The College Insider is a digital publication for faculty, staff, undergraduates, and grad students and will come out on the first of each month of the academic year. The College Insider features:

 

 

The College Insider is for news that doesn’t necessarily fit the Message from the Dean , although there may be some overlap at times.

 

The deadline for submissions for The College Insider is the first Friday of every month. Whenever you have news to submit, please enter your information here.

 

If you have any questions, please contact Director of Marketing & Communications Ana Luisa Terrazas at [email protected] .

Originally from Dallas, Danielle Hargett moved to Tucson a year ago because Texas just wasn’t hot enough. After graduating from the University of North Texas in 2012, she began her career at a Dallas ad agency where she spent three years working on campaigns for clients like McDonald's and Visionworks. Since then, she has enjoyed working on marketing efforts for nonprofits and businesses in the fashion, environmental, and, most recently, medical industries. She is thrilled to join the College of Education team in her new role as marketing specialist. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, camping, and dancing, and she loves the occasional night of karaoke.

College of Education Junior Wins the Arizona State Museum’s “Year at the Museum” Award

Rebekka Weismantle was awarded a competitive work-study position from the Raymond H. and Molly K. Thompson Endowment to provide a two-semester, hands-on educational experience at the Arizona State Museum. Weismantle is pursuing a degree in leadership, literacy, and learning with a minor in family studies and human development. Arizona State Museum’s Community Engagement program provides a stepping stone into her dream career of working in museum education. The program will provide training and experience in the promotion, scheduling, and presentation of the museum’s Muse2You education kits at K–12 schools, libraries, and community organizations. She will work under the direction of Associate Curator of Education Lisa Falk, who also is the head of community engagement, and Assistant Director of Education Heather Ingram through the spring 2019 semester. 

We’re Creating a New Institute

The college received a grant from the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona to create the Tucson Regional Teacher Professional Development Institute. Leading the charge for the new institute are Dean Bruce Johnson, Assistant Dean Sara Chavarria, and Professor of Educational Psychology Ron Marx. As a result of their efforts, we received $50,000 from a donor through the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona to begin a needs assessment this fall. In the winter, the design work begins.

Why create this institute? Teachers are professionals who should have more choice in advancing their careers. Schools and districts provide important professional development for their teachers, but they are limited by resource and time constraints, so they must focus on school or district priorities. They cannot also be expected to meet the individual needs of all of their teachers. 

There is strength in acknowledging that no single entity can do it all. Partners for the creation of the institute include UA STEM Learning Center, Pima County Schools Superintendent, CITY Center Collaborative, Tucson Values Teachers, Southern Arizona Association for the Education of Young Children, Partners for Equitable Science Instruction, and several local school districts and charter schools.

Hispanic Serving Institution Fellows Program

The HSI Fellows Program is launching a new project-based leadership opportunity for 10 thought and action leaders, including junior and mid-career faculty, academic and administrative heads, program directors, and individuals identified as emerging leaders. The program is designed to strengthen capacity among faculty and staff to advance the UA’s efforts as a newly designated HSI. Faculty and staff from all backgrounds are invited to apply. Support the nomination of someone in your college or department or consider pursuing this opportunity yourself.

Applications are due by Monday, October 8. Please view the attached program for details.

Can Environmentally Friendly Attitudes Be Measured? 

In July, Dean and Professor Bruce Johnson presented alongside TLS Assistant Research Professor Sanlyn Buxner and Lisa Felix, a TLS graduate student, at the 12th Conference of European Researchers in Didactics of Biology in Zaragoza, Spain. Their presentation demonstrated ways to measure environmentally friendly attitudes, knowledge, and behavior across environmental education. 

Also at the conference, Johnson presented with Jan Činčera of Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, about measuring the impact of earth education on children’s environmental perceptions.

Marcy Wood Shares Research in Australasia 

The Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia invited TLS Associate Professor Marcy Wood to be the keynote speaker for the 41st annual conference held in Auckland, New Zealand, this past July. MERGA is a platform for mathematics educators and researchers to share research findings in mathematics education throughout Australasia. Wood’s talk, entitled Making Waves and Opening Spaces: Helping Each Student Engage in Rigorous Mathematics, demonstrated how Complex Instruction can help educators and researchers understand societies’ mathematical misconceptions and, ultimately, how CI can reshape classrooms to better support each student. CI is an approach that enables students to learn and teachers to teach at a high intellectual level in academically, linguistically, racially, ethnically, and socially heterogeneous classrooms.

The College of Education Office of Development surpassed its 2018 annual fundraising goal of $1.7 million, raising just more than $2 million. In addition, the college is already halfway to meeting the 2019 goal of raising $2.1 million!  

More good news: Our college endowment has now surpassed $14 million.

Arizona Schools: 49th in the Nation. Seriously? Let’s Fix It!

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

6:30–8 p.m.

Education Building, Kiva Room

Join the College of Education on Wednesday, October 10, for a panel discussion on how citizen propositions, clean elections, and oversight legislation can save Arizona public education. Arizona’s annual school funding is a billion dollars less than it was in 2008. That’s a $4.5 billion loss since 2009. If we want a state where children can thrive, we need to invest in the schools that educate 95 percent of Arizona students.

RSVP here .

About the panelists

Dawn Penich-Thacker is the co-founder and communications director of Save Our Schools Arizona. She will discuss how grassroots movements can support and strengthen public schools.

Kirsten Engel is a professor at the UA College of Law and a member of the Arizona House of Representatives. Representative Engel will discuss the role of the Legislature in school funding and regulations.

Pam Powers Hannley is a member of the House of Representatives. Representative Powers Hannley will discuss the role of dark money and how we can protect clean elections. 

Binational Encuentro:

Female Migrations 

October 11-19, 2018 

The College of Education is proud to sponsor Binational Encuentro: Female Migrations, a series of events that explores what it means to be a gendered border crosser. The nine-day series presented by the UA Department of Spanish & Portuguese and Splitseed Productions, a Tucson-based company that produces events for social change, features artists from Mexico City, Tucson, Phoenix, and Douglas. Attendees will discover concepts of border, territory, and displacement in a series of free workshops, roundtables, and performances open to the public. Events are in both Tucson and Douglas. Please see the attachment for more details.

COE Wine Harvest

Homecoming Reception 

Friday, October 26, 2018 

5:30-7:30 p.m.

Education Building, West Patio 

Join the College of Education for its annual Wine Harvest Homecoming Reception honoring the college's Alumnus of the Year Rufus Glasper ’95 and the Class of 1968 as they celebrate their 50th class reunion. Gather with fellow alumni for a special evening of selected wines and hors d'oeuvres. The event ends just in time for the bonfire.

All College of Education faculty, staff, and alumni are invited to attend at no charge. 

Register here .