Penn State College of Education Alumni Magazine - Spring 2020

Spring Two Thousand Twenty

Contents Dean Kimberly A. Lawless

Editor Annemarie Mountz

Writers Jim Carlson, Stephanie Koons, Annemarie Mountz

Photographers Jim Carlson, Annemarie Mountz

Contact Us 247 Chambers Building University Park, PA 16802-3206 814-863-2216 www.ed.psu.edu • edrelations@psu.edu Published twice a year by the Penn State College of Education

Dean’s Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Social Justice Collaborative tackling today’s tough topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The work is hard, the passion behind it profound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 So many questions, not enough answers . . . . . . . 5 Chatters sees change in participating students . . 5 ‘Her heart never left Penn State’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

College of Education Alumni Society Officers

Faculty members advocate for those who can’t advocate for themselves . . . . . . . . . . . 8

President: Pamela Peter President-elect: Joseph Clapper Immediate past president: Tonya DeVecchis-Kerr Secretary: Douglas Womelsdorf

Research leads to improved mental health services on college campuses nationwide . . . . . 10

Directors

Nicole Birkbeck John Czerniakowski Kiley Foley Pamela Francis Shubha Kashyap Jonathan Klingeman Jonathan Lozano Amy Meisinger

Kaela Fuentes-Packnick John Rozzo Sharon Salter Cathy Tomon Lawrence Wess Jeannene Willow Sharlene Yontosh

Student Members Sydney Chiat Hannah Chisler

Ashwin Mohan

Digital technology helps online master’s students build a sense of community . . . . . . . . . 12 Grad student wants to help visually impaired people ... just like himself . . . . . . . . . . 14 Professor, students examine charter school hiring practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Alumni instrumental in shaping who We Were, who We Are, who We Will Be . . . . . . 18 Alumnus named Peruvian minister of education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Alumni Society Board president’s message . . . . 21

The University is committed to equal access to programs, facilities, admission and employment for all persons. It is the policy of the University to maintain an environment free of harassment and free of discrimination against any person because of age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, service in the uniformed services (as defined in state and federal law), veteran status, sex, sexual orientation, marital or family status, pregnancy, pregnancy-related conditions, physical or mental disability, gender, perceived gender, gender identity, genetic information or political ideas. Discriminatory conduct and harassment, as well as sexual misconduct and relationship violence, violates the dignity of individuals, impedes the realization of the University’s educational mission, and will not be tolerated. Direct all inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policy to the Affirmative Action Office, The Pennsylvania State University, 328 Boucke Building, University Park, PA 16802-5901, Email: aao@psu.edu, Tel (814) 863-0471.

U.Ed. EDU 20-112

Nominate outstanding alumni for annual excellence awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 About the Alumni Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 On the cover: Assistant Professor Efraín Marimón gets his point across during a Principles of Social Justice Class. Marimón, along with Ashley Patterson, Seria Chatters and three instructors in the State College Area School District have formed a Social Justice Collaboration to create courses and programs at Penn State and in the State College middle and high schools.

Dean’s Message This edition of the College of Education Alumni Magazine is coming to you exclusively in electronic form for the first time in the publication’s history. We made the decision to not print and mail it because of a number of factors related to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

I know many of you have enjoyed the magazine’s content online – either through issuu.com or through links provided through our Bridges newsletter – for several years now. For those of you accustomed to reading the print version, we hope you enjoy the online experience. If you would prefer to read a hard copy, it is possible to download and print a PDF of the magazine from issuu.com.

While COVID-19 has disrupted how we do our work, I want to assure you that it has not disrupted our commitment to our mission of education, research and outreach.

The University as a whole, and the College of Education specifically, demonstrated this spring that we are agile, adapting and evolving education to match modern times. We transitioned to remote instruction in just days this spring, and our students and faculty are finding creative ways to engage and maintain an academic community.

Dean Kim Lawless

As an example, David Guthrie, associate professor of education in the Department of Education Policy Studies, was determined to hold a virtual hooding ceremony for his 13 graduating M.Ed. students, and he did it with the help of his wife, and photos provided by his students. Enjoy these photos of the event.

As we planned out this magazine, COVID-19 was looming on our horizon. We talked about sharing stories on how we are coping with changes brought on by the pandemic, but decided instead to share stories about the good work of the College, past and present.

As you, our alumni, are well aware, our faculty members have an impact that goes well beyond the classroom and research labs. They provide life-changing, immersive experiences for their students, inspiring them to action for the betterment of society.

On these digital pages, you’ll read about some of the work being done by faculty and students in our new Social Justice Collaborative; how two of our faculty members took their advocacy for people with special needs all the way to Washington, D.C., and one who is working to change hiring practices in charter schools.

Vanessa Siddle Walker, immediate past-chair of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), shared with us the story of her mother, a black teacher in the segregated South, who was welcomed to the Penn State University Park campus to pursue her master’s degree in education in 1954, just before the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision was handed down.

Meet a few of our alumni whose continued involvement in our College has been instrumental in shaping who We Were, who We Are, and who We Will Be. And meet alumnus Martín Benavides, who now is the Minister of Education in Venezuela.

These stories illustrate the impact our College has on society, and they’re only the tip of the iceberg. We would love to hear your story, too. Email us as edrelations@psu.edu to share what you are doing to shape your corner of the world.

Be well,

Penn State Education

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Social Justice Collaborative tackling today’s tough topics

T

By Jim Carlson

hree people in the College of Education with one very similar passion have banded together to help as much of society as possible when it comes to social justice.

Penn State faculty members Ashley Patterson and Efraín Marimón, along with Seria Chatters, an adjunct associate professor and director of equity and inclusivity for the State College Area School District (SCASD), and three of the district’s teachers, recently formed what has become known as the Social Justice Collaborative. It’s a joint effort to create immersive courses and programs about social justice at Penn State and within SCASD. “Each of our unique paths brought us for some reason or another to really holding tightly to a social justice-orientated lens for the world and that’s what connects us,” said Patterson, who noted that pieces of the collaborative started coming together in fall 2018. “Part of that is we see the necessity of unity within our diversity, whereas I think in some collaboratives people can start to feel threatened by people having skills that they don’t.

“In the collaborative, each of us celebrates the unique skills the others have. Because we all know we are willing to contribute our skills for the greater good, we can take the ego out of it,” she said.

Patterson, Marimón and Chatters are dedicated and devoted to shifting people from apathy to empathy. The simple definition of social justice is to preserve human dignity for all, particularly those who suffer from systematic disadvantage.

As uncomplicated as that might

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Photo: Lily Tian Laregina

Students in the D.C. Social Justice Fellowship course complete an in-class exercise.

sound, the road to social justice has been, and still is, constructed of rugged terrain.

Marimón, assistant professor of education and director of the Restorative Justice Initiative and Social Justice Fellowship within the College, strives to see “real” social change.

“And that work is hard,” Marimón said. “I want to see a community that operates fairly, one that’s not focused on incarceration, one that’s focused on humanity … healing … one that’s compassionate, that extends empathy. I want to re-imagine the community that operates with those values. And I know that’s somewhat abstract, but the work is not.”

For the collective, the work entails teaching a Principles of Social Justice (CI185) class as part of a new Social Justice in Education minor in the College of Education,

as well as three social justice courses at the middle- and highschool levels within SCASD and the Social Justice Summer Institute as part of a high-school peer advocates program.

The new minor in the College will consist of six courses, and six of the 18 credits must be courses that take a student outside of the traditional classroom setting, such as the D.C. Social Justice class, the Philadelphia Urban Education Seminar, the Ecuador Immersion Project or the new Maymester program in Oaxaca, Mexico.

The collaborative also includes SCASD teachers Jackie Saylor, Lori McGarry and Virginia Squier, who instruct classes at the high school and within the school’s Delta Program titled Bridging Divides and Diversity and Social Justice. Patterson said the SCASD administration has expressed interest in adding more sections

of the courses. Additionally, Nicole Webster, associate professor of agriculture and extension education and, like Patterson a qualitative researcher, helps secure funding for student trips and other activities under the collaboration umbrella.

conscious, aware individuals who will work to build a more equitable society — one that values human dignity and restorative justice.”

Chatters, in her role as director of equity and inclusivity within SCASD, is able to gauge younger students’ true feelings because she has heard them, particularly on the bus coming back from the Alabama trip last fall.

Squier accompanied students on a trip she labeled as “life-changing” to Alabama to visit the cities of Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma, where they learned about activism.

“You could hear students chitchatting with each other and one of the major things was ‘I don’t understand why we haven’t been taught this before. I don’t understand why we did not know this stuff before. Why are we just learning this now?’” Chatters said.

“For me, the trip was incredibly powerful,” Squier said. “To see, finally, the places about which I had read and seen movies. History was brought to life for me in a way I had never experienced before.

What made it even more powerful was the ability to share it with my students ... to have them learn about the history, and then see where it took place.”

The trip can have many more helpful implications, Squier said. “I want my students to learn how to conduct a deep dive on a topic – to understand the historical, cultural and institutional structures that, in this case, allowed racism to grow and fester in this country, and then learn how to identify an issue they care about,” she said.

“I want them to be able to examine that issue deeply, learning the structural supports the issue has, and learn how to engage as an activist on the topic. If I could, I would have administrators and staff also take this trip, so they can be as profoundly moved as I was and as my students were.”

Students who participate in the Social Justice Summer Institute either have completed or are still working on a variety of projects, including:

Photo: Lily Tian Laregina

Ashley Patterson hands out materials in the D.C. Social Justice Fellowship course.

• A design of professional development for SCASD faculty to raise awareness of equity issues around the observance of religious holidays; and • Interviews with students of color in SCASD middle and high schools to inform deliberative conversations around race in school and community forums and with the school Board of Directors, among many others.

Those topics touch on a number of ongoing societal issues and Marimón believes that students should be involved in solving these complex problems.

• A podcast on bullying in SCASD middle schools;

“We need students to engage in order to have an active citizenry.

We’re going to have to confront unpleasant things, disturbing parts of our past — and our current situations. That’s a necessary, important part of our work,” Marimón said.

• An original short story about coming out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community;

“We need to teach students to be critical of that, to be active in that. Yes, I’m hoping they are more

• A podcast on the Bridging Divides journey to Alabama;

Hearing conversations when students thought no one was listening enabled Chatters to realize how engaged the students are.

“A lot of times they are talking about their environment and things they are seeing, or the news. It’s interesting how they’ve turned into more analytical consumers of the news and information around it,” she said.

Photo: Lily Tian Laregina

Faculty member Efraín Marimón says it’s hard work to achieve social change.

Penn State Education

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Some of the community projects in which SCASD students took part were modeled on work that Patterson and Marimón had done with the D.C. Social Justice Project, Patterson said.

“We took a lot of elements from that course in designing the Civic Action Plan component as a part of this class. We don’t believe that work can be called ‘social justice’ if it doesn’t have an action component to it,” Patterson said.

“It is incredibly important for students who are burgeoning activists and advocates to start local and to think about a range of things they can have a direct impact on.”

What has materialized among all of the students involved, Patterson said, is good, fruitful, thoughtful discussion.

“You have to also think Seria Chatters about the ways you are contributing to and benefiting from a system that oppresses others.

That’s uncomfortable,” Patterson said.

“It’s uncomfortable for adults to

do, so certainly it’s uncomfortable for students to do … that process of getting students to a point where they understand that you can’t just say ‘well, I’m a good person because I’m progressive.’ How do your actions affect other people?

“I think that’s been a little bit more of a challenge,” Patterson said, “because we’re asking people to think about things they consider to be very normal in a way that makes the normal strange, as it were.

“It’s a challenging process when it feels comfortable to be able to say ‘I’m liberal so I am not a part of the problem.’”

Below and on the facing page, we feature faculty members whose passions and efforts were driving forces behind the creation of the Social Justice Collaborative.

The work is hard, the passion behind it profound A phrase commonly echoed within social justice work, according to Ashley Patterson, is that the bulk of this type of work cannot fall only on the shoulders of the people who benefit most from it.

“So, eventually, poor people and people of color cannot always be the ones who are doing this work,” she said.

Patterson said.

“You’re here because of decisions that people before you made and you didn’t have power in those decisions.

There’s not much going to be benefited by you abandoning or denouncing your privilege because it’s really not possible.”

Instead, Patterson borrows “I believe the infusion of an an explanation she came across equity-oriented stance into the in her own study of social world-view of young people justice and tells her students and future teachers will help that white privilege in our prevent other young students country is like a debit card that Ashley Patterson who feel marginalized in their constantly reloads itself. school settings from struggling.

“Even if you put yourself in a sticky situation one For me, teaching social justice coursework at both day by speaking up or speaking out on injustice the collegiate and high school levels is an excellent in a way that some people really don’t like in the vehicle by which to foster positive change,” moment, at the end of the day, your white privilege Patterson said. card is going to be reloaded to maximum capacity Her message to her students at both the … so what do you lose by taking that risk?” collegiate and scholastic levels is direct. “One thing Patterson said.

I’m constantly saying to my group is the purpose “If the privilege is there, and it’s going to be of our work is not to have you all walking around there, what can we do to ensure that we’re not feeling guilty about living a life that really had nothing to do with you and your personal choices,” making purchases that hurt other people?”

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Penn State Education

So many questions, not enough answers

Chatters sees change in participating students

For Efraín Marimón, the more questions the Social Justice Collaborative tries to answer for its students, the more arise.

Along with being director of equity and inclusivity in the State College Area School District (SCASD) and an adjunct associate professor in the College of Education, Seria Chatters has two sons in the district who participated in the Bridging Divides class that toured three historic cities in Alabama.

He recited these for starters: • What does it mean to work with students from underrepresented communities or from black and brown Efraín Marimón communities?

• What does it mean in terms of your critical reflection?

• What are our responsibilities as educators, as individuals in society?

• How do we undo the harm of generations before us?

• How do we start working toward collective solutions to complex problems?

“We need to teach these concepts. We need to embed them into the curriculum, not just in a social studies class, but across the curriculum. That makes us more socially conscious individuals, and that hopefully leads us to a much better place tomorrow,” Marimón said.

“It needs to be very much a part of all our work, whether they’re going to be in the field as an advocate, a teacher, whatever it may be,” he said. “I want them to make sure that they’re thinking about impact on the community, thinking about what are the things that are informing their decisions.”

The fact that college and high school students are engaging in these topics is outstanding, Marimón said, but an infinite amount of work remains. “We have a long, long way to go,” he said. “While I want to celebrate the success we’ve had in partnering and expanding these opportunities in the school district and the College, I’m more aware of the likely challenges that lie ahead. This work is hard. We’re far from where I think we’d like to be in the future.”

“The exciting yet nerve-wracking part of it is that their course, for the first time, is really teaching students, students of color included, about this part of history that they are not really learning in any other courses,” Chatters said.

“With my two boys being black boys, they got this opportunity not only to learn about the history, but then with us traveling to Alabama, to live the history. My greatgrandparents are from Alabama.”

Chatters said the educational trip was emotionally exhausting for the students, but noted that students who have gone through this course have expressed interest in careers in social justice, teaching, law and policy.

Seria Chatters

“In these collaboratives, professors get to see the real-world impact of research-based methodology and pedagogy, while teachers get real-time support of leaders in the field. I can see a research/practice partnership being set up that supports many surrounding school districts in their equity efforts while providing real-time feedback for researchers at Penn State,” Chatters said.

The social studies curriculum at SCASD is in a cycle to be revamped and the district incorporated the Teaching Tolerance organization’s established social justice standards along with PA and C3 (college, career and civic life framework) standards. “We are working to get social justice education across the district,” she said, noting that she is confident that goals for infusing an equity-based orientation will be met.

Penn State Education

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‘Her heart never left Penn State’ One woman’s story of teaching — and learning — in the Brown v. Board of Education era

By Annemarie Mountz

Vanessa Siddle Walker knew about Penn State from the time she was born in the late 1950s, even though she grew up in North Carolina.

“I grew up hearing about the Nittany Lions,” said Siddle Walker, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Educational Studies at Emory University in Atlanta and the immediate past-president of the American Educational Research Association. “My Mom was at Penn State and she loved it. I grew up my entire life hearing about Penn State.”

Siddle Walker’s mother, Helen Elizabeth Beasley Siddle, originally wanted to be a doctor, but having grown up in the segregated South, found that was not an option.

“While my grandparents were able to put together a beautiful life for their family, they didn’t have the economic resources to support her education, that would let her go to medical school,” Siddle Walker said.

They also didn’t have the money to send her three hours away to Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, so she went to Elizabeth City State, which was within walking distance of her home, to become a teacher.

Upon graduation, “Miss Beasley” took her first teaching job in Milton, North Carolina, in the town’s Rosenwald School.

“Of course, we also know from the work of James Anderson and others that the black communities at the end of the day put in more money than the Rosenwald Foundation actually put in, but it was a way to get school houses for 6

Penn State Education

Photo provided by Vanessa Siddle Walker

Helen Elizabeth Beasley inside the two-room Rosenwald School where she taught. While she may not have had resources from the county, the materials she put on the walls demonstrate the ways she still sought to educate the children in her class.

black children in the South,” said Siddle Walker, whose own research focuses on segregated schooling of African American children.

“So, my mother, I now know, was in one of those Rosenwald Schools in Milton, North Carolina, and she would have confronted all the challenges that went with being a black teacher in 1951 in Rosenwald Schools. We know it’s well documented, the inequality in facilities and resources and equipment,” Siddle Walker said.

“But, as I have written about, we also know that there was not a lack of spirit among black educators during this period. They were determined to figure out how to help black children to actually be able to obtain the full citizenship rights that America owed them that they had been denied.”

Siddle Walker said that when her mother graduated from college in 1951, the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case was looming. She said although they had to deal with the inequality in

facilities and resources, there also was a sense of resilience and hope for change. “And I wonder, though she never talked about it, if she might have been part of that,” she said.

“She never talked about what she thought about the Brown decision. She didn’t talk about the challenges, but she did always talk about how she wanted to be the best teacher she could be, in a period where inequality in salaries between black and white teachers dominated the era. I can remember my mom saying, ‘I just wanted to make sure that I earned the salary that I made,’ which in retrospect is an interesting statement because she could have been saying ‘they didn’t give me enough money’ and be mad about it. But she didn’t talk about that. She talked about the importance of teaching, and that shows this kind of resilient mindset.”

In 1954, the year of the Brown v.

Board of Education decision, Helen Elizabeth Beasley was ready to

Photos provided by Vanessa Siddle Walker

Helen Elizabeth Beasley Siddle likely knew about how to obtain the North Carolina scholarship money to go to Penn State through her membership in this black teachers’ education organization, top. At right, she is with her husband, the Rev. Theodore R. Siddle, on their wedding day.

further her education. “We know even before that decision southern states were providing all kinds of money in order to get black teachers to go north for their studies. That was a way of circumventing petitions to the southern white universities to come study there,” Siddle Walker said. So, Beasley made the trek north and first set foot on the Penn State University Park campus in the summer of 1954.

“Penn State had programs where you could be a teacher, and then you will come every summer for four summers and get your master’s degree,” said Siddle Walker, whose research showed Penn State was one of several northern schools with similar programs.

“Whether these institutions were intensely catering to black teachers or whether these programs already existed before black teachers started coming, I don’t know.”

Siddle Walker said with the Brown decision, there was the immediate backlash of threats to fire black teachers if the decision was ever implemented. “It’s in that moment that Mom, as well as other black teachers, chose to go to Penn State … and remember that all the years she was at Penn State would have still been during segregation,” she said.

Unfortunately, Siddle Walker’s mother was not able to complete her master’s degree at Penn State. She married the Rev. Theodore Siddle in the summer of 1955, returned to Penn State in the summer of 1956, but was pregnant with Vanessa the summer of 1957, the year she was scheduled to finish her degree.

“I heard that story so many times about how she did not get to finish her last summer at Penn State, and go to Europe with her class, because she was pregnant with me and she couldn’t go, as though it was my fault,” Siddle Walker said.

Ultimately, Siddle earned her master’s degree from North Carolina A&T. “But this is what is important.

Mom went to A&T because that’s what she had to do –

at that point she’s married and she has a child. But her heart never left Penn State,” Siddle Walker said.

She said she has no idea why her mother chose Penn State, but suspects that she wanted to be ready for desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. “She was part of the North Carolina Teachers Association and I found her membership card,” Siddle Walker said. “I know they were encouraged to go on to school, to be ready when integration came. My guess is that Penn State provided the program and North Carolina provided the money.”

Siddle Walker’s mother was able to make one last trip to Penn State before she passed away, nearly 30 years ago. She was terminally ill when she and her husband visited Siddle Walker, who was then a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“As a surprise to her, I decided to drive my mother to Penn State. It was the only time she was back on the campus since she left in 1956,” Siddle Walker said.

“She was very moved. She was so happy to be back.

All I did was drive her around the campus. Between ‘56 and ’90, it’s grown a lot. We were trying to find buildings that she might remember. I remember her saying, ‘oh, it’s so different.’

“And I remember taking her to the bookstore to get a Penn State shirt. And then that afternoon we drove back to Philadelphia. So actually, our very last family trip was back to Penn State. I think that is appropriate and fitting, since I grew up my entire life hearing about Penn State from her.”

Penn State Education

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Faculty members advocate for those who can’t advocate for themselves

K

By Stephanie Koons

athleen McKinnon and Jonte Taylor have a passion for their work that is evident both in and out of the classroom.

The two associate professors of education (special education) not only educate the next generation of special education teachers, but also advocate for much-needed resources for their field.

“It’s always been a field where you advocate for people who can’t advocate for themselves,” said Mary Catherine Scheeler, associate professor of education (special education) and professor-in-charge of the program in the Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education (EPCSE).

During the Higher Education Consortium for Special Education (HECSE) Summit they attended in January in Washington, D.C., McKinnon and Taylor made about 70 visits to Capitol Hill, where they met with U.S. Sens. Pat Toomey (R) and Bob Casey (D) and four members of the U.S. House of Representatives, attended panel discussions and networked with other government officials.

“Clearly, we advocate for more funding and more teaching programs and doctoral programs in special education,” said Taylor, who has been a member of HECSE for four years. “Advocacy is always a long-range goal,” Taylor said. “We advocate for everyone in the whole state.”

One of the main benefits of this type of networking, McKinnon said, is being able to form connections with government officials who are in a position to influence policy decisions.

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Photo courtesy of HECSE

Faculty members from Penn State College of Education and University of Pittsburgh School of Education visited Capitol Hill as part of 2019 Higher Education Consortium on Special Education (HECSE) and discussed the national teacher shortage, the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA) and proposed grant funding changes for teacher candidates. From left, are Kathleen McKinnon, associate professor, Penn State College of Education; Tessa McCarthy, faculty member, University of Pittsburgh School of Education; Rep. Mike Doyle (PA-18th District); Amy Srsic, faculty member, University of Pittsburgh School of Education; and Jonte Taylor, associate professor, Penn State College of Education.

“That’s the idea — that you make those connections so if they have a question about special education, they have a place where they can go in Pennsylvania,” said McKinnon, who is in her third year as a HECSE member.

One of the main issues addressed at the summit was the overall decline in teachers certified in special education in Pennsylvania and in the U.S. in general.

According to a fact sheet prepared by HECSE for the January summit, there was a 17% decline in the number of special education teachers between 2005 and 2012, and a simultaneous increase (of 400,000) in the number of students receiving special education services.

Since 2009, there has been a 19% reduction in the number of special education doctoral programs, and a 17% reduction in the production of new special education doctoral degrees between 2012 and 2017.

Taylor and McKinnon focused their summit conversations on the appropriations from the 2020 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill for funding personal preparation grants for master and doctoral level special education programs.

“We really talked most about the doctoral level funding because the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) projection for this year is that the appropriations will not include funding for doctorallevel training grants,” McKinnon

said. “The lack of federal funding for teacher preparation directly impacts higher education and school districts.”

In addition to making several recommendations for spending increases for special education programs under the bill, HECSE supports a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA) with multiple provisions to recruit and retain candidates to become skilled educators.

According to the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), the HEA is a federal law that governs the administration of federal higher education programs.

First passed in 1965 to ensure that every individual has access to higher education, it is generally scheduled for reauthorization

by Congress every five years to encourage progressive movement.

Due to the high demand for well-trained special educators, McKinnon said there has been an “alarming increase in emergency certifications in special education in recent years.”

Emergency certification is a “stop-gap measure” intended for situations when a district is in need of a teacher but a certified teacher is not available. An article on Special Education Guide’s website said Pennsylvania has two main routes to alternative certification.

“It’s the policies that are going to make the changes. If we have an opportunity to advocate at the policy level, we want to do it.”

program with “faculty who have dedicated their lives to train teachers.”

In comparison, McKinnon said, there are only a handful of institutions in other states such as Virginia that offer comparable programs.

In addition to advocating for increased funding for programs, Taylor said, the HECSE conference provides a good opportunity “to get the scoop on federal funding for teacher training programs, so you know what grants to apply for or should prepare to apply for.”

— Kathleen McKinnon

The first is the Pennsylvania Teacher Intern Certification Program, which requires a minimum of a bachelor’s degree in the area in which an individual wants to be certified, as well as passing qualifying exams. Candidates take a full-time professional teaching position while completing an induction program with additional academic and testing requirements.

The second option is to earn a Passport to Teaching license issued by the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence. This permit grants candidates the ability to teach for one year while they complete the Point Park University alternative certification program, according to AllEducationSchools.com.

One of the faculty members’ main objectives at the HECSE conference, McKinnon said, was to emphasize to the legislators that Pennsylvania, with its educational resources, is well equipped to tackle the special education teacher shortage.

Out of the 164 four-year higher education institutions in the commonwealth, there are more than 50 that offer a special education

Institutions such as the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and Institute of Educational Science (IES) bring in program directors to talk with the conference attendees about what programs they are funding and for how much, while answering questions about the process.

“It’s the policies that are going to make the changes,” McKinnon said. “If we have an opportunity to advocate at the policy level, we want to do it.”

The Higher Education Consortium for Special Education (http://hecse.net/) is a national organization representing more than 70 university programs that prepare doctoral level personnel for leadership roles in special education. HECSE member institutions work to ensure that preparation is informed by research and evidence-based practice, which has demonstrated positive outcomes for PK-12 students.

Creating Transformative Experiences We are committed to providing opportunities that foster socially aware, innovative and academically prepared global citizens. Through the Greater Penn State campaign, alumni and friends can partner with us in creating these co-curricular offerings that will define a bright future for our students and our community.

For more Information, contact: Development and Alumni Relations College of Education 247 Chambers Building University Park, PA 16802

814-863-2146 education@psu.edu Penn State Education

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Research leads to improved mental health services on college campuses nationwide

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enn State’s College of Education is continually looking at ways to be a change agent in addressing societal challenges to make life better for its students, faculty, staff and alumni.

That mental health is consistently identified across those groups as an issue of paramount importance became even more exacerbated more than a decade ago when universities nationwide began to outsource their counseling centers.

By Jim Carlson counseling centers called the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH), which brings together clinical work, research and technology, all based at Penn State, Hayes said.

“My students and I have conducted a number of studies that examine the relationship between different psychological problems and academic success in

of students, including students of color and LGBTQ students.

“We did a study some years ago wondering if students of color who are not heterosexual faced more stress than white LGBTQ students, or heterosexual students of color,” Hayes said. “It’s very hard to do a study like that at one institution for a number of reasons. But there were thousands of students in this sample from all over the country which allowed us to have confidence in the findings.

“We are able to make some inroads around issues of diversity and equity and inclusion that are not opinionbased or solely conceptual but are empirically based,” he said.

Jeffrey Hayes, professor of education (counselor education), at that time joined representatives That’s from nearly relevant, Hayes five dozen said, not only counseling for the scientific centers to process but attempt to collectively for provide an Photo provided community and empirical basis The Center for Collegiate Mental Health has seen an increase in the number of students seeking culture. demonstrating services, and professor of education Jeffrey Hayes believes that’s because there is less stigma around the “I just think seeking psychological help. effectiveness that’s terribly of what those important in today’s society where, terms of GPA, retention and timely centers were doing to help students as I see it, people in the United graduation,” Hayes said. “It does succeed. seem like we’re uniquely positioned States and elsewhere are less and less civil, our citizenship is What began as a relatively small as a college of education to address polarized, people overvalue their group of researchers and mental the interface of mental health and opinions,” he said. “Everyone has a health professionals collecting data learning across the lifespan.” blog. Facts are distorted, and even on college students across the He said that because the data when facts are reported accurately, country who seek psychological set is so large, CCMH is able information doesn’t lead to help has blossomed into a practice to examine the psychological knowledge, and knowledge doesn’t research network of 626 university challenges faced by multiple groups lead to wisdom.

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“We’re seeking to provide an empirical foundation that will help students, that will help educators, that will help our graduates to become successful, and will help people at university counseling centers who are in the position of trying to assist students while they’re in college and beyond.”

CCMH at Penn State is run by an interdisciplinary team consisting of Ben Locke, director of the Penn State Center for Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS); Louis Castonguay, a professor in the Department of Psychology; and Hayes.

“And then, the 600-plus University counseling centers that constitute Center for Collegiate Mental Health contribute an annual modest fee that allows us to have an operating budget, so we are able to fund two project managers and four to six graduate research assistants per year,” Hayes said.

Hayes teaches graduate courses in counseling theory and an undergraduate class that provides an introduction to counseling. His scholarship focuses on college student mental health as well as psychotherapist factors that affect the process and outcome of therapy.

He also is a licensed psychologist with a private practice in State College.

“There’s just this natural convergence of my interests in research, teaching and practice that have come together in working with these really amazing colleagues locally and nationally, and more recently internationally,” he said.

“It took us just about five years to establish good psychometric properties for the primary instrument that we use to collect data. I love the challenge of doing good research, but instead of just doing my research in my office with my students to satisfy my intellectual curiosity, CCMH is a different beast. There’s this wonderful synergy between practice and research where it’s very hard to distinguish one from

the other since data are collected as a routine part of clinical work and our research questions are driven by the concepts of practitioners,” Hayes said.

Hayes said multi-year data show that the growth in institutional enrollment in the United States has been far exceeded by the number of students seen at university counseling centers, and the number of students seen at university counseling centers is far exceeded by the demand for services.

“We have seen an increase in the number of students who want services, and I think the reasons for that growth pertain to less stigma around seeking psychological help,” he said.

“We know that an enormous percentage of people who seek help at university counseling centers have been in some form of counseling or psychotherapy previously, nearly 40%. As more students are enrolling in institutions of higher education, we’re simply enrolling more students with psychological problems.”

How can I get involved with the College of Education?

Alumni and friends of the College of Education are important partners in the success of our students. We need volunteers, student mentors and goodwill ambassadors for the College.

While students who sought help 20 years ago were suffering primarily from depression, today it’s anxiety, Hayes said. “What contributes to that? A lot of it has to do with technology. People have 434 electronic friends but they aren’t comfortable engaging in intimate conversation and they don’t know how to be by themselves.”

Hayes said what is unique about the work of CCMH is that with very few exceptions, they do not have to worry about external validity because their research consists of a nationally representative sample.

“We ask students, ‘are you OK having your de-identified data contributed to a national pool,’ and 95% of them say yes,” Hayes said. “What we’re doing is much different that way. Every month, we get data uploaded from tens of thousands of college students across the country.”

To learn more, contact: Development and Alumni Relations College of Education education@psu.edu 814-863-2146 https://bit.ly/CoE_get_involved

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Digital technology helps online master’s students build a sense of community

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By Stephanie Koons

he online education revolution has transformed the way many people pursue college degrees — particularly older and nontraditional students who are juggling career, family and obligations all at the same time.

Allie Goldstein, assistant professor of education in the College of Education’s Department of Education Policy Studies (EPS), utilizes digital technology to help her online master’s students further their careers as well as build a sense of community.

“The students are really excited to be members of Penn State and to be part of this community even though they’re not physically on campus,” she said. “It’s just really exciting to create that connection for students if that is what they want.”

According to the program’s website, the online master’s in higher education is a 30-credit professional degree program designed to prepare students and professionals for the field of postsecondary education.

The program, which started in fall 2014, is offered through the Penn State Education

senior administrators, student affairs professionals and a few career changers.

For Goldstein, teaching the World Campus courses has allowed her to work at her alma mater — she received her doctorate in higher education from the College of Education in 2017 with her dissertation focused on online education.

“Most commonly, students in the program are in the field of education – either already working in higher education, or in K-12 or other education-related areas, looking to transition into higher education,” Goldstein said.

Goldstein, who has a student affairs background, said teaching online classes marries her interests in the academic side of higher

“It’s just so amazing that they study with us, build this connection to Penn State and we get to see how this network expands and all the incredible things our students are doing.”

Goldstein teaches HIED 808 ProSeminar, and HIED 843 Foundations of Student Affairs in the Master of Education in Higher Education program offered through Penn State World Campus.

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Center for the Study of Higher Education and the Department of Education Policy Studies.

— Allie Goldstein education and building student morale.

“I kind of realized online (education) is the best of both worlds,” she said.

Goldstein said the master’s in higher education prepares students for careers in various areas of higher education administration, including student affairs, fundraising and athletic training.

There currently are about 150 students in the program from states across the U.S. including Alaska, Florida and Texas, as well as from countries including Qatar and China. The student body includes

There also are quite a few students who work at Penn State commonwealth campuses, as the program is a natural fit for current employees who would like to advance in the Penn State system.

“It’s just so amazing that they study with us, build this connection to Penn State and we get to see how this network expands and all the incredible things our students are doing,” she said.

While there may be a natural tendency to stack online and traditional education up against each other, Goldstein emphasized that they are not comparable.

People choose to study online for a variety of reasons, she said, and it is her job as an instructor to tailor the experience to their needs.

The average online student is a bit older than traditional students and has other obligations such as work and family.

Since the online students are separated geographically, she said she looks for innovative ways to build a connection while taking advantage of user-friendly tools

Edited screen capture

Allie Goldstein, who teaches in the online master’s in higher education program through Penn State World Campus, brings students from across the U.S. and around the world together through Zoom, a remote video conferencing service.

such as communications software provided by Zoom, a company that combines video conferencing and online meetings.

To build rapport among her online students, she sends weekly announcements and shares key takeaways from assignments in lieu of traditional group discussion.

Additionally, she incorporates icebreakers into her classes by asking questions such as “What is your least favorite food” and “What is your favorite leadership quote?”

One of the biggest challenges of teaching online, Goldstein said, is not being certain how her feedback will be interpreted by her students since they can’t hear her tone or read her facial expressions. Her solution is to be extra mindful of

how she presents her ideas.

“I take a lot of time to think about the message I’m creating,” she said.

In her classes, Goldstein tries to take advantage of the varied perspectives that her students bring from their respective positions.

university president, and see how they bounce ideas off each other.

“It’s just like a real minicommunity that you’re building,” she said. “It’s really rewarding and fun to be part of.”

For example, she may put four academic advisers from four different institutions together on a project so they could each benefit from the viewpoints of other institutions.

In 2019, Goldstein was able to arrange for some of her students to participate virtually in two conferences: the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Conference in Los Angeles in March and the Penn State Division of Undergraduate Studies Conference at Penn State in September.

Alternatively, she might group together different types of higher education professionals, such as a budget officer, student affairs specialist, athletic director and

“Technology really allows us to do some exciting things and it’s cool to see how much people value those opportunities and experiences,” she said.

Did you get a new job, celebrate a career milestone, get a promotion or award, recently retire, or have other career-related news to share? If so, we want to hear from you. Email us at edrelations@psu.edu with your name, information about your achievement, and the degree(s) you earned and year(s) of graduation from the Penn State College of Education.

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Grad student wants to help visually impaired people ... just like himself

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ooYoung Seo, a doctoral candidate in the College of Education’s Learning, Design, and Technology program, has secured a highly competitive internship with RStudio that will allow him to help people just like himself – those with severe visual impairments.

Boston-based RStudio is a software firm that makes statistical packages used widely in academia.

“While I have made some code contributions to RStudio’s opensource packages on GitHub, I thought I would be able to help RStudio make their products more accessible through my programming skills and accessibility expertise for a wide range of people with (dis)abilities from a blind data scientist’s perspective,” Seo said.

“That could include some projects, such as making RStudio IDE (integrated development environment) and shiny (RStudio’s popular web apps for interactive data science) accessible for screen reading software and refreshable Braille display, and developing some alternative solutions for data visualization using multi-sensory data sonification/verbalization/ actualization.”

Seo lost his sight at age 10 in South Korea. “The classroom where I had romped and studied turned pitch-black. I was no longer able to read a textbook, nor was I able to understand what my teacher was explaining on the blackboard,” he said. “It was as if my classmates’ world and mine had become separate, and there was no interpreter to connect us. I was faced with the choice of squeezing myself to fit into a now foreign land, or leaving altogether.”

He went to a special school for

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By Jim Carlson

“I would like to continue my research and development on accessible technology for people across dis/abilities to foster a more inclusive learning ecology.”

— JooYoung Seo

the blind in Seoul, South Korea, where he felt free with everyone using the same language – touching, hearing and smelling.

That wasn’t enough for him, he said, and his journey outside of that classroom began with technology.

“Installing screen-reading software for the blind on my PC, I began peeping back into sighted culture,” Seo said. “It was by no means easy to navigate web pages and programs solely designed for the sighted. But I found hope in the bright light of digital technology, and I knew that it would bring me back what I had lost.”

Seo said that assistive technology, such as talking software, braille displays and optical character recognition, enabled him to engage in what he had thought impossible: reading books independently, playing computer games and even writing computer programs and managing a Unix server.

“Because these technologies brought me such hope, I tried to major in computer science in college. Yet Korean infrastructure back then was not very supportive for a blind person to pursue STEM disciplines,” he said. “In fact, more than 90% of blind students were forced to choose their majors between special education and

social welfare due in part to accessibility issues.”

Seo earned a double bachelor of arts degree in education and English literature in 2014 from Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. While pursuing that degree, he never stopped self-teaching computer science, relying solely upon open materials on the internet.

Opportunity came later that year when he was awarded the “Future Interdisciplinary Study of Global Korea Scholarship” that fully covered the learning, design, and technology master’s program he was accepted into at Penn State.

“The LDT program was attractive because it was at the intersection between education and computer science, which interweaved my academic background and interests,” Seo said.

Gabriela Richard, assistant professor in the Department of Learning and Performance Systems, has been Seo’s adviser for more than three years, and she said she’s been impressed not only with Seo’s work ethic but also with his expertise as an accessibility specialist, an experienced developer and a budding educational designer.

“As part of his graduate assistantship, and also more generally, he has dedicated himself

to developing accessible solutions for learners and others with dis/abilities, in order to encourage more equity and access for learners who often find themselves at the margins,” Richard said about Seo. “As someone who has dedicated myself to issues of equity and inclusivity in STEM, typically focusing on broadening the participation of women/girls and historically marginalized racial/ethnic groups, I found a lot of intersections between his interests and my research areas.

We have worked on several projects that have proposed and investigated how to design for the inclusion of learners historically marginalized across gender, race, ethnicity and ability.”

Seo said he has been using R and Python for data analysis and has developed and published several data science packages in the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN), but he’s not yet benefited from the features of RStudio IDE, which is the most widely used and powerful R/Python programming environment worldwide.

“I will do my utmost throughout the internship so that I can share some significant accessibility improvements for various RStudio products with others who would otherwise be marginalized from the data science ecosystem,” he said.

Richard said she has been impressed by Seo’s qualities as a learner, an up-and-coming scholar and as a newfound collaborator.

“I believe he will be successful in his internship, as he has been with most of his pursuits, because he is passionate about designing and developing more equitable and inclusive learning opportunities for all,” she said.

The key to Seo’s success, Richard said, is that he thinks

about how the overall system — whether it be in a piece of software or in an educational institution — can be improved to meet the needs of a wide array of learners.

“These are the kinds of designers and leaders we need to meet our current and future challenges, particularly with respect to technology. I believe he will continue to challenge himself to learn and grow, and help lead and contribute to efforts to broaden and diversify educational access for a wide variety of formal and informal learners,” Richard said.

Seo said his postdoctoral career goal is to become a professor in the learning sciences and/or human-computer interaction field where he can maximize his double identity between computer science and human learning.

“I would like to continue my research and development on accessible technology for people across dis/abilities to foster a more inclusive learning ecology,” he said. “I have been striving to uncover informal learning cultures and shared knowledge patterns of blind individuals pursuing STEM disciplines to better identify the challenges and solutions of current STEM accessibility voiced by the blind community.”

Also the winner of a College of Education Dissertation Research Initiation Grant, Seo said he’s learned that his visual impairment can offer him insight.

“Since my life is full of solving problems in the dark, every challenge I face can become a great research topic not only for myself, but also for those who share similar experiences,” Seo said. “I have high hopes that my academic and research journey can contribute to broadening the pathway for other blind people pursuing STEM disciplines in some way.”

Graduate Program Rankings U.S. News released its annual rankings of colleges and universities on March 17, and all 10 College of Education graduate programs that fall into categories ranked by U.S. News and World Report have been ranked in the Top 15, with four of those programs in the Top 10.

Overall, the College is ranked 36th in the nation among 255 best graduate education schools. This is the second year in a row that the College has moved up in the rankings.

According to U.S. News, “schools in the specialty [program] rankings, which are based solely on nominations from school officials, are numerically ranked in descending order based on the number of nominations they received, as long as the school or program received seven or more nominations in that specialty area.”

The programs are ranked this year as follows: Higher Education Administration.....2 Rehabilitation Counseling.................4 Student Counseling/ Personnel Services............................5 Education Administration/ Supervision (Ed Leadership)...........10 Education Policy..............................11 Secondary Education......................13 Special Education............................14 Elementary Education.....................14 Educational Psychology..................14 Curriculum and Instruction.............15 Penn State Education

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Professor, students examine charter school hiring practices

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By Stephanie Koons

t takes more than high-quality teachers and educational leaders to help students thrive in school. Research led by Ed Fuller, associate professor of education (educational leadership), indicates it’s also important to have professional support personnel such as nurses, counselors and librarians on site, for the development of the whole student.

“Our goal is to push legislators and local policy makers to expand access and ensure all schools have access to these personnel.”

The research team found those important resources are far less likely to be present in charter schools than in public schools in Pennsylvania, which Fuller said could have a particularly damaging effect on urban students living in poverty.

“Our goal is to push legislators and local policy makers to expand access and ensure all schools have access to these personnel,” said Fuller.

Fuller, along with Zoe Mandel, a doctoral student in the Department of Education Policy Studies (EPS), and Jessica Bard, an undergraduate majoring in education and public policy (EPP), have produced a journal article, “Access to School Nurses in Pennsylvania,” as well as a few policy briefs that outline the importance of nurses, counselor and librarians, in addition to examining access to these types of school personnel across the state.

Despite the importance of nurses, librarians and counselors, according to the researchers, there has been little research about the extent to which charter schools — schools that receive government funding but operate independently of the established state school system in which they are located — employ these crucial personnel.

— Ed Fuller

when compared to charter schools in the state. The largest gaps they found were for counselors — 59 percentage points at elementary school, nearly 48 percentage points at middle school and almost 58 percentage points at the high school level. It is especially worrisome, they stated in the policy brief, that only 10% of charter high schools employ a counselor.

“Counselors provide access to post-secondary opportunities,” Mandel said. “It could be the difference between applying and not applying to college,” particularly for minoritized students.

There also were large gaps for nurses — 30 percentage points for elementary schools, almost 42 percentage points for middle schools and 19 percentage points for high schools. Overall, the researchers reported, less than half of charter schools in Pennsylvania employ a nurse.

“Counselors provide access to post-secondary opportunities. It could be the difference between applying and not applying to college” particularly for minoritized students.

“The policy briefs are really to shed light on what the state of nurses, counselors and librarians is in Pennsylvania,” Mandel said.

According to a policy brief prepared by Fuller and Mandel, a far greater percentage of public schools employ nurses, librarians and counselors at the high school, middle school and elementary school levels 16

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The gaps for librarians turned — Zoe Mandel out to be the smallest, Fuller and Mandel reported in their policy brief. The gaps were almost 25 percentage points for elementary schools, about 32 percentage points for middle schools and 21 percentage points for high schools.

While a number of states have legislation that requires schools to employ non-teaching professionals, Fuller said, there currently is no such mandate in Pennsylvania. Despite having funding similar to regular public schools, they tend to not focus on providing nonteaching professionals in schools.

An additional complication is that charter schools

are predominantly in urban areas, since they need more students to generate funding. As a result, charter schools serve a higher proportion of students living in poverty, many of whom don’t have access to quality healthcare.

Moreover, the lack of nurses and counselors in charter schools could be a barrier to enrollment for families with children that have physical and/or mental health issues.

“The fact that (charter schools) don’t provide these professionals means some kids can’t enroll in these schools,” Fuller said.

Bard said she was in Fuller’s educational leadership class when he recruited her for the school nurse study.

“I thought it was such an incredible opportunity to get to learn more,” she said. “It is just mind-blowing how students who need nurses the most are the least likely to have them.”

In addition to treating students’ physical health conditions, Bard said, nurses produce outcomes that contribute to a student’s success. One of those benefits is that they reduce absenteeism among students.

are less likely to have books at home, he added, they have more to lose when charter schools forgo physical libraries and the hiring of librarians.

Fuller said he also was surprised to discover, through a causal study, that counselors can have as much impact on students as teachers, particularly in high school.

Mandel added receiving guidance on the college admission process is especially important for students of color and first-generation students who may be unable to seek advice from family on matters such as navigating scholarships or seeking financial aid.

The researchers’ ultimate goal, Fuller said, would be for the Pennsylvania legislature to enact statutes with funding attached to require schools to employ nonteaching professionals.

“I thought [doing this research] was such an incredible opportunity to get to learn more. It is just mindblowing how students who need nurses the most are the least likely to have them.”­

In a situation in which a student is injured at school, she said, a nurse can treat the injury and then send him/her back to class.

That also makes classroom time more effective for teachers, she added, since they don’t have to spend time catering to students’ health needs. Additionally, nurses can screen for underlying mental health issues when students report physical problems.

“I think (access to nurses) is a really important part of educational equity and making sure all students have the ability to learn to their highest potential,” Bard said.

In extreme circumstances, she added, the absence of a nurse can be catastrophic. In a recent incident in a Philadelphia school where no nurse was present, a student went into anaphylactic shock and died since no one on the scene knew how to administer drugs properly. “It was totally a preventable death if the proper medical care were provided,” Bard said.

While a lack of school librarians may not be lifethreatening, the researchers said they provide valuable services that benefit students’ academic and personal development. A lot of schools have closed their libraries due to economic constraints, Fuller said.

Often, charter schools will install a computer lab in lieu of a library and students will access books through a computer. Since minoritized children in urban areas

— Jessica Bard

Mandel added that they would particularly like to reach College of Education alumni in positions to influence educational policy in the state.

“We’re hoping this sheds light on an issue that doesn’t really get a lot of attention,” she said.

For Fuller, conducting this research has been a natural progression of the work he has done since graduate school on inequitable access in education.

He noted that in the Department of Education Policy Studies, almost all of the faculty focus to some degree on access and equity, inclusion and diversity.

“It fits really well within the community of EPS,” he said. “I think that’s just going to grow and expand and our focus in the College will be even greater.”

Bard knows her passion is fighting for social justice through the school system. She plans to take a year off after graduating before pursuing a doctorate and will do an internship this summer in Israel with a holistic program that helps students in poverty.

Bard, who is minoring in sociology and political science, said the College of Education’s EPP major has enabled her to combine her interests in education and politics. “I feel really lucky that I’m at a school that has such a unique major,” she said.

Mandel, who worked in the education and nonprofit sectors in Brooklyn prior to starting her graduate studies, said that both her professional and academic experiences have served as training grounds for her to achieve her ultimate goal of serving students of color and “ensuring they have access to high-quality teachers, leaders and other personnel.”

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Alumni instrumental in shaping who We Were, who We Are, who We Will Be If students are the lifeblood of a university, alumni are the heart that keeps the lifeblood flowing.

Our alumni defined who we as a College of Education were during their time as students. Their involvement now – as mentors to current students, members of the Alumni Society Board or Dean’s Development Council, volunteers at College events, or involved donors contributing both time and their presence to those who are the beneficiaries of their generosity – helps to support who We Are currently, and sets us up for who we will be in the decades to come.

Supporters of the College of Education have been philanthropically supportive of a number of initiatives, including growing the number of scholarships available to students. In 201819, the College of Education awarded more than $1.6 million in scholarships to 345 students from 190 different individual funds, with an average individual award of $3,500. Alumni have contributed

Alumni Profile: Nancy Gamble Nancy Gamble graduated from the College of Education in 1952 with a bachelor’s degree in home economics education, and in 1955 with an M.Ed. in child development and family relations. A retired elementary and special education teacher, and elementary school principal, she is a past member, along with her late husband, Glenn, of both the Dean’s Development Council and the Alumni Society Board. They generously funded the Glenn and Nancy Gamble Endowed Scholarship in Education; the Franklin and Emma Gamble/Mac and Mabel Saylor Scholarship in the College of Education in memory their parents; the Nancy S. and Glenn W. Gamble Trustee Scholarship in the College of Education; and through a future gift, the Glenn and Nancy Gamble Leadership Fund in Education.

“It is such a pleasure each year to hear from the scholarship recipients and to learn how the award is easing their financial burden.

I am so proud of all these future educators.”

XX% (or $XX ) of the total scholarship funding in the College.

The numbers are only part of the story, however. For many of those 345 students, the financial support made it possible for them to attend Penn State. For others, scholarships

Alumni Profile: Evelynn Ellis Evelynn Ellis earned her D.Ed. from the College of Education in 1997. She currently is vice president for Institutional Diversity and Equity at Dartmouth College. Ellis is a former member of the Higher Education Program Alumni Council (HEPAC). She uses electronic funds transfer (EFT) to make monthly gifts to the College in support of a variety of programs offered through the College of Education’s Office of Education and Social Equity.

“Giving to programs that support students in the College of Education at Penn State is an active way to support the future leaders of this country and the world.”

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enabled them to carry full course loads and also participate in cocurricular activities including Blue Band, THON and Education Ambassadors, instead of working 20 hours a week or more to help pay their tuition bills. It allowed others to participate in courses with embedded study abroad experiences, expanding their world view and exposing them to unique perspectives they may not otherwise obtain.

“We have donors of all ages,” said Steve Wilson, director of Development for the College. “The Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and even Gen Z alumni. They are a very diverse group, and we are proud to offer ways for them to create philanthropic impact in a way that reflects their unique passions and their specific stages of life.”

Wilson said that some have included the College of Education in

their estate planning. Some have endowed scholarships or other funds. And many contribute to already established funds. Some people remember the College with annual contributions; some have money sent to the College through monthly EFT drafts; and some participate in text-to-give campaigns.

“The amount of a gift, and how it’s made, will differ from donor to donor,” said Wilson. “But together, those many gifts combine to create transformational support for our students, our faculty and the overall mission of the College.”

Many alumni also give of themselves.

“Our alumni are so generous with their time, especially when it comes to helping our current students,” said Stefanie Tomlinson, assistant director of Alumni Relations for the College.

“Many alumni are involved in multiple ways, including serving on the Alumni Society Board, participating in the AlumniStudent Teacher Network, volunteering their time with some of our undergraduate and graduate student organizations, and attending events such as the Discovery Summit to learn about what our students and faculty are doing in and out of the classroom.”

On these pages we are featuring a few of the many people whose generosity impacts our students in so many positive ways.

Alumni Profile: Galit Fraser Galit Fraser graduated from the College of Education in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in special education. She is a special education teacher at South Anna Elementary in Montpelier, Virginia. Fraser is a volunteer mentor to current students in the College.

She also has given annually to fund the ANJ Fraser Scholarship in the College of Education, specifically for students majoring in special education.

“Financial need should not prevent someone who is passionate about education from becoming a teacher and my hope is that my scholarship can help a dedicated, hardworking student to achieve their dream of being a teacher and go on to make an impact on the lives of their students.”

Alumni Profile: Jonathan Klingeman Jonathan Klingeman graduated in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from the College of Education and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Bellisario College of Communications. Klingeman, who won the College’s Outstanding New Graduate award in 2012, is director of Gifted, Learning Enrichment and Title Services in the State College Area School District. He is a member of the Alumni Society Board, and co-chairs the Alumni-Student Teacher Network (ASTN). He makes annual gifts to support the Education Future Fund, College of Education General Scholarship Fund, and the David and Pamela Monk Endowment.

“I love giving back to the COE to support the betterment of our schools, students, and teachers, and to show my thanks for the continuous support I’ve received in my career from Penn State.”

Alumni Profile: Carly Colavecchi Carly Colavecchi graduated from the College of Education in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in childhood and early adolescent education. She participated in the Ecuador Immersion Program to receive her ESL teaching certificate.

She currently is one of the English language development teachers at Easterly Parkway Elementary School in the State College Area School District. Colavecchi participated in Giving Tuesday in 2017, in support of the Dean’s Student Teaching/ Study Abroad Fund in the College of Education.

“It was important to me to give back to the College of Education, because the opportunities I was granted with the ESL Ecuador Immersion Program not only shaped my core beliefs as an educator, but also helped me find my passion in teaching English as a Second Language.”

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Alumnus named Peruvian minister of education Penn State alumnus Martín Benavides is the newest Peruvian Minister of Education. He took the oath of office in February.

“Being asked to serve as the Minister of Education for Peru is a high honor and a major responsibility.

Education for the nation still has a way to go to reach its full potential,” Photo provided Benavides said. “My Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra, left, swore-in Penn State alumnus Martin Benavides as the country’s minister of training at Penn education in February.

State in the College cognitive skills responsible for the development of IQ of Education and then in sociology in the College of the Liberal Arts has proved invaluable to my career in as part of a larger project on education’s role in rising population IQ over the 20th century. education policy research and now policy formation.

I’m very grateful for the time I spent at Penn State.”

“Martin provided essential scientific leadership of an international team of researchers who went to Benavides is an expert in educational policies, isolated villages in the Peruvian Andeans to examine sociology of education, social stratification and the impact of schooling on cognitive development, inequality, and youth. and then how enhanced cognitive development He earned his master’s degree in education influenced various health and life decisions and theory and policy and doctorate in sociology from behaviors among these subsistence-level farmers,” Penn State. He also has a bachelor of arts degree said Baker. in sociology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, and has been a visiting student on issues of Benavides is a former director and senior social mobility and inequality at Nuffield College at researcher (on leave) at the Group for the Analysis of the University of Oxford in England.

Development (GRADE), a private, nonprofit research center based in Lima, Peru. Before accepting his “While completing the masters in the College current role, Benavides was deeply involved in of Education, Martin brought a much-needed integrating best social science with formation of international perspective to education that greatly education policy, most recently developing an enriched our seminars and research,” said David accreditation system for Peru’s growing universities.

Baker, professor of sociology, education, and demography.

Benavides also is a professor in the Department Initiated around ideas emerging during his time at Penn State, some years later Benavides and Baker undertook unique research in Peru establishing how access to basic education enhances fundamental 20

Penn State Education

of Social Science at the Pontifical Catholic University, where he is a member of the Faculty Council and the Advisory Committee of Graduate Programs in Sociology.

Alumni Society Board Message from the Board President Greetings fellow alumni! The Alumni Society Board has had an exciting year. We have been attending events for alumni, participating in Society meetings and getting to know our new dean, Kimberly Lawless. What many alumni do not know about is all of the work that we do with current Penn State students.

In October, at the Penn State Alumni Association’s annual awards banquet, the Society won the “Student Interaction” Award for the AlumniStudent Teacher Network (ASTN). The ASTN helps prepare students for their future teaching careers.

Students participate in workshops on topics such as interview preparation, teacher certification and professionalism. We have ASTNs in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Erie and the Centre Region.

We coordinated several service projects, which supported students. Last June, we raised funds to support Blue & White Society memberships to help introduce students to the Penn State Alumni Association. We collected enough money to support 56 memberships, which were given to students at the welcome ice cream social for new College of Education students back in September.

non-conforming students to comfortably find clothing without the discomfort of shopping in traditional clothing stores. Then, in March, we collected donations to benefit the Lions Pantry, which addresses food insecurity at the University Park campus by providing students access to free food items to which they might otherwise not have access.

There is a lot going on at Penn State and the Alumni Society Board has enjoyed working with and helping students. If you are interested in learning more about joining the Board, please check out our page on the College of Education’s website.

In October, we collected clothing donations to benefit the Penn State Clothing Transit. The Clothing Transit is an important resource in the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity for trans and gender

Nominate outstanding alumni for annual excellence awards The College of Education Alumni Society supports awards in five categories, presented each year to graduates and student teachers who have distinguished themselves in their profession. Nominations are accepted throughout the year, with recipients chosen each spring. For information, and to submit a nomination, visit https://ed.psu.edu/alumni-friends/ award online.

Photo: Chuck Fong Board members for 2019-20 include: Front, left to right: Nicole Birkbeck, Lawrence Wess, Dean Kimberly Lawless, Sharon Salter and Tonnie DeVecchisKerr. Second row, left to right: Stefanie Tomlinson, Kaela Fuentes-Packnick, John Rozzo, Amy Meisinger, Douglas Womelsdorf, Jonathan Klingeman, Jeannene Willow, Joseph Clapper, Jonathan Lozano and Cathy Tomon.

Pamela Peter (‘92 Behrend, ‘94 M.Ed. Edu)

About the Alumni Society The College of Education Alumni Society provides a means for alumni to come together to help improve the College and the University. It oversees a number of important projects that help serve the needs of alumni, students, the College and the University as well as promote the esteem of the institution. College of Education alumni automatically become members of the Alumni Society when they join the Penn State Alumni Association.

For information, contact the alumni relations office at 814-863-2216 or Stefanie Tomlinson, assistant director of Alumni Relations, at skt2@psu.edu.

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