information: http://antioppressiveeducation.org/2007conference.html
- January 14, 2007: Winter Reception to be held at Cobblestone Farm, 3:00-6:00 p.m. Details forthcoming.
- March 16-17, 2007: Educational Studies Campus Visitation Days for newly admitted PhD students.
- October 20, 2007: Graduate Information Day.