Monthly Digest | December 2025 | | | |
Celebrating Excellence in Arts Education
Congratulations to Renee Weitzel (pictured, center), lecturer in the MAT program and instructor of Visual Arts methods courses, who has been honored with the 2025 Orange County Music and Arts Administrators (OCMAA) Award for Elementary Visual Art.
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Ashley Eckstein Brings Star Wars Magic to UC Irvine
The UC Irvine School of Education welcomed actress and mental health advocate Ashley Eckstein — best known as the voice of Ahsoka Tano in the Star Wars universe — for a packed conversation in Crystal Cove Auditorium as part of the Chancellor’s Arts & Culture Initiative. Students, faculty, and staff filled the room to hear Eckstein reflect on her journey into acting, the evolution of Ahsoka’s character, and how the role reshaped her understanding of kindness and power. She also shared insights into her mental-health advocacy and her Star Wars Mindful Matters series. It was a warm, energetic evening that left the audience inspired and smiling.
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School of Education Interim Dean Receives Prestigious Award
Professor & Interim Dean Julie Washington (pictured, center) received the Honors of the Association Award at the annual American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention. The honor recognizes members for their distinguished contributions to the discipline of communication sciences and disorders and is the highest honor the Association bestows.
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Professor Continues Work Towards Advancing Literacy in California
Young-Suk Kim is playing a key role in California’s new literacy initiative, chairing the panel that guides statewide K–2 reading screening. Her recent talks with OCDE and the American Academy of Pediatrics highlight her commitment to bringing literacy science into classrooms, clinics, and the broader community.
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Future Math Educators Find Their Voice at CMC-South
A group of five UC Irvine CalTeach Math seniors traveled to Palm Springs for the annual California Mathematics Council (CMC)-South Conference, joining educators from across the state to explore new approaches to equitable mathematics teaching, and returned energized, inspired, and ready to bring new strategies into their classrooms.
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Business Officer's Institute
Two School of Education staff members — Lynn Wong and Daniel Choi — recently participated in UC Irvine's Business Officers Institute (BOI), a three-day, in-person leadership training designed to strengthen functional knowledge and support sound business decision-making. The program builds participants’ understanding of campus operations, connects them with key problem-solving resources, and fosters a network of peers across the university.
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Leading Global AI and Climate Education Effort
Through the TEACH-AI project, Asli Sezen-Barrie and partners in Germany and the U.S. are helping future teachers integrate AI into environmental and climate education with awareness, ethics, and purpose.
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UC Irvine Awarded Major Grant to Study the Impact of California’s AB 705 Developmental Education Reform
Professor Di Xu, along with co-investigators XunFei Li and Loris Fagioli, has received an Arnold Ventures grant to study the statewide impact of California’s AB 705. The project will examine how the policy has shaped student pathways across all 114 community colleges, positioning UC Irvine as a leader in evidence-based policymaking aimed at improving college access and student success.
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Partnership Appreciation Breakfast Brings Educators Together
The School of Education's Teacher Academy and California Subject Matter Projects welcomed 53 educators and leaders from 15 school districts to the event dedicated to celebrating collaboration and shared commitment to teacher and student success.
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Society for Research in Child Development Recognizes Ph.D. Student's Research
Doctoral candidate Taylor Wycoff has received the SRCD Student and Early Career Council Dissertation Research Funding Award for her work on culturally responsive practices in after-school programs. Her research, grounded in UC Irvine’s Math CEO partnership, is developing tools to help educators better affirm and support historically marginalized youth.
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New Book from UC Irvine School of Education Alumni
Academic Languaging and Historical Thinking; Cultivating Students' Language Skills for Argument Writing authored by Undarmaa Maamuujav and Jacob Steiss, is scheduled for publication January 2026.
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- Associate Professor Nia Nixon discusses inclusion, belonging, and AI collaboration to STEM (BOLD)
- MAT Supervisor Melinda Glowacki publishes "Coach Today, Save Time Tomorrow" (ACSD)
- Professor Gustavo Carlo defines familismo (WSJ)
- Distinguished Professor Judith Kroll cites promising preliminary studies on older adults learning new languages and the benefits (AP)
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Featured Event: Statewide RPP Gathering Coming to UCI
OCEAN will host a statewide Research-Practice Partnership gathering on January 29–30, bringing more than a dozen RPPs and university partners from across California to the UC Irvine School of Education. The convening will focus on shared priorities such as multilingual learners, student voice, and mathematics, and will offer a great opportunity for our OCEAN community and local district partners to learn and collaborate.
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Jan 4 – Course: AI-Enhanced Learning
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Jan 10 – UCI Writing Project Literacy Conference: The Science of Writing
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Jan 26 – CRLP Administrator PLC Series
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Jan 28 – The Declaration at 250: Why it Matters Today: Beginning the Conversation in History and Civics Classrooms
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Jan 29-30 – California Research Practice Partnership gathering, hosted by UCI OCEAN
| Please visit the Teacher Academy website to view more upcoming workshops. | | Learn more about the UCI School of Education as seen on Viewpoint, hosted by Dennis Quaid | | | | |
