News in brief

Brandy Henry

assistant professor (rehabilitation and human services)

Brandy Henry, a Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty member, joins the college from a joint appointment at the Columbia University School of Social Work and Mailman School of Public Health, where she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the National Institute on Drug Abuse funded Training Program on HIV and Substance Use in the Criminal Justice System. She received her doctorate and master’s degrees in social policy (behavioral health track) from the Brandeis University Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

Henry leverages years of practice experience as a clinical social worker, providing behavioral health services to criminalized populations to ground her research in the complexity of translating research to inform policy and practice.

Learn more about Henry at https://ed.psu. edu/directory/dr-brandy-henry online.

DeMarcus Jenkins

assistant professor (education leadership)

DeMarcus Jenkins joins the college from the University of Arizona College of Education, where he was an assistant professor of education policy studies and practice and an affiliate in the Department of Geography. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Division of Urban Schooling.

Jenkins is an activist and urban scholar whose work considers the intersections of race, space and policy. His research focuses on the influence of spatial, social and political factors that foster and exacerbate inequalities for Black populations as well as the approaches that school leaders take to disrupt and transform these dynamics. Consistent throughout his research are practical solutions for school leaders and policymakers.

College of Education, World Campus partnership with U.S. Army helps teach soldiers to be leaders

The Sergeants Major Fellowship Program, a partnership involving the College of Education, World Campus and the U.S. Army, has now graduated six cohorts and 90 sergeants major, with the most recent cohort graduating this past August. The seventh cohort is now in the program.

After completing their master’s of education in lifelong learning and adult education in one year, fellows teach three years in the Sergeants Major Course, which prepares the military’s next generation of leaders with the skills they need on and off the battlefield.

Graduates also have pursued doctoral degrees, been promoted to other Sergeants Major Academy and Army leadership positions, and have become business and community leaders after retirement from the Army, according to William Diehl, academic adviser for the fellowship program and associate teaching professor of education and coordinator of online graduate programs at Penn State.

Learn more at https://bit.ly/3BgZfZm on Penn State News.

Online course led by CSATS faculty shapes COVID-19 curriculum in schools nationwide

Earlier this year, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Penn State released an online course called “The Science of COVID-19.” Led by faculty in the College of Education’s Center for Science and the Schools (CSATS), the course was designed to give middle- and high-school students an opportunity to learn about how scientists approach and tackle a novel virus. Since then, the free course has reached about 2,500 teachers and students in all 50 states in the nation, and plans are underway to modify the course so that it remains timely and relevant for years to come.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, CSATS faculty contemplated how they could provide teachers with educational tools to inform their students about the pandemic in a free, easily accessible format. According to lead developer Matthew Johnson, associate professor of education (science education), the online course was designed for teachers who were unexpectedly thrown into remote teaching and didn’t have COVID-19 educational resources at the ready.

“This was an opportunity to help teachers with curricular material they don’t have the time or access to experts needed to develop these resources on their own,” he said.

In contrast to a traditional science curriculum that focuses on theories that were developed 50 to 150 years ago, Johnson said, the online course presents an opportunity to students “to learn about science as it’s happening.”

Looking toward the future, Johnson said, he and his colleagues expect that teachers will continue to use modified versions of the course from year to year.