2005 UGA COE EDUCATION magazine

T H E

U N I V E R S I T Y

O F

G E O R G I A

CHANGING

LIVES

Janet Oliva MSEd ‘99 and PhD ‘03

Child Abuse Expert Works to Safeguard Georgia’s Children

ALSO INSIDE:

The Power of a Partnership

UGA’s Collaboration with Local School District Results in Rising Test Scores

D E A N ’ S

M E S S A G E

Changing Lives in a Changing World Dear colleagues and friends, I am pleased to present the 2005 edition of EDUCATION, the University of Georgia College of Education’s annual magazine highlighting some of the achievements and activities of our alumni, faculty, staff and students.

It seems fitting that the theme of this year’s edition is Changing Lives. As a nationally ranked, Research I institution whose faculty are advancing work in many diverse fields, we here at the College of Education aspire to bettering human lives and enhancing global prospects for the future.

With nearly $16 million in external funding in 2003-04, our faculty continue to pursue cutting-edge research, forge bold initiatives and build community-based partnerships that are providing real-life answers to some of the most difficult challenges we face today in education and human health.

Changing Lives. After just two years, a comprehensive five-year partnership between UGA, the local school district and local community has produced rising test scores in a historically lowachieving student population.

Changing Lives. Linda Labbo, a professor of reading education, is working with colleagues at three other national research institutions to determine how computer technology can be used to improve children’s reading achievement in a five-year interdisciplinary project funded by a $5.6 million National Science Foundation grant.

Changing Lives. The Georgia Systemic Teacher Education Program (GSTEP), beginning the last year of its five-year project, has created a teacher preparation model that is a seamless, sixyear process from entry into college through the second year of teaching that involves local teachers as mentors.

We are also proud of our alumni, many of whom have risen to top leadership positions in their local communities, at the state level or nationally.

Changing Lives. The subject of this year’s cover feature is one of those alumni. Janet Oliva, who earned a master’s and a doctorate in adult education here at UGA, was appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue to direct the state Division of Family and Children Services and clean up systemic problems plaguing the agency. In just 10 months, Oliva reorganized DFCS and created a plan that has elevated the professionalism of DFCS workers. She was recently promoted to special assistant to the Department of Human Resources commissioner.

Just as we aspire to better the lives of our UGA students, we must also be prepared to change and reinvent ourselves as a college so that we can meet the new challenges of the 21st century.

Higher education, and teacher education in particular, must rapidly adjust to more legislative demands for accountability. The “gold” standard is increasingly being defined as the direct impact our graduates have on children. Can the teachers we prepare improve student achievement? Can they change the lives of Georgia’s children for the better? We are faced with global issues, significant demographic changes in Georgia, and a funding cycle which is becoming increasingly sparse for UGA and our College. And UGA has responded to these challenges.

For the past 18 months, the College has been in a process of reorganization that will make us leaner and more effective. When this plan is approved by our faculty and state Board of Regents, it will streamline our administrative structure from 19 departments to nine. The integrity of our academic programs remains intact. Our faculty and staff have worked hard this past year to create a vibrant new structure that will help us garner a new vitality.

As one of the largest and most diverse colleges of education in the country, we must continue to think of creative and bold ways to better prepare our graduates to become tomorrow’s leaders — and to continue to change the lives of those with whom we work.

2005 The Magazine of the UGA College of Education Louis A. Castenell, Jr. Dean Cheri Hoy Interim Associate Dean for Faculty, Administration and Finance Karen Watkins Interim Associate Dean for Research, Technology, and External Affairs Kathleen deMarrais Interim Associate Dean for Students, Curriculum and Accreditation EDUCATION is published annually for the alumni, friends and supporters of the UGA College of Education by the COE’s Office of Communications and Publications, under the auspices of the Associate Dean for Research, Technology and External Affairs.

MAGAZINE STAFF Editor Michael Childs Copy editor Julie Sartor Contributing writers Janet Jones Kendall, Kristen Heflin Contributing photographers Paul Efland, Peter Frey, Rick O’Quinn Graphic Design Kudzu Graphics CONTACT Michael Childs Director of Public Information College of Education G-9 Aderhold Hall The University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602 706/542-5889 mchilds@coe.uga.edu

College Website: www.coe.uga.edu COE Online News: www.coe.uga.edu/coenews CASE REGIONAL AWARDS EDUCATION

2004 Award of Excellence, Magazine Improvement 2003 Special Merit Award, Magazine Improvement 2002 Award of Excellence, Magazine Improvement COE Online News

2004 Award of Excellence, Electronic Newsletters 2003 Award of Excellence, Electronic Newsletters ABOUT THE COVER Janet Oliva (MEd ‘99, PhD ‘03), special assistant to the commissioner of the state Department of Human Resources, poses in her office in downtown Atlanta.

Story on Page 34.

UGA COLLEGE OF EDUCATION Founded in 1908 NCATE Accredited since 1954

Front and back cover photographs by Paul Efland

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FEATURES

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Raising Reading Achievement

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Power of a Partnership

UGA professor of reading education Linda Labbo believes that integrating technology into teacher preparation and K-3 curriculum can improve reading achievement. By Kristen Heflin

A vision of a partnership between UGA, a local community and its school district has resulted in an extended school calendar, a new attitude and rising test scores that have drawn the interest of state and federal education officials.

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Middle School Magic

UGA doctoral candidate Pren Woods will do anything it takes to get the attention of his inner-city middle school students in Charleston, SC, including singing, standing on a table or rapping.

By Michael Childs

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A Tale of Two Teachers / Part II

Two UGA alumna who wrote about their first year of teaching in EDUCATION 2003 return to describe their third year in the classroom – the year in which, statistically, more than a third of new teachers leave the profession. By Cathy Lo Davis and Brinna Sinclair

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COVER STORY

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Changing Lives

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Janet Oliva (MEd ’99, PhD ’03) has spent the past year reorganizing the state’s Division of Family and Children Services. Now she is special assistant to the commissioner of the Department of Human Resources, but what she really hopes to do is change lives through her teaching. By Janet Jones Kendall

DEPARTMENTS 2 Briefly Speaking 5 National Rankings, Facts & Figures 18 Honor Roll of Donors 24 Faculty, Staff Recognition 29 Student Honors 37 Alumni Awards

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B R I E F L Y

S P E A K I N G

Hoge Selected State Coordinator for ‘We the People’ eaching today’s youth to be responsible and aware citizens is a critical part of their education, says a University of Georgia education professor who has been selected to lead a nationally acclaimed program in Georgia that seeks to do just that.

John Hoge, an associate professor in the department of social John Hoge, an science education, is now Georgia associate professor State Coordinator of “We the of Social Science People: The Citizen and the Education Constitution.”

The program is a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) initiative designed to help the nation’s elementary, middle and high school students explore significant events and themes in our nation’s history. It combines curriculum materials with simulated congressional hearing competitions to help students understand how American constitutional democracy works as well as the current relevance of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

As state coordinator, Hoge directs the program in each of Georgia’s 13 congressional districts. He oversees textbook distribution and makes sure district coordinators stay in touch with their district congressional representative.

Hoge, who joined the UGA faculty in 1988, has studied and written about children’s and adolescents’ learning of citizenship, values education and law-related education for more than 20 years.

For more information, contact John Hoge at jhoge@coe.uga.edu

Clees, Huberty Receive Fulbright Grants om J. Clees, an associate professor in special education, received a Fulbright grant to Ireland, and Carl J Huberty, professor emeritus of educational psychology, received a Fulbright Senior Specialists grant to Egypt during the past academic year.

For 10 months, Clees worked at Mary Immaculate College in affiliation with the University of Limerick.

He conducted research on factors affecting successful post-school transition of individuals with special needs, including demographics and service delivery models in Ireland.

“I am looking at urban and rural programs to see if they have a unique approach to post-school preparation and service,” said Clees. "For instance, are families more significant in the support of the children post-school?”

Huberty will provide Egyptian researchers with new information about reporting and conducting education research over two weeks this fall at Suez Canal University and several other universities around Cairo.

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PHOTOS BY PETER FREY

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Kelly Scott (right), a College of Education graduate student, looks at journals of Filipino students during a recent visit to UGA by Filipino educators Magdelana Prizas (left) and Lourdes Morano (center) as part of the Fulbright grant.

Two-Year Fulbright Grant Expands Professor's Work with Filipino Educators he University of Georgia science education department received a two-year Fulbright Educational Partnership Grant to work with teacher educators, science teachers, student teachers and community members halfway around the world in Deborah Tippins leads class at UGA. the Philippines.

The partnership expands the work of Deborah Tippins, professor of science and elementary education, whose research into community-based science education over the past few years has led her to the Filipino island of Panay. Tippins began collaborating with science teacher educators at West Visayas State University (WVSU) in Iloilo, as well as with classroom teachers and student teachers in rural barangay (community) elementary schools. Tippins spent the 2001-02 academic year in residence at WVSU as a Fulbright Scholar.

The new Fulbright partnership, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, supports a three-way collaboration involving UGA's science education department, the Regional Science Teaching Center and College of Education at WVSU, and the Regional Science Teaching Center of Western Mindanao State University in Zamboanga.

The first of several planned exchanges began in February 2004, when a small group of UGA faculty spent several days living, learning and teaching in a variety of rural, coastal and mountain communities in the southern Philippines.

They made presentations on science teaching strategies and qualitative research methodologies to the Filipino teachers and teacher educators.

Educators in Southeast Asia have emphasized using local knowledge and resources in the barangays to develop relevant science curriculum; consequently, UGA faculty participated in field experiences designed to enrich their understanding of coral reef and mangrove ecology in the Philippines.

See complete story:

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www.coe.uga.edu/coenews/2004/ScienceEdFulbright.htm 2 ■ EDUCATION 2005

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UGA Participating in Carnegie Initiative on Doctoral Education aculty members in the UGA College of Education's nationally ranked department of educational psychology are currently participating in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID), a Randy Kamphaus, five-year research UGA Distinguished and action project Research Professor of aimed at improving Educational doctoral education at Psychology American universities.

The department, whose graduate program is ranked 13th nationally by U.S. News and World Report, was one of only 32 "partner departments" in chemistry, education, English and mathematics that were asked to participate in the project.

In joining the Carnegie Initiative, the department will analyze all aspects of its doctoral programs. In questioning this model, the department will engage in more teacher training and professional development in an effort to change perceptions about the value of higher education.

“Our students and faculty are working to create innovative doctoral programs, rooted in strong existing programs, ones that will be considered the new standard of quality for doctoral education in the discipline,” says Randy Kamphaus, UGA Distinguished Research Professor and department head.

Faculty members began planning for a revised doctoral program in the 2003-04 academic year, establishing four initiatives that serve as the basis for activities: • More closely aligning departmental research, teaching and service efforts with public policy.

• Closing the gap between research and practice by ensuring that all departmental graduate programs have strong practicum and internship requirements.

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• Involving students in research activity early in the graduate school experience so that they better understand the value of participating in a community of scholars.

• Involving students more in the culture and leadership activities of the department.

For more information: www.coe.uga.edu/edpsych/

S P E A K I N G

110 More Georgia Educators Training with UGA’s Center for Latino Achievement ‘The collaborative efforts that we have with CLASE have provided invaluable help for meeting the needs of our mainstream teacher.’

— Sandra Perry, English as a Second Language coordinator, Hall County Schools

or the second year in a row, more than 110 teachers, administrators and staff from several Atlanta metro-area and north Georgia schools will participate in a year-long professional development program designed to improve the education of Latino K-12 students. The training is being offered by the University of Georgia Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education (CLASE).

Educators from Atlanta Public Schools, Gainesville City and Marietta City Schools, and Cherokee, Clarke, DeKalb, Forsyth, Fulton, and Hall county school systems will participate in a series of activities that was kicked off by a week-long summer institute at Amicalola Falls in June. The team-based training, provided at no cost to the educators, will include follow-up site visits and workshops throughout the year.

UGA faculty, graduate students and outside experts are helping educators learn how to resolve locally identified barriers to Latino student achievement. CLASE also helps participants create and implement specific school-based plans for enhancing Latino student success.

Participating teachers and staff voiced excitement about this training, and schools participating during 2003-04 noted important results.

CLASE also took about a dozen Georgia educators to Costa Rica this past summer for a study abroad program focusing on science education. Grant funding for the project came from the federal Title II Improving Teacher Quality program.

CLASE, based in UGA’s College of Education, is funded by a grant from The Goizueta Foundation.

For more information: www.coe.uga.edu/clase

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CLASE Selects New Graduate Scholars GA’s Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education (CLASE) has selected six outstanding graduate students to receive The Goizueta Foundation Graduate Scholars Fund Assistantships for 2004-05. These students bring additional expertise and experience in Latino educational issues to CLASE. They will work with participant schools throughout the next year, assist with Latino educational research and outreach, and will ensure future educational leadership on Latino issues in Georgia.

The Goizueta Foundation Graduate Scholars for 2004-05 are Jairo Arcila (Language Education), Lisa Bush (Art Education), Marta Deán (Language Education), Fuad Elhage (Language Education), Darlene Rodriguez (Public Administration), and Leslie Rodriguez (Health Promotion and Behavior).

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Search Under Way for Distinguished Chair of Latino Teacher Education op candidates for The Goizueta Foundation Chair for Latino Teacher Education are expected to be interviewed this fall or winter, according to Michael Padilla, Director of Educator Partnerships in the College of Education.

The endowed position will provide vision and leadership for UGA’s Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education (CLASE) and the College's Latino teacher education initiatives.

UGA is seeking a scholar with a demonstrated capacity to direct the center, integrate research across disciplines, disseminate research findings, secure extramural funding and provide leadership to establish a consortium for the educational advancement of Latino children and youth with other colleges and universities in Georgia.

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B R I E F L Y

S P E A K I N G

Innovative Doctoral Program in College Leadership Graduates First Three hree Georgia educational administrators became the first graduates this past spring of an innovative College of Education doctoral initiative designed to help meet the growing demand for leadership in community and technical colleges.

Two recent national studies predicted that between 45 and 79 percent of current community college presidents will retire within the next eight years. To address this need to prepare the next generation of senior-level administrators, the College created the collaborative Community and Technical College Leadership Initiative (CTCLI).

The CTCLI combines face-to-face monthly classes with online coursework. Another innovation is its collaboration between four different programs: adult education, educational leadership, higher education and occupational studies.

Students in the program learn about educational and strategic planning, adult education, workforce development, fiscal management, personnel relations, and community relations.

Pat Wilson, of Montezuma, one of the first graduates and director of financial aid at South Georgia Technical College (SGTC) in Americus, said the format aligned well with family and work factors, allowing her to achieve a lifelong dream of earning a doctoral degree.

John Watford, of Americus, director of instruction at SGTC, said he enjoyed the networking and development of strong bonds with other participants.

Alvetta Thomas, of Fayetteville, vice president of instructional services at Atlanta Technical College, agreed. “Being in the cohort really helped me to become a better leader through the thoughts and ideas shared by its various members.”

The CTCLI’s first graduating class began their studies in the fall of 2000. They are part of a 25-student cohort in which 21 of their classmates have completed comprehensive exams and are expected to graduate within the year.

The third CTCLI cohort, which drew 52 applicants for only 25 available slots, began this fall.

For more information:

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Art Recesso (left) and Michael Hannafin are co-directing the new E-TEACH project

E-TEACH

LPSL Project to Integrate Technology into Teacher Preparation

By Kristen Heflin he Learning and Performance Support Laboratory (LPSL), a collaborative group of more than a dozen professors and research scientists based in UGA’s College of Education, has joined a national effort aimed at better preparing future teachers to use technology in their classrooms.

The group has received a $1.068 million federal grant to begin a three-year project titled, Evidence-Based Technology-Enhanced Alternative Curriculum in Higher Education (E-TEACH).

It will involve faculty and students from nearly a dozen departments in the education college and five more in the College of Arts and Sciences.

The project emphasizes a blend of technology integration in teacher education courses, in core Arts and Sciences undergraduate courses, and specialized applications in “majors” courses in both colleges. Michael Hannafin, LPSL director and professor of instructional technology, and Art Recesso, an LPSL research scientist, are co-principal investigators.

“This approach should help improve technology integration in UGA's teacher education programs through a mix of faculty development, curriculum refinement, student use of technology appropriate to their teaching field, and ongoing support,” said Hannafin, the Charles H. Wheatley-Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Technology-Enhanced Learning.

The call for more research in technology integration stems from the need for future teachers to better understand the scope and nature of the digital divide between people and communities who use computers effectively and those who do not have the resources to do so, the scientists said.

Some common issues when addressing the digital divide are the ability of teachers to effectively use the technology, student and teacher access to computers inside and outside the school, lack of technical support and access to culturally relevant content.

"The greatest challenge for teachers may be working with what you have in your classroom,” said Recesso. “Implementation of technology varies greatly by room and school system. We need to prepare teachers for a variety of situations.”

For example, academic departments are investigating ways to integrate technology based on direct evidence of classroom events for teacher preparation, professional learning and mentoring.

"The model we’re proposing does not focus on technology. We want teachers to consider the resources with which they have to work, clarify the learners’ needs and develop an instructional plan integrating technology where it will enhance learning,” said Recesso.

See complete story at: www.coe.uga.edu/coenews/2004/E-Teach.html

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www.coe.uga.edu/ctcli/

N AT I O N A L

FACTS & FIGURES (2003) Enrollment: 5,345 (51.7% graduate students) Faculty: 203 full-time 380 graduate assistants Degrees & Programs: 18 undergraduate, 87 graduate degrees, 49 majors Degrees conferred (2003): 632 graduate 647 undergraduate Living Alumni: Over 48,000 External Funds (2003-04): • Research: $6,879,026 • Instruction: $6,087,654 • Outreach: $2,816,012 • Total: $15,782,692

UGA’S GRADUATE PROGRAMS IN EDUCATION RANK AMONG THE NATION'S BEST Five Programs Rated Among Top 10, Three More in Top 20 The University of Georgia College of Education rose to 24th overall in U.S. News & World Report’s 2005 edition of “America's Best Graduate Schools.” The magazine uses a combination of factors including reputation, student selectivity, placement success, faculty resources and research activity to rank graduate schools.

Overall UGA Education Rankings: • 3rd among education colleges in the South • 14th among public universities in the nation • 24th overall nationally Individual UGA Program Rankings: Elementary Education 3rd Secondary Education 3rd Vocational/Technical 4th Counseling/Personnel 5th Curriculum/Instruction 6th Educational Psychology 13th Higher Education Administration 18th Administration/Supervision 19th

U.S. News rankings also reveal that UGA’s College of Education is the most productive of the nation’s best education schools in turning out licensed teachers. UGA leads the top 50 universities in the number of 2003 graduates licensed to teach at 647, followed by Michigan State at 644 and Penn State at 624.

Full rankings of education schools: www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/edu/ eduindex.php

POINTS OF PRIDE • UGA is 6th nationally in number of Fulbright Scholars • UGA is the nation's 2nd-most prolific university in education research published • UGA is 14th nationally in doctorates awarded to African-Americans • Doctoral Program in exercise science ranked in the Top 10 in several indexes reflecting aspects of program quality by The American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education.

Student Quality Media GPA 3.67 Median SAT 1151 COE teacher-education graduates have a pass rate on the national PRAXIS II exam of 98.6%.

R A N K I N G S

UGA TOP 10 RANKINGS IN GRADUATE PROGRAMS Elementary Education 1. Michigan State University 2. University of Wisconsin-Madison 3. University of Georgia Teachers College, Columbia University (NY) 5. Ohio State University-Columbus University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign 7. Vanderbilt University (Peabody) (TN) 8. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 9. Indiana University-Bloomington 10. University of Washington

Secondary Education 1.

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Michigan State University University of Wisconsin-Madison University of Georgia Stanford University (CA) Ohio State University-Columbus Teachers College, Columbia University (NY) University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign Indiana University-Bloomington University of Washington University of Virginia (Curry)

Vocational/Technical 1. Ohio State University-Columbus 2. Penn State University-University Park University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 4. University of Georgia 5. Virginia Tech 6. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign 7. Colorado State University University of Wisconsin-Madison 9. University of Missouri-Columbia 10. Oklahoma State University Texas A&M University-College Station

Counseling/Personnel Services 1. University of Maryland-College Park 2. Ohio State University-Columbus 3. University of Florida University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 5. University of Georgia 6. University of North Carolina-Greensboro University of Wisconsin-Madison 8. Indiana University-Bloomington 9. University of Missouri-Columbia 10. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign

Curriculum/Instruction 1. University of Wisconsin-Madison 2. Michigan State University 3. Teachers College, Columbia University (NY) 4. Ohio State University-Columbus Stanford University (CA) 6. University of Georgia 7. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign 8. Indiana University-Bloomington 9. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Vanderbilt University (Peabody) (TN)

EDUCATION 2005 ■ 5

National Research Project Uses Technology as a Key Tool in Improving Children’s Reading Achievement

By Kristen Heflin

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ere in the dawn of the 21st century, the future may belong to those with computer skills, but in classrooms across America, many children continue to learn to read and write the way their parents did, with pencil and paper.

Linda Labbo, a University of Georgia education researcher, believes that technology can play a key role in improving reading achievement, but those who teach Linda Labbo, UGA professor of literacy must be better prepared to reading education use that technology in the classroom.

“Children need to learn computer literacies as an integral part of their daily school lives in order to be prepared for their futures futures that will require sophisticated computer abilities to be competitive in a global economy,” said Labbo, a professor of reading education.

Computer innovations are making a phenomenal impact in the nation's workplaces, but they have made only a small impact in classrooms. Recent studies show that while 63 percent of K-12 classrooms across the nation have Internet access, only 20 percent of public school teachers say they feel prepared to use computers in class.

Learning how computers can be used as an effective resource for teacher training and as an instructional resource for children's literacy development is an important but largely under-researched area.

Labbo is currently working to fill this research gap. She believes that changing teacher training in literacy education and integrating technology into the K-3 curriculum has great potential to enhance children's reading achievement.

Labbo is a co-principal investigator on a project called Case 6 ■ EDUCATION 2005

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Technologies to Enhance Literacy Learning (CTELL), a collaborative effort between researchers from UGA, Teachers College at Columbia University, the University of Connecticut and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The $5.6 million interdisciplinary fiveyear study, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), uses knowledge about the best practices of early literacy education to target improvement in teacher education and ultimately improve young children's literacy achievement.

Now in its fourth year, the project uses powerful case study examples of how traditional as well as new computer-based approaches to literacy instruction can dramatically enhance educational practice.

The extensive set of studies looks at how well case-based anchored instruction using high-speed, streaming video over the Internet and in CD/DVD-ROM serves as a new model for pre-service teacher education.

Once the research is complete, the anchor cases will be available on a website and in CD/DVD-ROM format. Labbo says that one of the strengths of the anchor case videos is that they show daily life in real classrooms and capture the complexity of the everyday decisions teachers face.

“The main goal of CTELL is to positively impact first-year teachers’ effectiveness as literacy educators. Pre-service teacher instructors should become masterful in using multimedia anchor cases in ways that help their university students to construct complex knowledge about effective literacy instruction,” said Labbo.

Building on these established best practices and the fact that few teacher-education programs provide preparation in technology use, the study also seeks to implement technology-related best practices for teaching literacy which were established through a National Teacher Advisory Board online survey conducted during the first two years of the project.

In determining technology-related best practices, 64 teachers of early grades went through four phases of interviews over five months.

The findings indicated that teachers who effectively used technology for literacy instruction used it for clearly defined purposes like communication, research, individual work and publication.

The study found that effective teachers used computer technologies for authentic purposes such as engaging young children in Internet projects with other classrooms, going online to find answers to questions and using computer literacy games to build reading skills.

Effective teachers also used computers to vary the curriculum for children's differing literacy abilities. With these methods, young children are also learning new literacies like publishing online, navigating the World Wide Web and engaging in critical meaning making from multiple resources.

“Computers need to become a seamless part of the daily literacy curriculum,” said Labbo.

“They should be so integrated into the classroom culture and curriculum that they are an invisible, easy-to-use technology. Children need multiple occasions for purposeful, hands-on exploration and critical evaluation of Internet sites and software programs.”

Early analyses reveal that teacher candidates trained with the case-based methods have a more in-depth understanding of effective literacy instruction.

“Multimedia case-based pre-service teacher instruction provides vir-

L I T E R A C Y

tual experiences in multiple classrooms, and pre-service teachers become privy to the everyday decision-making processes for effective literacy instruction,” said Labbo.

Using the study's anchor case design, professors and their undergraduate students virtually visit and explore 12 teachers’ classrooms.

Seeing instances of effective literacy instruction, pre-service teachers better understand how to contextualize their learning and instruction to meet local situations.

Teacher students see K-3 student work examples, lesson plans and interviews with students, parents, teachers and principals to classroom diagrams, reading assessments and videos of classroom practice. Thus, they are better prepared to begin teaching.

Beginning this fall, the researchers will follow teachers trained in the anchor case method into their first year of teaching.

Data will be collected about students' literacy abilities before and after the year and compared to results where teachers did not receive the training. Labbo and her team of investigators will observe in primary-grade classrooms to better understand the effects of case-based pre-service teacher training on literacy achievement.

UGA faculty have worked with faculty from the University of Texas at Austin, St. Joseph's, Northern Illinois and Clemson universities to train some 1,400 future teachers with this new method.

Labbo hopes the study will have a national impact on the reading achievement of children and the education of pre-service teachers when new, innovative approaches are implemented.

The project involves a team of experts in pre-service teacher education, early childhood literacy development, instructional technology, cognitive psychology, survey research, quantitative and qualitative methodologies, computer-related early literacy instruction and web design.

(Kristen Heflin is a master’s student in UGA’s Grady College of Journalism.)

For more information on CTELL: ctell.uconn.edu/home.htm

CTELL Researchers Bring Many Different Skills to Project • Linda Labbo, professor of reading education at UGA, is an expert in the use of technology software and sign systems that occur in classrooms with young children.

• Charles Kinzer, a professor of language and reading education at Teachers College, Columbia University, is an expert in case-based technology, enhanced pre-service education and anchored instruction uses of technology.

• Donald Leu, a professor and the John and Maria Neag Endowed Chair in Literacy and Technology at the University of Connecticut, is an expert on technology use and the integration of Internet strategies in classrooms.

• William Teale, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor, is an expert on early literacy development and emergent aspects of literacy.

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UGA Prof Says Students Should be Taught to be Savvy Viewers of TV, Media

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his presidential election year campaign ads and political images will come flying off TV screens into Georgia homes.

Competing and conflicting messages like these have made educators and lawmakers more aware that young people need the skills to critically interpret the media.

Although the media fill a critical role in our democracy, the public must also be aware that what is seen, emphasized or left out of a news broadcast is important, says Donna Alvermann, Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia in reading education and one of the nation’s top experts in media literacy.

She is excited that the state’s new proposed curriculum will incorporate media literacy in classrooms so that future generations will be able to view media with a trained eye.

“In today’s highly visual and digital culture, print literacy, though still very important, is not sufficient for accessing, interpreting, critiquing and applying much of the available information,” says Alvermann, who has studied media literacy since the late 1990s.

Georgia’s new emphasis on media literacy will focus on both elementary and secondary schools. All students will be expected to demonstrate mastery of “viewing” in their content-area classes, along with traditional skills like reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Most states now teach some form of media literacy, either in subjects like English, social studies and health or across disciplines, according to Alvermann. Many have adopted curriculum standards similar to those in California and Kansas, two of the first states to incorporate media literacy in their curricula.

Two of Alvermann’s books, Adolescents and Literacies in a Digital World (2004) and 8 ■ EDUCATION 2005

Popular Culture in the Classroom: Teaching and Researching Critical Media Literacy (1999), were picked up by the national Center for Media Literacy and used by media literacy advocates throughout the world.

But not everyone agrees on the need for media literacy in a school’s curriculum.

Skeptics claim that by teaching students to interpret or critique pop culture they would be leading them away from more traditional texts.

Supporters of media literacy argue that it can be integrated into every class and that it helps prepare students for an informationdriven society by making them better thinkers and more critical readers.

Alvermann says that while traditional education materials are important, there’s a need to know how to critically view media.

“Students get a lot of their information out of school in all sorts of hypermedia and multimedia environments,” she says. “I think the current climate is one of ‘back to the basics’ and ‘scientifically based reading instruction.’

Of course, there’s nothing more basic than accessing meaning from the media.”

Despite the growing interest in media literacy across the nation, Alvermann says the United States is still trailing countries like Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia when it comes to teaching students to be savvy viewers and users of television news, commercials, movies, music videos and other media.

“The idea of media literacy is already well integrated into the school curricula of these countries,” she says.

The revisions to Georgia’s Quality Core Curriculum (QCC) will draw much-needed attention to media literacy and should help the state’s students catch up to those in other countries.

Meanwhile, Alvermann continues her research on media literacy. Some of her recent work has looked at teaching media literacy to students in grades 6 through 9 after school in the Athens-Clarke County Public Library.

That program, sponsored by the Spencer Foundation, was so successful that the students’ parents wanted to help raise money to continue it when the funding ended.

Alvermann has also studied adolescents’ motivation to read in school. She says that for

some young people school reading is perceived as uninteresting, even irrelevant. These youth have the ability to read but choose not to do so, perhaps due in part to the fact that certain aspects of schooling sap their motivation and give them reasons for believing they are not good readers.

She argues that by incorporating media literacy in the curriculum, teachers will find new ways to engage students who previously may have felt left behind.

For more information: www.coe.uga.edu/reading/faculty/dalvermann.html

— Kristen Heflin

Donna E. Alvermann is a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia in reading education.

Her research focuses on adolescent literacy. From 1992-97, she codirected the National Reading Donna Alvermann, Research Center Distinguished Research (funded by the Professor U.S. Department of Education). Her research has received funding from the Spencer Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation. She is a former president of the National Reading Conference, a former chair of the American Reading Forum and co-chaired the International Reading Association’s first Commission on Adolescent Literacy from 1997-2000. She is a current editor of Reading Research Quarterly and before that was associate editor of the Journal of Literacy Research. She was awarded the Oscar Causey Award for Outstanding Contributions to Reading Research in 1997 and was elected to the Reading Hall of Fame in 1999. She has authored or co-authored over 90 published articles and 40 chapters.

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UGA Profs Say Strong Teachers of Writing Must Be Writers Themselves

By Kristen Heflin

PHOTO BY KRISTEN HELFIN

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arrow County teacher Tonia Paramore never considered herself a writer, but her third-grade students now do, and their interest in her writing has helped them to become better writers.

And that – helping teachers improve the teaching of writing – is the ultimate goal of the Red Clay Writing Project (RCWP), a two-yearold collaboration between the University of Georgia’s College of Education and teachers in several northeast Georgia school districts.

“One of the principal ideas of the writing program is that strong teachers of writing are writers themselves,” said Bob Fecho, an associate professor of reading education and codirector of the program. “The more you understand about your own writing process, the issues you encounter, what works for you, the more able you are to help others.”

Each spring, the RCWP selects 20 area teachers to participate in a month-long summer institute in which they develop their own writing skills, explore new methods of teaching and learn how to design professional development for their own schools and districts.

“Doing our own writing – that was the scariest thing for me,” said Susan Nordstrom, a teacher at Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School in Clarke County. “To do poetry on the first day – that really made me nervous. But everybody had to do it, so it wasn’t so bad.”

After two weeks in the program this past summer, she started to find her own voice – a skill she’ll be able to take back to her students and fellow teachers.

Linda Boza, instructional specialist at Clarke Central High School in Athens and another director of the Red Clay program, said that in its first year in 2003, the program inspired “more professional learning than is normal.”

Lois Alexander, an eighth-grade teacher at Coile Middle School in Clarke County, said that the advice she received from other educators helped her improve the way she organized her classroom writing assignments.

She spread out a long research project and gave her students a choice between two writ-

JoBeth Allen (standing), professor of language education and co-director of the Red Clay Writing Project, listens as a teacher participant reads poetry ing styles. “There was a lot of success there because every child wrote the paper and enjoyed it. It helped them to enjoy writing versus seeing it as a task,” said Alexander.

Teachers who successfully complete the summer institute become Teacher Consultants (TCs) and help other teachers improve the way they teach writing.

Alexander, for instance, returned to her school and taught teachers the different writing techniques in an evening tutorial program.

Donna Ware, a fifth-grade teacher at Whitehead Elementary in Clarke County, also participated in the program last year. She and fellow TC Daphne Hall organized a professional development course on writing for teachers at her school.

The continuing support of fellow teachers is one of the features that makes the RCWP so successful, said JoBeth Allen, professor of language education and another director of the program.

“I changed my curriculum based more on the needs of my students and what their problems were,” said Paramore, who teaches at Kennedy Elementary in Winder. “I was able to e-mail and call people and ask what they were doing and what was working. I have a support system now that I didn’t have before to implement a writing workshop in my classroom.”

Ware said only one word describes how the support and discussions from the RCWP had affected her: motivation. “It motivates you to learn new ideas, try new ideas, share successes and failures, which lead to new learning opportunities.”

And that means big benefits for the students they teach. Many of the program’s past participants say they see a big difference in their classrooms as a result of their participation.

“My children were very involved in some of the pieces I wrote and at times gave me suggestions to make my writing better,” said Paramore. “They began to think more for themselves and to reach out more. It wasn’t just in writing; it was in everything.”

Part of the federal National Writing Project, the RCWP is one of seven writing projects in Georgia and more than 150 programs across the country. The $800 fellowships for each teacher’s participation are paid for by federal dollars and matching funds from the university.

Applications for teachers interested in attending the Red Clay Writing Project next summer will be available in January 2005.

(Excerpts from a story in the Athens BannerHerald were used in this article.)

For more information: www.coe.uga.edu/rcwp EDUCATION 2005 ■ 9

PHOTO BY MICHAEL CHILDS

Education researchers: (L-R) Mack Burke, Cecil Fore III, Shanna HaganBurke and Richard Boon

Researchers Say Professional Development That Translates Research Into Practice Can Contribute to a School’s Accountability hile recent federal legislation concerning both special and general education calls for schools to be accountable for the performance of their students, there appears to be little focus on evidence-based practice in schools, say two University of Georgia education researchers.

As schools work to meet these new standards, they must avoid “faddish” methods and programs that lack evidence to support their effectiveness, says Shanna Hagan-Burke, an assistant professor in special education.

Hagan-Burke, nationally recognized for her expertise in positive behavioral interventions and supports, is working with her colleagues at UGA to increase schools’ capacity to make data-based decisions.

She and her fellow UGA education researchers Mack Burke, Cecil Fore III and Richard Boon have formed a working group whose goal is to improve social and academic

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outcomes for students in Georgia.

Education has historically been much like the diet industry, continually cycling through approaches, says Burke, an assistant professor of special education. While the diet industry goes through fads (e.g., liquid diets, low-fat diets, high-protein diets, low-carbohydrate diets, etc.), education cycles through its own faddish approaches, usually based on particular philosophical orientations rather than science.

“Unfortunately, even those educational approaches that might be effective may not be used consistently because they aren’t implemented long enough, lack fidelity of implementation, or are not evaluated in such a way for schools to document their efficacy,” he says.

The fundamental problem is not a shortage of effective practices capable of improving school outcomes, but often a lack of effective mechanisms for translating what we know works (i.e., research) into classroom practices,

says Hagan-Burke.

An emphasis on professional development models that translate research into practice can contribute to a school’s efforts of accountability. While accountability is crucial for the development of the profession of teaching, it must be paired with what we know works in education, she says.

Based on these premises, Hagan-Burke and her colleagues are implementing a systemschange model they refer to as Effective Behavioral and Instructional Supports (EBIS).

The model is an effort to “package” what is known about research in a way that is useful to schools, says Hagan-Burke. EBIS rests on several principles. The first is a focus on formative evaluation — getting the right information to teachers, administrators, and parents so they can make informed decisions about the educational programming of students.

“Often, within an accountability framework, educators wait until the end of the

A S S E S S M E N T school year to receive feedback from standardized ‘high stakes’ tests. Unfortunately, this summative approach to evaluation often comes too late to make necessary changes in curriculum and instruction to change the learning trajectory of many students,” says Hagan-Burke. “A doctor does not wait until after a heart attack to make recommendations concerning a patient’s diet nor should educators have to wait until a student is failing to the point of a referral for special education to receive intervention.”

The second principle of EBIS is that schools should focus on the implementation of evidence-based practices.

“It is clear that the current legislation is biased toward approaches to teaching and instruction based on what is known to work from the research literature. This is a bias that we very much endorse,” says Hagan-Burke.

“While there will never be one definitive study that will ‘prove’ one particular method of teaching over another, there is research that indicates some instructional methods/curricula as more effective than others, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

A third principle of EBIS is a focus on organizational management of schools to implement both formative evaluation and corresponding instructional practices on a sustainable basis. The researchers say that often when schools stop receiving external support, when grant funding ends, or a key administrator or teacher moves to another position, the particular practice that was being undertaken also ends.

“The common practice of one-shot staff development in-servicing is not likely to promote the sustainable implementation of a particular practice. A big part of EBIS is to work with schools in organizing themselves in a way that will help promote implementation of effective practices in their schools once we leave,” says Burke.

And that’s exactly what Hagan-Burke, Burke, Fore and Boon are doing as they partner with the Georgia Department of Education’s Exceptional Student Division, Safe and Drug-Free Schools, Georgia State and Valdosta State universities to “scale-up” the behavior intervention piece of EBIS and plan for statewide implementation over the next four years.

They will be working directly with more than 100 Georgia schools across dozens of school districts as they prepare the schools to implement effective behavioral and instructional supports and show them how to conduct formative assessments in order to make better behavioral and instructional decisions

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for the improvement of student learning.

At first glance, these assistant professors of special education might appear to have divergent interests, but their cumulative range of knowledge and experience work to the group’s advantage, they explain.

Burke has a broad background in quantitative research methodologies, evaluation, and assessment. His current research focuses on early literacy assessment and corresponding instructional approaches for prevention of reading disabilities.

Boon specializes in instructional and assistive technologies, particularly for students with mild, interrelated disabilities. He teaches related coursework, sharing his expertise with undergraduate students as well as seasoned teachers working to earn advanced degrees.

Fore is well versed in educational assessment, coupled with research interests in minority students and inclusive educational settings. He is particularly interested in assessment bias among minority students and implementing curriculum-based measurement at the secondary level.

Individually, the junior faculty members have been very successful in obtaining external funding to support their research and outreach efforts. Hagan-Burke came to UGA with an Initial Career Research Grant awarded by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) with the U.S. Department of Education. She used the $225,000 award to begin a program of research examining

Shanna Hagan-Burke and Mack Burke look over test scores

relations between academic failure and problem behavior and has completed a number of research studies in this area.

During their first year at UGA, Burke, Hagan-Burke, and Fore secured funding from OSEP for a three-year, $525,000 outreach grant to provide technical assistance to several Georgia schools. As they begin the last year of the grant, results have been very promising. For example, as part of the grant, all kindergarten through second-grade students in one local school district are screened three times a year on early literacy measures to identify those who may be at risk of developing a reading disability. The schools use the information generated from the outreach grant to provide additional services to those children in need of additional support. They provide similar types of assistance to other surrounding schools.

In addition, Fore and Boon have received several mini-grants to examine various assessment and instructional procedures for adolescents with disabilities.

“It’s easy to become insulated from the real world in higher education. Impacting the day-to-day development of teachers is what is most important,” says Hagan-Burke. “I enjoy the freedom that external funding provides. It allows me the opportunity to carry out my research in public schools where I love to be and then bring what we learn from them back to our college students at UGA.”

An Extended-Year Calendar, A New Attitude and Rising Test Scores in UGA-Clarke School Partnership Draw Interest of State, Federal Education Officials

We must put our children first — first in priority, health, development, education

“

and reaching their potential. To accomplish this, new partners need to be identified, and then all stakeholders must focus and apply their knowledge, practice and resources to the benefit of our children, their future and our future.”

Louis A. Castenell, Jr. Dean, College of Education University of Georgia September 2000

t was just a few years ago that Dean Louis Castenell first envisioned a partnership aimed at raising student achievement which involved the University of Georgia, the Clarke County School District and the Athens-Clarke County community.

The five-year initiative, which began during the 2002-03 school year, focuses on two elementary schools in Clarke County, Georgia. Local school teachers and more than three dozen UGA faculty are working together to raise student test scores, enhance parental participation and develop newer, better ways of teaching diverse student populations. They are doing this through a broad range of programs, including mentoring, recreation, art and language education.

Something seems to be working at the two partnership schools — Chase Street and Gaines elementaries. A comparison of recent standardized state test scores at both schools shows greater improvement in reading, math and language arts than the district average.

Those results suggest that instruction at the 12 ■ EDUCATION 2005

two schools has become more effective in some subjects than in the district as a whole.

Between spring 2002 and 2003, the average math score for Chase Street fourth graders climbed 12 points, while the average score at Gaines went up 15.5 points. During the same time period, the district average increased by about 5.5 points.

In reading, the Chase average score increased almost 9 points, and the Gaines average increased by almost 7 points, while the district average remained stable. In language arts, Chase’s average score increased by about 10 points, and Gaines’ average score increased by almost 14 points, while the district average increased by only a point.

Chase students have done particularly well in math, while Gaines students have shown strong increases in language arts — probably the result of specialized grants and teaching programs at each school, said JoBeth Allen, a language education professor in the UGA College of Education and co-director of the partnership.

Chase Street is just completing a three-year

program focusing on math, while Gaines has had reading and literacy grants in recent years.

All Gaines classes are required to write every day, allowing them to combine reading with other skills such as revision and proofreading. The emphasis is on a whole method of instruction, not fragmented pieces.

Although UGA experts say the numbers are only a snapshot and that it is too early to make definitive judgments about the increases, it is clear that when best practices are implemented and students are given enough resources and support, the opportunity grows for greater student achievement.

Some of these best practices include: changing to an extended-year calendar, an ongoing involvement of UGA education faculty in the two schools in areas of curriculum, shared governance, after-school activities, diversity and human development services, creating a resource bank of more than 70 UGA Arts and Sciences faculty members available to work with teachers and students in the partnership schools, and working with

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Rising Test Scores at Partnership Schools

READING Chase Gaines District

The improvement in average performance on state Criterion Referenced

2002 299.82 303.50 327.27

2003 308.56 310.40 326.82

2002 300.41 289.06 308.53

2003 312.44 304.56 313.02

MATH

Competency Tests for fourth graders in reading, math and language arts at the

Chase Gaines District

two partnership schools, Chase Street and Gaines Elementary, exceeded the

LANGUAGE ARTS 2002 Chase 302.95 Gaines 296.73 District 313.44

district-wide average in Clarke County.

practices to work in real-life situations to improve student achievement and the lives of our students and their families.”

Now, two years into the effort, it has done that and more, said Castenell.

Through interacting with elementary students, education faculty have been able to see what’s effective and what’s not in teaching youngsters, he explained. That has allowed the college to change its curriculum to reflect what works in the field. One of those changes, he said, is that the college now places more emphasis on research as a part of students’ training.

“It has also helped to recruit better faculty and students to our program since the best usually want to be closely associated with an exciting project which would lead to more PHOTO BY PETER FREY

community partners in developing low-cost activities for students during intersession weeks.

The partnership has also addressed the needs of students from diverse cultural backgrounds by offering GED and English as a second language classes for families at the schools and year-long Spanish language classes for faculty and staff at both schools.

The Partnership for Community Learning Centers is paying big dividends for UGA faculty too by allowing them another vehicle for preparing students for careers in teaching.

“It taught me about leadership responsibility,” said Sarah Slagel, a junior majoring in therapeutic recreation who worked with kids in the after-school program at Chase Street Elementary last fall. “I also learned about behavioral patterns and how different students respond in different situations.”

Gwynn Powell, an assistant professor in recreation and leisure studies, said the program is allowing for a level of student involvement that would not be possible in a typical university classroom environment.

In fact, more than 200 UGA students have been working directly with students from pre-K through the fifth grade at the partnership schools over the past two years.

At its beginning, Castenell, Clarke County School Superintendent Lewis Holloway and community leaders hailed the partnership as a great way to steer the university’s resources toward helping some of the community’s youngest members.

“It’s exciting to have the expertise of the University of Georgia College of Education at work in our schools on a daily basis,” said Holloway. “We’re putting research and best

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2003 312.65 309.56 314.54

learning,” he said. “When you have a strong and powerful partnership, which we now have, it’s an incredible selling point to bring in the best faculty, which in turn brings in the best students.”

The success of the partnership has drawn interest in 2004 from both state and federal education officials with visits by Georgia State School Superintendent Kathy Cox and William Butts, an undersecretary in the U.S. Department of Education.

But while the College has used existing funds and new grants to get the partnership rolling, there is a need for more funding to keep the momentum going.

“We are doing this the way it’s supposed to be done, and our disadvantage is that no one gave us any money to do it — so nobody is hearing about what we’re doing,” said Castenell.

“It is so vital now that all of us work together in education,” said Butts. “We cannot isolate ourselves. All of us are going to have to work together to make education a reality.”

(Excerpts from reports by Athens BannerHerald reporters Alisa DeMao and Ronell Smith were included in this article.)

For more on the UGA-CCSD partnership: www.clarke.k12.ga.us/ccsduga/

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UGA art professor Joseph Norman begins a charcoal drawing of Lauralyn Smith, a student at Gaines Elementary School in Athens EDUCATION 2005 ■ 13

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A UGA Graduate Student Explores How Art, Science Can Interact in Education

UGA-Clarke County Schools Partnership www.clarke.k12.ga.us/ccsduga/ 14 ■ EDUCATION 2005

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PHOTOS BY DOT PAUL

rt and science might seem like unrelated disciplines, but a UGA graduate student is exploring how the two can interact in an educational setting. Jamie Calkin, a doctoral candidate in science education, is researching how visual arts can be used to teach science as part of his dissertation project.

Calkin and Deborah Tippins, UGA professor of science education and elementary education, developed a study that allows Calkin to use both his artistic talent and expertise as a former high school science teacher. One key to the process is the UGA-Clarke County Schools Partnership, which allowed Calkin to collaborate with Gaines Elementary School teacher Annette Santana. Starting in August 2003, Calkin brought art and science materials into Santana’s fifth-grade classroom. The two worked together to integrate the materials and Calkin’s expertise into the science curriculum.

Working with small groups, Calkin taught units on ocean animals, landforms and geology. In addition to high-quality art supplies, he brought in books, videos and items that the students usually would not have the opportunity to see —– like bone specimens from the Georgia Museum of Natural History. While learning about science, the students drew or painted the objects and landscapes, getting a simultaneous lesson in art techniques.

“Some kids found talents and interests they didn’t know they had,” Calkin said.

At the end of the units each student chose his or her favorite piece of art for an exhibit hosted by the UGA College of Education at Aderhold Hall. The students attended an opening reception January 16, where they viewed their art as well as Calkin’s drawings and paintings based on his experiences in their classroom. The exhibit is a dream come true for any budding artist, but what’s most important is the knowledge the students have gained, Calkin said.

“At the core of this work is what’s best for kids and what’s best for the classroom teacher,” he said.

For more information: Jamie Calkin - www.jamiecalkin.com

1. Jamie Calkin (left), a UGA graduate student in science education, talks with members of Annette Santana’s fifth-grade class from Clarke County’s Gaines Elementary School. The students’ art, based on their science curriculum and created with Calkin’s guidance, was on display in spring 2004 at Aderhold Hall 2. A fifth grader explains his art work to a UGA education graduate student at opening of art exhibit

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UGA Professor Paul Schempp is Recognized Around the World for Research on What Makes a Good Golf Instructor

Camp Excellence: Swedish professional golfers (front, L-R) Peter Mattsson (head coach), Niclas Fasth (Ryder Cup team member), Mathias Gronberg (winner of the most recent PGA Q-School tournament); (back, L-R) Henik Nystrom (European PGA Tour player), Richard Johnson (PGA Tour player), Fredrik Jacobsen (PGA Tour player who finished 16th the Master’s Tournament in April 2004), Mikaela Parmlid (LPGA Tour player, 2004 NCAA Champion), Per Ulrik Johansson (PGA tour player), Per Peterson (coach), Eva Dahlloff (LPGA Tour player) and Paul Schempp (UGA prof, performance consultant, coach)

By Kristen Heflin t’s hard to imagine that Paul Schempp wasn’t born with a golf club in his hand. In fact, he has only been playing for about a decade, but today he is considered an authority on teaching golf both nationally and internationally. He has even given pointers to Pia Nilsson, coach for outstanding Swedish golfer Annika Sorenstam.

Schempp, a professor of physical education and sport studies at the University of Georgia, began studying sport instruction about 10 years ago to determine the characteristics of coaching experts.

After working on a grant studying the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) teacher-of-the-year candidates, Schempp and his research team became involved in analyzing and selecting Golf Magazine’s list of “America’s Top 100 Golf Instructors.”

Now in the eighth year of their partnership with Golf Magazine, Schempp and his Sport Instruction Research Laboratory team, which

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includes Bryan McCullick, an assistant professor in physical education and sport studies, and some doctoral students, are in the process of selecting this year’s list.

Schempp’s expertise on expertise has also led to his becoming a consultant to the

Schempp

Swedish National Golf Team. Peter Mattsson, the team’s head coach, contacted Schempp after learning about his work with Nilsson and the LPGA. Mattsson asked Schempp to help the amateur team in a training camp, which became an annual Thanksgiving tradition for the players. Turkey Camp, as it became known, proved such a benefit to the amateurs that the professionals wanted to join as well.

As a result, Schempp held the first training camp for Swedish professional golfers in January 2004 in Jupiter, FL. Although previous training camps have been the source of data for improving coaching and practice styles, Mattsson and Schempp decided not to collect data. Instead, Camp Excellence provided an opportunity to find out from players what activities would help their performances.

“The camp was an overwhelming success.

In fact, all of the players who attended have said they’re coming back, and more players are coming next year that weren’t there this time around,” said Schempp.

This success undoubtedly stems from Schempp’s past research on effective practice techniques. He tries to identify the goal that the players want to work on and then helps them to develop activities to address that skill.

“So often elite athletes do the same thing again and again, and nothing improves. You have to consciously set a goal to try to do something particular, and that’s what we try to do in the practice activities,” said Schempp.

The researcher, who joined the UGA faculty in 1991, tries to make all practice activities competitive. “One of the things that we know is it has to be contextually based, in other words, the more similar you can make the practice situation, to the actual performance situation the easier the transfer will be,” he said.

Schempp and his research team are currently designing a teacher development program for Club Corp and Pinehurst (NC) Golf Resort.

He says the project should yield interesting results. “No program has ever been developed that could analyze someone’s current teaching level or skill and then tailor a program to meet that,” he said.

Schempp was a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar in the fields of education and social theory in Germany in 1992. He received the Mabel Lee Award for outstanding potential in scholarship, teaching, and professional leadership by the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) in 1999.

For more information: www.coe.uga.edu/sportlab EDUCATION 2005 ■ 15

D E V E L O P M E N T

U P D AT E D E V E L O P M E N T

THE NEXT 100 YEARS OF

U P D AT E

EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION

by Lauren Barrett, Director of Development

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he University of Georgia College of Education has a rich tradition of preparing some of the nation’s most talented students for careers in diverse fields of education, psychology and healthcare. In 2008, we will celebrate a century of this tradition. From humble beginnings as the Georgia State Normal School at Athens (prior to earning university status) to the Peabody College of Education to the construction of Aderhold Hall, the Ramsey Student Center and renovation of River’s Crossing, the evolution of our College is attributable to the foresight and philanthropy of citizens of Georgia and around the South. Their vision and effort have enabled the College to grow and evolve to meet the ever-changing education needs of our times.

eorgia Governor George R. Gilmer (18371839) began the tradition. The annual income from his $15,000 endowment was earmarked “to train teachers in the elementary branches of an English education only.” The “Gilmer Fund” largely supported the Normal School for its first three years. In its opening year, the total annual support for the school was $1,923 — $1,000 of which came from the Gilmer Fund and the rest from other private gifts, some as small as fifty cents.

The first scholarships were also established in the early days. In 1902, women from towns around Georgia raised money for 50 scholarships for the State Normal School. According to Bob Jerrolds’ book The History of the College of Education, “in order to secure a more stable student body and to have a student remain longer and, consequently, become better prepared to teach, a plan was perfected whereby many of the students could secure a fifty-dollar scholarship.”

One cannot write about philanthropy in our beginning years without highlighting the extraordinary dedication of George Foster Peabody. A Georgia native who made his fortune in banking, Peabody saw education as the key to improving Georgia’s standard of living, especially in rural areas. His vast contributions to UGA included a $50,000 endowment that officially established the College of Education at UGA in 1908. As a tribute to his generosity, the College was originally named in his honor.

The level of support we receive from private giving — individuals, foundations and corporations — continues to be the muscle behind our ability to remain a leader in educational innovation. As we approach our 100th birthday, the College has identified key areas where funding and/or endowed support are vital for us to continue this national leadership in educational excellence.

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GEORGE FOSTER PEABODY

. . . Peabody saw education as the key to improving Georgia’s standard of living, especially in rural areas . . .

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Building a better learning environment: • Update technology infrastructures/wireless networking • Asynchronous online learning equipment/technical support • Physical improvement of classroom space • Space modifications to accommodate new and larger departments and technology learning Attracting and supporting the best faculty and students: • Scholarships and fellowships to attract determined and talented students into fields in education • Endowed professorships and chairs to provide additional funds for salaries to attract top faculty in their respective fields Competing in a global economy: • Sufficient unrestricted funds and a strong endowment are hallmarks of a world-class institution. These funds allow a college to be opportunistic, to weather economic storms, to fund research, to provide lectures and workshops by visiting scholars and to invigorate programs. An endowed general fund is the key to our ability to enhance our academic environment.

As the largest school of education in the state, our research and scholarly influence have given shape and substance to the practices essential for promoting the best in learning and leadership to meet the challenges facing education today.

Whether you are an alumnus, a proud UGA parent, or the leader of a company, foundation or corporation, I hope that you, like our forefathers and mothers, see the enormous value of your support and its impact on our long-term viability. Many thanks and appreciation to all our supporters, past and present, for keeping the College of Education at the forefront of higher education — now and into our next century.

The Mary Frances Early Professorship in Teacher Education he College of Education has its first professorship in teacher education thanks to a generous endowment from Georgia Power. “We thought it was important to showcase, not only the struggles that Ms. Early faced at the University of Georgia, but also the strides she has made in the fields of education and music in the state,” said Bill Archer, Georgia Power’s executive vice president of external affairs, explaining their decision to fund the professorship.

Early came to the College of Education because she wanted her master’s in teaching, and she wanted to help establish racial equality at UGA. With her unwavering determination and dedication, she accomplished both and became the university’s first AfricanAmerican graduate in 1962.

With 30 years of elementary and middle school teaching in Georgia public schools under her belt, Early is now chair and associate professor of music at Clark Atlanta University. Her love of teaching and landmark determination will be commemorated through this endowment. The professorship will support another outstanding professor that will bring Early’s commitment and dedication to teacher education.

Much esteem and appreciation to Georgia Power and their philanthropic commitment to educational enrichment in Georgia.

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The Mary Sartalamacchia Macagnoni Academic Fund

Eileen Russell: Supporting Scholarships in Health, Physical Education and Recreation

ENDOWMENT HONORS

Making Us Stronger – Making Us Better ary Sartalamacchia Macagnoni never went to college. In fact, she never even went to grade school. As a child of Italian immigrants, she stayed home to care for the other children in her family. But that did not deter her love of learning and esteem for education. She taught herself the basics and learned the ways of the world on a farm near New Orleans, La. Mary married Sheda Achille Macagnoni in 1919. Their daughter, Virginia, did go to college, studying architecture at Tulane University and interior design at Newcomb (B.F.A. 1949). She graduated with a Ph.D. in supervision from Florida State University in 1959 and went on to become the first woman hired as a full professor at the UGA College of Education in 1967.

In 2003, Mary celebrated her 100th birthday in Athens, Ga. Inspired by the outpouring of love for her mother and her dedication to family, God, community and lifelong learning, Macagnoni pledged $25,000 to endow an academic fund in her mother’s honor. The spirit of her mother’s life will be embodied in an endowment whose mission will be to guide UGA students and faculty into research, dialogue and study in multiple epistemologies, such as critical, ecozoic, empirical, narrative, paradigmatic and poetic, with an emphasis on question-raising.

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Mary Frances Early with Ga. Power Executive Vice President Bill Archer

s a physical education instructor, the late Eileen Russell spent 30 years of her life (1948–77) guiding and teaching young women at UGA. Russell was not a Georgia alumna or native. She graduated from Sargent College in Boston and came south to teach. She brought with her a love of sports and taught softball, basketball, and bowling. However, her specialty was field hockey — a game that was foreign to many Southern women at the time.

Former faculty fondly recall Russell actually making and repairing hockey sticks herself!

More than just a women’s physical education teacher, Russell took an apartment on Lumpkin Street so that the campus and her beloved students were never out of her view. In March of 1994, she made her ultimate gift so that the institution can go on guiding and teaching UGA students today and into the future by including a seven-figure contribution to UGA’s College of Education in her will. As directed in the bequest, her gift was divided among the Mary Ella Lunday Soule Scholarship, the Clifford Gray Lewis Scholarship and the College of Education General Scholarship Fund in memory of Louise E. Kindig.

This generous act is a remarkable testament to her faith in and love for the University of Georgia.

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The Jonathan Robert Scruggs Scholarship in Teacher Education onathan Robert Scruggs came from a long line of educators including grandparents, aunts, uncles, as well as his older brother and mother.

Born in Charlotte, N.C., as the youngest of two sons and a daughter, Scruggs entered UGA in 1994 as a history major and joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. He took time off to work in Atlanta before returning in June 2002 to complete his last two semesters. Sadly, he died unexpectedly that summer of cardiomyopathy. He was awarded a posthumous degree from UGA in December 2002.

In 2004, his family created a scholarship in his memory.

They decided to name the scholarship in the UGA College of Education because Scruggs would have wanted the scholarship to go to a future teacher as a tribute to his mother, Lynne Darby Scruggs, a longtime Georgia public school teacher.

The Jonathan Robert Scruggs Memorial Scholarship will provide support to a secondary education major in mathematics, science, language, social science or English education, community counseling, or counseling psychology. Although a voracious reader and a Jeopardy wiz, Scruggs was not the model student. Knowing his witty sense of humor, his family is sure he is looking down grinning that there is a scholarship in his name! The College of Education is honored to be the home of this tribute.

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C O N T R I B U T I O N S

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G I F T S

The College of Education

HONOR ROLL OF DONORS he UGA College of Education proudly recognizes and thanks the many alumni, friends and organizations who contribute their support to the College and its strategic initiatives. Donors to the College are making an investment in our students as future educators, school administrators and top professionals in psychology- and health-related fields. See how you can make a gift to the College of Education on the enclosed return envelope. The Honor Roll of Donors recognizes gifts of $100 or more through the University of Georgia Foundation from July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2004. See a complete list of donors: www.coe.uga.edu/alumni.

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Corporate – recognizing gifts from these entities at all levels.

Anonymous Altria Group, Inc. Bank of America Foundation Bank of America Matching Gifts Program California Association for the Gifted Citigroup Foundation Coca-Cola Company Cooks Hotdogs Creative Education Foundation Delta Air Lines Foundation ExxonMobil Foundation Fortson, Bentley, & Griffin, PA Georgia Power Foundation, Inc. Georgia Sports Medicine Institute Harpers Dairy, Inc. Holton Cattle & Consulting The Home Depot Kappa Delta Pi Kyung Hee University Main Street Baseball, LLC Marathon Ashland Petroleum, LLC MBS Direct Merrill Lynch and Company Foundation, Inc. National Association for Gifted Children National Student Speech Language Hearing Association Norfolk Southern Foundation Publix Super Market Charities, Inc. Ryan’s 6th Grade Class, MacArthur Elementary Science Applications International Corporation Southeast Mailing Equipment, Inc. Southern Company Services, Inc. St. Mary’s Health Care System, Inc. State Bar of Georgia State Farm Companies Foundation Sunshine Fund TIC Federal Credit Union John Tym Builders, LLC

Deferred – recognizing donors who have included the College in their estate plans through life insurance policies, bequests or pooled-income gifts.

Anonymous Neal and Nancy Alford Martha Nell Allman Dr. Joan D. Berryman Charles R. Brown Julianne F. and C. Saxby Chambliss Cam D. Dorsey, Jr. Sara O. Glickman and Dr. Carl D. Glickman Dr. Sylvia McCoy Hutchinson ✦ Dr. Virginia M. Macagnoni Dr. Mary Louise McBee Mary Ann Morgareidge David John Mullen, Jr. and Cynthia Shields Mullen Joan Burkes Land Neal Drs. Jenny and Steven Oliver Dr. Donald O. Schneider Dr. Julian C. Stanley, Jr. *Dr. E. Paul Torrance

18 ■ EDUCATION 2005

Dr. R. Curtis Ulmer, Sr. and Irene S. Ulmer Aubrey Sego Whelchel *Gene Wyatt

Dean’s Club – recognizing donors who have given a minimum of $1,000 during the year. Gifts at this level also qualify for the University of Georgia Annual President’s Club.

Anonymous - 2 Dr. Ira E. Aaron Janice Puder Agron Martha Nell Allman Bennett Leland Arp Martha Shuman Brandon and George M. Brandon Brian Christopher Bruce Rhonda Dee Burger Bob and Maxine Burton Louis and Mae Castenell Frank and Donna Comer Sara Lucas Cooney and Dr. Thomas J. Cooney Dr. Bernice Louise Cooper Dr. Bradley C. Courtenay and Nancy Talton Courtenay Dr. Carolyn Carson Dahl Thomas Michael Dekle Dr. Carol J. Fisher Mr. and Mrs. Peter B. Glass Dr. George Olin Hallman Charles R. Heaton, Jr. Martha and Stanley Henderson Hildegard K. Holmes Dr. Sylvia McCoy Hutchinson ✦ Renee Armstrong Kelly and Scott W. Kelly Dr. Jeremy and Cardee Kilpatrick Dr. Virginia M. Macagnoni James T. and Gleith J. Mann Dr. Randall and Rita Manning Joanna Massar Dr. Denise Spangler Mewborn ✦ David John Mullen, Jr. and Cynthia Shields Mullen Roberta Stevens Ramsay and Dr. James Walter Ramsay Carol L. Schlichter Robert C. and Lynne D. Scruggs Mr. and Mrs. Steve Scruggs Dr. Julian C. Stanley, Jr. Dr. E. Paul Torrance Estate Linda L. and David H. Turner Dr. Yancey and Jean Watkins Dr. Otto Paul Wielan Lois Cason Wooten and Frank L. Wooten, Jr. Dr. Russell H. Yeany, Jr. and Brenda Yeany

College Club – recognizing donors who have given a minimum of $500 during the year.

Anonymous Lyna Estes Anderson Mary Frances Early Dr. Sally Boyett-Whatley ✦ Ronald Lee and Martha Black Fritchley Steve Harris

Dr. Harold Lee Hayes Steve and Diane Horton Mark Allan and Joanie Kenny Hoyt Dr. Susan Maraia LaFave Mary Perkins and A. Steve McQueen II Dr. Genelle G. Morain Dr. Robert Eugene Myers Glenda Smith Neely Leonard D. Pridgeon Frederick Lee Tunmer and Dr. Dorothy Rhodes Tunmer Dr. Richard Gene Wiggins and Larna Kennerly Wiggins Erla Gortatowsky Zuber

Century Club – recognizing donors who have given a minimum of $100 during the year.

Dr. Thomas D. Aaron, Jr. Ellen B. Adams Dr. Miriam Adderholdt Dr. Stephen Kwasi Agyekum Naomi Shearouse Alderman Marilyn Kirby Alexander Drs. Lewis Ray and JoBeth Allen Teresa Ann Allen Dr. Jacqueline Andrews Allison Ellen Smith and W. Robb Andersen Carole Winkenwerder Anderson Dr. Grady Lee Anderson and Verna Golson Anderson Thomas Jackson Arnold and Carolyn E. Arnold Lettie O’Dell Ashworth Jill Anne Atkinson Pauletta Youngblood Atwood Mary Jane E. and Joel Slade Bacon Dr. Juanita Johnson-Bailey Dianne Lee Baker Daniel Lee and Kimberly Y. Ball Vivian Jeanette Bankston Solomon Barge, Sr. Dr. Frances Faust Barger Dr. Harold Thomas Barnett Joyce Ballard Beckwith and Dr. Julian R. Beckwith III Donald Alva Bennett Sherry Connell Bennett Betty J. Benson Dr. Joseph R. Berrigan, Jr. Carter and Susan Berry Deborah Yater and Carl W. Betsill Susan Whitman Bicksler Anne J. Blakely Michael C. Bolen and Kimberly Almers Bolen John Lee Bolton, Jr. B. Sidney and Toby Rand Bonner William Blair Bourke Dr. John Metcalf Bowen and Jean Schmidt Bowen Jane Probert Bowers and Stewart V. Bowers, Jr. Jack Duncan Brannon Lavada E. Brodnax Brannon Dr. Martha Clarkson Braswell and James A. Braswell Rebecca Lynn Breedlove Charla B. and William F. Brewster

Francine Ennis Brown Robert Moren Brown, Sr. and Joelen Cowan Brown Sharon Diane Brown James Allan Bruce Dr. Catherine Bruch Carol Bird Buhler Ann Lagrone and Daniel H. Bull, Jr. Frances M. and Charles S. Bullock Robert Michael Burns and Mary Nell Williams Burns Hunter Joyce Burt Dr. Ronald E. Butchart and Amy F. Rolleri Susan Walz Butera Mary Ann Buxton Dr. Robert Lawrence Byalick Dr. Lynn Caddell Cagle Dr. Calfrey C. Calhoun and *Dr. Marjorie Rogers Calhoun Drs. Mary Lynne and Lawrence G. Calhoun, Jr. Shannon Illges Candler and Peter M. Candler Linda Canady and William T. Cantrell Dr. Frank John Carbo Lynn Brinson Cargen Dr. Fredrick Murray Carrington Ruby L. Carson Barbara Seagraves Carter Brenda Scruggs Carter and Dr. Harrison S. Carter Richard Joe Carter Carolyn Ferrence Carver and Dr. Gerald W. Carver Dr. Janice Louise Sapp Castles Dr. Robert Michael Cavin, Sr. and Janice Ethridge Cavin Raymond L. Center Dr. Mary M. Szegedy Chandler Drs. Sue Watkins and Kevin L. Chapman Dr. Mark Phillip Cheek William Michael and Emily Kirkland Chonko Dr. M. Carolyn Clark Byard Quigg Clemmons Edsel Lamar Cleveland, Jr. Dr. Mary Alice Clower Clifford Lanier and Verlene P. Cobb John Joseph Cobis Carol Hatcher Cochran Margaret Grayson Cole and Dr. Ronald S. Cole Sharon L. Groff Collins Dr. Mary Jim Combs and Curtis E. Tate, Jr. Edna Mae Comstock Madeleine Constantine Conger Karen Manship and Joseph E. Cook Diane L. Cooper Dr. Mary Kay Corbitt Mr. and Mrs. Howard L. Cordell, Jr. Dr. James A. Cottingham and Elizabeth Stanick Cottingham Leigh McIntosh and Jeffrey T. Couch Julian Franklin Council II Charlotte Jones Coursey Maria Slowik Coyle Phyllis Causey Craft and Ken Craft, Jr. Dr. Bonnie Louise Cramond Martha Jean Crane Patricia Sewell Cresswell Drs. Harlon and Jo Ann Crimm

C O N T R I B U T I O N S Daniel Harrison Cromer Elaine H. Crosby Helen Lewis Crosland William Paulk Culbreth Rosemary Tippett and Jack L. Culpepper, Jr. Jackie Louise Daniel Dr. Bernard P. Dauenhauer and Dr. Jean E. Friedman Shannon Joy Davis Sharon Marshall and William M. Davis Virginia Carole Davis Albert and Ingrid De Chicchis Drs. Carolyn Blount and Paul F. DeLargy Charlotte Leavy Dickson Dr. Ernest K. Dishner Mary Nunn Domingos and Richard Domingos William E. Donehoo III Mary Holland and Clarence W. Duke Cheryl McDavid Dupree Lois Gertrude Durling Dr. Patricia Leech Dwinell and David Dwinell Samuel C. Dyess, Jr. Mary Lou Edens William Belton Edmonds *Darwin Gwinett Edwards Vernon Gaines Edwards Charlotte Hitchcock Efurd Dr. Henry Nicholas Elksnin Shirley May Ellis Wayne Dillard Ervin Jo Ann and Samuel Clark Evans IV Samuel Nesbitt Evins V Philip Harvey Faulk Elise F. Fay Dr. Marc Eugene Fey and Sandra Hamilton Fey Phyllis Newsome and David Charles Field Kate Maxwell and Aubrey M. Finch Harriett Susan Finney Virginia Wilson and Wiley Stewart Flanagin, Jr. Joyce and Curtis Flatt Dr. William P. and June N. Flatt Jeanette Justice and John I. Fleming Dr. Mary Kathryn Floyd Kathleen Kyle and Geri R. Forehand Johnnie R. Wallace Forgay and Carl A. Forgay Frances Cater Franklin Dr. Mary M. Frasier Anita George Friday Sharon Nelson Fuss Dr. Barbara Campbell Gartin Ann Underwood Gary Meghan Keally and Don G. Gaskill, Jr. Laura Bird Gatins Dr. and Mrs. George M. Gazda ✦ Michael Lee Gilstrap John J. and Peggy S. Gindville Dr. Brian A. Glaser Dr. Lynda Thomas Goodfellow Dustin F. Goodman and Mark S. Goodman Mary Hill Gould Anita Graham Dr. Evelyn Thomas Grant Dr. June Wehrt Gray Dr. Velon Hassell Gray John Charles Grayson Dr. Martha Judith Greer Kimberly Faye Griffin Dr. James Wyatt Grimmer Drs. Elaine Olbrych and Kent L. Gustafson Diane Lindsay Hall Jean Travis Hall Robert Keith Halliday and April Sams Halliday Nancy Hickam and Timothy James Halloran Rebecca Cook Halnon Carol James Halstead Robert H. Hamilton, Sr. Dr. Debra Taylor Harden and Bernard Amrey Harden, Jr. Diane Carrington Harrison Pamela C. Harrison Jane H. Harvey Kimberly Wells Hatton and Dr. Robert M. Hatton Claudia Smith Haun Drs. Andrew E. and Hathia Searles Hayes Mr. and Mrs. William G. Hays, Jr. Ellen Baldwin and Timothy A. Heilig Jack Wilson Hemingway Anne Whiddon and Russell Dale Henry Ann Jackson Herman

Cynthia Young and Kevin W. Herndon Dr. Bonnie Cohoon Higginson Desiree Elaine Hill Kimberly Elliott Hill Patrick Morse Hill Dr. Richard K. and Joan C. Hill Mary Garner and John Franklin Hitchcock Dolly Bentley Hogan Dr. Richard Phillip Holland Julia Todd and Leamon Roy Holliday III Patricia Leake and Henry Holliman Harold Dean Hollis, Jr. Carolyn Rogers and Charles Curtis Holmes Dr. Charles Thomas Holmes and Roselle Massey Holmes Susan Snow Hope Dr. Arthur M. Horne Kathie Ray Howell and James T. Howell, Jr. Dr. Sally Ann Hudson-Ross Loy Thurston Hutcheson Dr. George W. Hynd Sharon Stein Jacobson Dr. Eric D. Jakubowski and Dr. Elizabeth Henderson Jakubowski William A. Jennings, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Durell Jessup Celeste Coley and Willard Calhoun Johns, Jr. Dr. George W. Johnson Matthew Gene Johnson and Jill S. Johnson Nancy Holt Johnson A. Belle Jones Christine Ann Jones Harold Len Jones Mike M. and Martha Jones Dr. Walter Manly Jones, Jr. Dr. William Nevin Jones Dr. Joan Alice Jordan Theresa Fry and Brent Jeffrey Kaplan Claire Brackman Keane and Jerome Keane Jana Owens and Brian Sanderson Kelly Jean A. Kerr Beverly Wallace and James Inman Kile Dr. Cheryl Pope Kish Catherine Thorp and Ralph Henry Knight Michelle Frix Knight Lois Lenner Kuniansky J. Loyd and Mary Elton Landrum Drs. James F. and Judith Winters Lanfrey Linda Hood Lang and Bud Lang, Jr. Dr. Nancy Ann Lang Patricia Mayo Lansdell Stacy Faust and Jeffrey W. Lasky Dr. Gene Rolf Layser Dr. Chester William Leathers Peggy Gaston Ledbetter Dr. Connie Won Lee Dr. Terry Milton Lee Jerrie Ann Legare Dr. Edward Conrad Leichner Pamela Leider and Barry Alan Levin Douglas Loving Lighthart Dr. and Mrs. Ralph Lightsey Lee Harnsberger Limbocker Dr. Jimmy Doyle Lindsey Dr. Roger William Liska Aimee B. Litt Jane Gibbons and Kenneth J. Little, Sr. Barbara Sauls and Bobby Jackson Locke Gwen Johnson Long Dr. Judith Louise Long Cathy Lovern Dr. Donella Whitaker Lowery Corneille Rylander Lucado Teresa Ann Luttrell Matilda Kroell Lynch and Dr. Donald Richard Lynch Penny Jones Machemehl and Dr. Charles A. Machemehl III Dave Mack Jr. Dr. Paul H. Madden Roger Patteson Maddux and Maree Hatton Maddux John Charles Magoni Dr. Nancy Ann Manley Sue Osborne Mann Dr. Brenda Holcomb Manning Drs. Janet Stillman and Roy P. Martin Rebecca Bush and Carlton Charles Maynard, Jr. Betty Bennett McCreery Dr. Mary Ben McDorman

A N D

G I F T S

Joe Miller McKelvey, Jr. Charles Allen McKinney Jane Vickers McNulty Brian Alan McRae Rae Dennis McWhirter Diane Elizabeth Miles Jeannette Mary Milone Lucy Herbert Molinaro Elizabeth Davis and Howard B. Montgomery, Jr. Dewey Eugene Moody, Jr. and Brenda Brownlee Moody Carol Speir Moore and Dr. Abner George Moore Dr. James N. Moore and Dr. Cynthia M. Trim Martha Williams Moore Dr. Rebecca Marlene Moore Mary Wenck Morris Roberta Clark Morris and Dr. James E. Morris Jane Vickery and Marion Alden Morrison Patricia Taylor and Doyle K. Mote Susan Nesmith and Thomas J. Muia Katherine Sheridan Mulherin Betty Ann Murrah Dr. Joyce P. Murray Maxine Conner Nabors Suneeti Nathani Frances Rowland Neely and Dr. Walter P. Neely Gale Bartlett Nemec Ann Ford Nermoe Nora Dale Lanier and Ryan Anson Nesbit Dr. Patricia Camille Newman Bonnie Brown Nunn Dr. Richard Hunter Oates Dr. Jeanette Plauche Parker Patricia Rocker and Charles E. Parker, Sr. Susan Corry and Steven Tracy Parker Janice Lynn Pasek Dr. Joel Harris Paul and Bettie Harris Paul Peter James Paul Janie Branyan Peacock Amy Harrell Penn Janice Gerrett and Douglas Wayne Perkins John and Gloria S. Perkins Milly Perry Sara Williams Phillips Drs. Kenneth W. and Jonelle Porter Pool Caren Gray Powell Kay Reeves Powell and Dr. Roy Powell, Jr. Dr. Lane Mathis Price Patricia Padgett Price Mark Edwin Prock Mary Anne Prosser Peggy Ruth Purcell Dr. Amy Meltzer Rady Dr. Francis Edward Rapley Carol Nunnery and James Joseph Raymond Robert W. and Kathy Reese Dr. Cecil Randy Reynolds Dorothy Ann Rice Drs. Stephen R. and Virginia Richards Elias Rudolph Rigsby Ted James Rikard Dr. John Frost Riley Betsy Painter Roberts Dr. Gerald Burns Robins Dr. Gregory Lee Robinson J. Cheney Robinson IV William Stephens Robinson Dr. D. Hall Rogers and Deborah Stover Rogers John Campbell Rogers Vicki Pope Rogers Dr. Vida V. Rogers and Joseph Carroll Rogers Jane Canipe Rooks Randi Shanley Rooney Joan McCartt Ross Dorothy G. Leverette Royal Laura Lea RycKeley Dr. Keith Dwight Savage Dr. Joan DuBose Schelly Marilyn Ann Schroer Becky W. Scott Marianne Olson and Roger Lamar Scott Dr. and Mrs. Owen Scott Mrs. Paul E. Scott Glenda Lee and Danny L. Scroggs Nancy Norris Seagle Jodi Holtzman Selvey Robert Colton Sexton and Dr. Thelma Dianne Sexton Marie Foster Shepard

Carolyn Gentry Sheppard Nancy Devore and James Edward Sheppard, Jr. Jane Eckard and Joseph M. Sheridan Cecile Berret Shetler Richard Alan Shmerling, M.D. Dr. Elizabeth Mary Simonetti Sara Lee Simons Dr. Walter W. Skinner, Sr. and Sara Trammell Skinner Mary L. and Albert Slavik William McKay Sloan, Jr. and Joan Adams Sloan Judy Camp Sloman and *E. Bruce Sloman Cara Hawkins and Robert Lee Smalley Dr. James Kenneth Smith Jayne Langford and Kirk Martin Smith Mary Ehrlich Smith Mary Jo Smith Stephanie P. Smith Thomas Wayne and Elizabeth C. Smith Mae Whitehead Snelling Charles Raymond Sniffin Helena Stern Solodar Mary Whatley and Richard P. Spencer II Bradley C. and Theresa F. Spenney Dr. Melinda Millard and Phillip B. Stafford Dr. Rosemarie Stallworth-Clark Morris I. Stein Bobby Nelson Stephens Raymond A. and Joycelynn M. Sterling Roscoe Wise Stewart and Alecia Hobbs Stewart Dr. Joseph Paul Stoltman Magdalene Miller Strauss Dr. Paul Michael and Nanette M. Sullivan Dr. Qaisar Sultana Carol Duncan Sweny Dr. Julie I. Tallman Sabrina Tanbara Dr. Liqing Tao and Dr. Li Zuo Laura Spratling Theriot Pojai Thitaram Anne Milton Thompson Emily Beth Thompson George Fred Thomson, Jr. Betty Ann Thrasher Jean Anne Toole Sally Durham Trapnell and Dr. Jerry E. Trapnell Marian Elsie Travis Jane Nagle and W. Hubert Tucker, Jr. Lilly Holloway and Edward Sanders Turner, Jr. Jennifer Lister Tym Betty Hooks Underwood Gilbert Hanson and Norma Junkins Underwood Cherry Gregory and Richard Lawson Valentine Dr. John Acker Vanderford Dr. Anne van Kleeck Sallie Middlebrooks Vetter Kay Reese Walker John James Walsh Jr. Aliene Yancey Warchak Nell Reed Warren Dr. Karen E. Watkins Lou Ann Trapnell Watson Elizabeth Peden and Fred Keith Webster III Ann Bolton Weeks Mary Lillian Beck White Dr. Carol Jo Wilkerson and Dr. Gerrit Hoogenboom Catherine M. Williams Dr. Eugene C. Williams Hattie Best Williams Molly Feeney Willis Joann Nason and W. Bruce Wimberley Jean Weaver and Carlton L. Windsor, Jr. Judy Elaine Winn Barry Alan Wolf Leslie Pitts and Bryan G. Wood Tyler Marion Wood Marie Trapnell Woodward Dr. Robert Lyman Wrisley and Mary Ellen Davis Wrisley ✦ — Capital Campaign Steering Committee * — Deceased

Thanks to Every Donor!

EDUCATION 2005 ■ 19

Where Teaching Theory, Preparation and Practice Come Together

By Heather Edeblute

Education Program (GSTEP).

The focus of the grant was to magine yourself fresh out of create a model for teacher preparacollege and beginning your tion that would be a seamless, sixfirst job as a middle school year process from entry into college teacher. Coping with a room through the second year of teachfull of energetic eighth graders may ing. be the first thing that comes to your “We have improved our teacher mind, but your larger task will be education graduates’ content and to teach those students specific pedagogical knowledge and skills content as outlined in the curricuusing a coherent, integrated lum, prepare them for standardapproach that engages faculty ized tests and keep them motivated across the university as well as P-12 to learn. educators,” said Padilla. “This These are just some of the chalaspect of our work has been vital to lenges a beginning teacher faces in our success in preparing and his or her first years in the classinducting teachers into the field of Education students from Albany State University who participated room, but they do illustrate the education. in the first student-teacher exchange in Barrow County are (L-R): importance of induction — the “We have improved beginning Victoria Hudson, Brandi Roberts and Tifferney Dodd process of supporting new teachers teachers’ content, pedagogical and as they enter the classroom. technological knowledge and skills.

Historically, beginning teachers have not received a great deal of supWe have increased and improved the quality, quantity and variety of port during their first years. clinical experience. And we have created an induction program that “I had to seek out a mentor on my own when I began teaching 27 connects each graduate with a trained in-school mentor and to years ago,” said Debbie Arnold, an Oconee County teacher. “I saw peoresources and individuals in other schools and in higher education.” ple that came into education and were really good teachers and left. I Partners for this five-year, $6.5 million U.S. Department of Education kept thinking, ‘Something should have been there to keep them in edugrant include faculty in both education and arts and sciences at UGA, cation.’”

Albany State (ASU) and Valdosta State (VSU) universities along with Beginning teachers have traditionally been given the worst classroom neighboring school districts for each university partner. This universisettings, leftover materials, and students who were the most challenging ty/school district partnership is a key to the success of GSTEP because it learners. Left with no support, it is hardly surprising that a third of all engages local public school teachers in teacher preparation. new teachers leave the profession within the first three years of entering “Before GSTEP, we had a lot of issues, but we didn’t have a way to the classroom. address them,” said Lynn Hammond, a recruitment/retention specialist “My first years of teaching were like an old-fashioned swimming lesat the Barrow County Teacher Recruitment Center and a veteran educason. They threw you into the water to see who floated,” said Troy tor of 32 years. “Through the leadership and ideas that GSTEP offers, we Johnson, a high school science teacher in Jackson County with 10 years eventually developed an action plan for induction, recruitment and of experience. retention of teachers in our school system.”

This phenomenon, coupled with the teacher shortage in Georgia in Last year, Barrow County asked veteran teachers from 11 of their 13 1999, compelled Michael Padilla, director of Educator Partnerships at the schools to participate in the annual Critical Friends Group (CFG) instiUniversity of Georgia College of Education, and Sally Hudson-Ross, now tute, led by GSTEP Director Frances Hensley, a public service faculty a professor emerita of language education, to write and receive a partmember at UGA’s College of Education. Participants learned how to nership-driven federal grant to form the Georgia Systemic Teacher begin, facilitate and lead peer mentoring groups designed to support

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H I G H - Q U A L I T Y

T E A C H I N G

begun through GSTEP should be sustained once the grant ends,” said Hammond. “The fact that Marshall and I are working in our current positions at the Teacher Recruitment Center demonstrates how important Barrow County thinks this is. What GSTEP initially paid for is now being covered by the district.”

Since funding for GSTEP will conclude at the end of 2005, sustainability is a top priority for those participating in the project. The BRIDGE (Building Resources: Induction and Development for Georgia Educators), an online, interactive professional learning resource bank for teachers, is seen as the vehicle that will propel GSTEP’s work into the future.

“The BRIDGE is a way to take the knowledge that teachers have learned about teaching, value it, and make it available to a wider audience,” said Hensley. “Here, teachers are actually creating new knowledge about teaching and what works in the classroom.”

The BRIDGE includes sections on everything from how to teach differential equations to managing classroom environments to communicating with parents. Educators subContributor Heather Brasell (L), works on submissions with BRIDGE editorial assismit information or resources in response to questions creattant Amy Sanford (C), and BRIDGE math editor Sandy Blount ed by a panel of beginning teachers. An editorial team combeginning teachers. All 11 schools have now implemented these groups prised of P-12 and university faculty for each content area approves subwith overwhelming success. missions.

“Critical Friends Groups offer a mechanism for teachers to discuss “The BRIDGE offers authentic answers to authentic questions. These issues in their classrooms and reflect on their practice of teaching in a are tried-and-true things that veteran teachers know work in the classsafe, non-judgmental environment,” said Hammond. “These groups room,” said BRIDGE mathematics editor Sandy Blount, a veteran have been so successful that the two schools that were not on board the teacher of 22 years. first year signed up for the training this year, and three schools which did The concept of the BRIDGE has also evolved. What initially was a participate last year sent a second coach to be trained this year.” resource database has now become a medium connecting teachers The results have been outstanding. Appalachee High School, which through online chat and user-group options. had nine teachers in the Critical Friends Group, retained all nine after Owned by teachers and driven by teachers, the BRIDGE has the their first year. potential to revolutionize professional development, said Hudson-Ross, “GSTEP has provided leadership and funding that allow us to think a BRIDGE co-editor-in-chief. creatively about induction,” said Marshall Chambers, another Barrow (Heather Edeblute is a project manager for the College of Education.)

County Teacher Recruitment Center specialist.

Through GSTEP and partnerships with other universities, Barrow County established a student teacher resident program to recruit teachers in critical need areas. One of the need areas in Barrow County is in Experienced educators, now is the time to share those great ideas that have the recruitment of minority teachers. Hammond and been hidden in file folders! Please go to www.teachersbridge.org and register.

Chambers created the program after realizing that about 25 percent of Barrow County’s students were Go to “Submit” and share a: minorities while only 3 percent of Barrow teachers ➊ Webpage that has valuable teaching information, were minorities.

Now minority education students as well as other ➋ Text you’ve written or gotten permission to share, or students in critical-need fields from VSU, ASU and ➌ File attachment that you’ve created or have permission to share. other partnering universities can student teach in Barrow County and live for free in a dormitory-like Get your incredible ideas out of the facility. Three education students from ASU particifile drawer and into the hands of pated in the program’s first year, and two of them beginning teachers everywhere! chose to work for the Barrow County School District You’ll get publication credit, support after graduation. Four students from VSU and ASU other beginning teachers and can use are participating in the program this fall. these submissions as evidence for “GSTEP has allowed us to experience the law of NBPTS and other professional unforeseen connections,” Chambers said. “You estabresumes! lish a connection or partnership at one place with one person and then that connection leads to other conReviewers are also needed in all areas. After registering, click on nections and partnerships, which leads to others…

“Volunteer” in “My Stuff” on and on and on.” www.teachersbridge.org for “I feel strongly that the many initiatives we have more details.

S UBMIT TO THE B RIDGE!

EDUCATION 2005 ■ 21

When Congress mandated that state-funded institutions develop teacher advancement and retention initiatives with innovative programs that reduce barriers and offer alternate routes to state certification, UGA’s College of Education was ahead of the curve.

By Kristen Heflin hen faculty in University of Georgia’s department of special education launched its innovative program SETWEB (Special Education Training on the Web) in the summer of 2000, they knew there was a need, but they had no idea how popular the program would become.

SETWEB was originally designed for teachers, especially in rural areas of Georgia, with a clear renewable teaching certificate who were teaching interrelated special education on a provisional basis. Completion of the program, now called SETWEB Add-On Certification, leads to an add-on certification in interrelated special education.

With the success of the original program, special education faculty began a program of 22 ■ EDUCATION 2005

study for those who hold bachelor’s degrees and seek initial certification in interrelated special education. This program, SETWEB Initial Certification, began in summer 2001.

Now, after four years, more than 200 graduates of the program have been recommended for certification in interrelated special education.

“We never anticipated the large numbers we have encountered thus far,” said John Langone, professor and head of UGA’s department of special education. “There has always been a shortage of special education teachers. Part of the problem is the continuing high turnover in special education teachers. This, in conjunction with the increased number of school-aged children who have special needs, will continue to drive the shortage of certified special educators.”

Students like those who have graduated from SETWEB are driving a phenomenal

growth in online education in Georgia and across the nation. Nationally, enrollment has shot up almost 20 percent this year; 11 percent of postsecondary students will take at least one course online. And those students have plenty of classes from which to choose; over 90 percent of public colleges offer at least one online course, according to U.S. News and World Report.

At UGA, the College of Education has become a leader in applying information technology to distance learning, offering 425 online courses or programs and an online graduate degree, involving about 175 faculty and serving 3,500 students.

Many of UGA’s online students are working adults with families who have career and community obligations. Most are unable to attend a traditional program due to location or time restraints. For many, the ability to obtain a master’s degree or additional certifi-

cation opens new career possibilities by giving them the leverage they need to move up in their organization.

The steady growth of online programs at the College is enabling teachers across the state to obtain additional certification without leaving their current jobs or even their homes.

“Online courses and programs allow us to reach well beyond the borders of the campus in serving our land-grant mission to the state of Georgia,” said Karen Watkins, interim associate dean for research, technology and external affairs. “They allow us to provide opportunities for our future teachers and leaders to pursue their career objectives and demonstrate our commitment to innovative and high-quality education through all means.”

In addition to SETWEB, the College offers three more online certification programs: GCTWeb, an endorsement in gifted education; L-5 Add-On, a certification in educational leadership; and ESOL, an endorsement in teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. All of the certification programs are designed for teachers who hold or will soon hold a teaching certificate.

The online master’s degree program in adult education has attracted students not only from Georgia but nationally and internationally because there are no on-campus requirements. Courses are delivered completely online through WebCT, a service of UGA. Students can also register for classes, order books and access the UGA library online.

“Education online is different,” said Watkins. “It enables faculty to do some things more effectively than they can through faceto-face instruction, while other things must be adapted or modified creatively to achieve the same ends. As a result, online instruction offers new and important pedagogical possibilities that add value to traditional classroom instruction.”

Live instruction may take place in chat rooms. Students view slides and videos online. Instructors have virtual office hours and are available by telephone. On-campus meetings may occasionally be required but are rare.

Depending on the instructional method of each instructor, some programs require students to take tests or write reflective papers on the subject matter. Often, there are no exact times students must participate online, but they are required to turn in assignments and contribute to ongoing discussions in a timely manner.

“The students themselves must be very self-directed and motivated to complete the program because learning online can be more difficult than the traditional face-to-face classroom. For the most part, everything is ‘read’ and not ‘heard,’ and there is also the

absence of facial cues and body language,” said Janet Truluck, coordinator of the online master’s of adult education.

Still, despite the absence of traditional classroom time, students continue to show an increased preference for e-learning opportu-

nities. Many of the programs have waiting lists or are at maximum capacity.

For more information, check with each individual department: www.coe.uga.edu/

Master’s of Adult Education Master’s Degree

ESOL

SETWEB

Non-Master’s Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Non-Master’s Certificate in Special Education Training on the Web

60-75

40

Not Available

40

3 years

2 years

4 years

4 years

4 years

4 courses 3 hours each

18 courses 1 hour each 3 hours of practicum credit

11 courses 3 hours each

3 courses 3 hours each

33 credit hours total

9 credit hours total

8 courses 3 hours each 3 hours of practicum credit

Online Programs

GCTWeb

L-5 Add-on Certification

Program Type

Non-Master’s Certificate in Gifted Education

Non-Master’s Leadership Certification Add-on

Average Semester Enrollment

75-100

Years Program Has Been Offered Credit Hours Required

12 credit hours total

33 credit hours total

21 credit hours total Number of Students Who Have Completed the Program

40

52

14

Not Available

Nearly 200

Length of Time to Complete Program

4 semesters

3 consecutive semesters

4 semesters

1-3 semesters

6-7 semesters

EDUCATION 2005 ■ 23

Excellence F A C U LT Y

•

S T A F F

FACULTY EARN RECOGNITION

Bradley Courtnay

Deryl Bailey

Douglas Kleiber

National/Regional/State Bradley C. Courtenay, whose leadership over the past 25 years transformed the University of Georgia into a national and international leader in adult education, was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame.

Courtenay, a professor and head of the department of adult education at UGA for 20 years (1981-2001), led two major W.K. Kellogg Foundation grants, directing the National Center for Leadership Development in Adult and Continuing Education from 1984-91 and the Cyril O. Houle Scholars in Adult and Continuing Education project, which began in 1997 and will continue until 2005.

Douglas Kleiber, professor of recreation and leisure studies, received the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Award for Excellence in Recreation and Park Research – the highest honor bestowed by the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA).

Colleagues say his work has not only made an impact on the ways in which leisure is conceptualized within a social-psychological framework but has influenced the way an entire generation of leisure scholars thinks about leisure's role in terms of identity formation, social psychology and health.

24 ■ EDUCATION 2005

Michael Ferrara, associate professor of exercise science, curriculum director for UGA's athletic training program and the current president of the World Federation of Athletic Training and Therapy, received the Most Distinguished Athletic Training Award from the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA).

Deryl Bailey, an assistant professor of counseling and human development services who developed a mentoring program called “Gentlemen on the Move” which aims at developing and nurturing academic and social excellence in young African-American males, received the 2004 Ohana Honors Award from the Counselors for Social Justice (CSJ), a division of the American Counseling Association (ACA). GOTM was also named the 2004 Multicultural Program of the Year by the Georgia chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education (GANAME).

Rose Chepyator-Thomson, an associate professor of physical education and sport studies, was named African Hero 2003-04 by Ohio University's African Student Union for her achievements as a scholar, athlete and parent. She is the first woman to be honored by the group.

Diane L. Cooper, associate professor of counseling and human development services, received the Outstanding Contributions to Student Affairs Through Teaching Award from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA).

Thomas Cooper, associate professor of language education, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German.

Bonnie Cramond, professor of educational psychology, and Thomas Hèbert, associate professor of educational psychology and coordinator of the gifted and creative education program, were elected to three-year terms on the Board of Directors of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC).

Merrily Dunn, an assistant professor in counseling and human development services and coordinator of the College Student Affairs Administration master's program, received the Melvene Draheim Hardee Award from the Southern Association for College Student Affairs for outstanding contributions to student affairs through research and scholarship.

Karen H. Jones, a professor of occupation-

al studies, was named the state's Outstanding Educator for 2003 by the Georgia Association for Career and Technical Educators (GACTE).

Jeremy Kilpatrick, Regents Professor of mathematics education, was recognized by the Georgia State Senate with a resolution honoring him for his many years of contribution to the advancement of mathematics and exemplary efforts to ensure the unequaled quality of instruction received by the young people of the state.

Michael Lomax, assistant professor of physical education and sport studies, received the Robert Peterson Recognition Award from the Negro Leagues Committee for his book, Black Baseball Entrepreneurs, 1860-1901: Operating by Any Means Necessary.

Stacey Neuharth-Pritchett, an associate professor of elementary education, was appointed to a three-year term on the Board of Examiners for the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). She is the second UGA faculty member named to the national accrediting body for schools, colleges and departments of education. Kathleen deMarrais, interim associate dean for students, curriculum and accreditation.

Thomas C. Reeves, professor of instructional technology, was selected as one of the first two Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), an international professional association.

University Awards and Honors Gary A. Dudley, a Distinguished Research Professor of exercise science and director of UGA's muscle biology laboratory, received the Creative Research Medal, given annually to faculty for outstanding research or creative activities on a single theme while at UGA. Randy Kamphaus, professor of educational psychology, was named a UGA Distinguished Research Professor, a designation awarded to professors whose work is nationally and internationally recognized as being of the highest caliber.

Denise Mewborn, associate professor of mathematics education, received the Richard B. Russell Award, which recognizes junior faculty for outstanding teaching.

Gayle Andrews, an assistant professor of elementary education, and Su-I Hou, an assistant professor of health promotion and behavior, were named 2004-05 Lilly Teaching Fellows.

Jim McLaughlin, an associate professor of elementary education and head of the middle school education program, received the Richard F. Reiff Internationalization Award from UGA's Office of International

Education for his work in Veracruz, Mexico.

Diane L. Cooper, associate professor of counseling and human development services, received the 2003 Outstanding Collaboration Award from UGA's Student Affairs Division for designing, implementing, and coordinating the Making a Career/Major Choice class (ECHD 2050) with professionals in Student Affairs, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Academic Advising and Career Services.

Norman Thomson, an associate professor of science education, and Rose ChepyatorThomson, an associate professor of physical education and sport studies, received the 2003 Most Outstanding Research Paper Award from the UGA chapter of Sigma Xi, an international scientific research society.

College Awards and Honors Roy Martin, professor of educational psychology, received the Aderhold Distinguished Professor Award.

Talmadge Guy, associate professor of adult education, received the Glickman Faculty Fellow Award.

Betty Bisplinghoff, an assistant professor of elementary education, and Kathleen deMarrais, professor of social science education, received the D. Keith Osborn Teaching Excellence Award.

Derrick Alridge, associate professor of social foundations of education; Bonnie Cramond, professor of educational psychology; and Seock-Ho Kim, associate professor of educational psychology, were recognized for Outstanding Teaching during UGA’s Honors Day.

Cash Receives Top 2004 Staff Award for Excellence Mary Cash, office manager for the department of counseling and human development services, received the College of Education’s 2004 Staff Award for Excellence.

Cash was presented a plaque and a $1,200 cash award in ceremonies May 14 at River’s Crossing. First runner-up, DeAnna Palmer, senior secretary in reading education, was awarded $750; and second runner-up, Judy Harper, office manager for the department of communication sciences and disorders, received $300.

COE 2004 Staff Award winners (L-R): Judy Harper, Mary Cash and DeAnna Palmer

The three finalists were selected from a list of 12 nominees that included Shirley Anderson, Brenda Arnold, Donna Bodiford, Marty Davis, Larry Fuller, Carolyn Howell, Valerie Kilpatrick, June Smith and Linda Taylor.

Cash, who has worked in the counseling department for 15 years, was said to be a “model to be emulated by the university community of a professional staff member committed to making things work.”

First runner-up Palmer, who has worked for the College of Education for five years, is described by faculty and staff as handling clerical aspects of the department of reading education’s Reading Clinic in an exemplary manner.

Second runner-up Harper, who has worked in the College of Education for 29 years, is lauded for her extensive knowledge about departmental, college and university procedures.

In addition to the Staff Awards for Excellence, several staff members were also recognized for years of service to the College. They included Michael Childs, Jeremy Granade, Holly Kaplan, Pam LaSalle, DeAnna Palmer, Penelope Rabon, Heidi Sartain, Linda Taylor and Loretta Wheatley, five years; Nancy Dellaria, Christy Glazer, Art Sturgill and Kimberly Wood, 10 years; Harriet Elder, Janet Goetz, Ann Seagraves and Bill Strickland, 15 years; Margaret Turner, 25 years; Linda Chester, Anita Miller and Elizabeth Platt, 30 years.

EDUCATION 2005 ■ 25

Photos and Story By Michael Childs ren Woods doesn’t so much teach his eighth-grade history class as orchestrate and choreograph it.

Singing, chanting and dancing are the tools of his trade. They are as natural to him as they are infectious to his young inner-city students. Even the kids who sit in the back of the class, head in hands, too cool to be seen paying attention, follow Woods’ every movement with their eyes.

Woods teaches four classes of South Carolina/American history each day to some 64 students at Rivers Middle School in downtown Charleston, S.C. It is an urban school and, as such, faces more challenges than most schools. It has been rated unsatisfactory for the past six years because more than 60 percent of its students do not meet grade-level requirements as measured

by PACT, the state’s standardized testing instrument for eighth graders.

Its student population is 99.6 percent African-American, and nearly 91 percent of its students receive reduced or free lunch.

Mandated to take corrective action, the Charleston school district has entered a partnership with Eidson Schools, a private company that will prescribe a school improvement program based on the school’s needs and assign curriculum specialists to work with and provide intensive professional development for the school’s faculty and administration.

“The biggest challenge for students revolves around breaking the cycle of poverty,” says Cheryl Bennett, principal of the school for the past two years. “While parents are generally desirous of their students succeeding, many are unable to help their children because of their own limitations, such as education, lack of time due to working multiple jobs or other family obligations like caring for multiple children or generations.

“Our students begin to fall behind in elementary school around the third or fourth grade - and it is difficult to bring them back up,” she says.

This makes for real challenges for the school’s teachers, who must manage undesirable behavior so that they can teach effectively, says Bennett.

“Some students act out to distract from their inability to perform academically,” she says. “Teachers have to recognize when this is happening and find ways to direct the behavior and help the student experience success.

This can be difficult when you have nearly half of the class behaving this way.”

But Woods likes challenges. He has taught several years in suburban schools like Rock Hill (SC) High School where he taught world geography, world and American history, and Clarke Middle School in Athens 26 ■ EDUCATION 2005

Pren Woods begins a gospel song in his eighthgrade history class

S P O T L I G H T

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Pren Woods’ love of teaching shows in his many expressions during any given class (GA) where he taught language arts, reading and have a lot questions in my head about history...”

I love to see them connect doHe was the science/social studies gifted studies facilturns back to his students. itator for the sixth grade.

“OK, I’ll name an event, and you tell me the He says Rivers Middle School has been his best president,” Woods instructs. the historical dots – to get teaching situation in the field, and he feels like “Louisiana Purchase.” he’s making a real difference in many of his stu“Thomas Jefferson,” the class responds in unidents’ lives. son.

On this particular day in mid-May, Woods is cause and effect and corre“War of 1812.” reviewing what his class has learned over the past “Madison,” the class replies. year for the benefit of a visitor from the “The Corrupt Bargain.”

University of Georgia, where he is just a disserta“John Quincy Adams.” lation. I love to see them tion away from earning a doctorate in social “Yes. Very good.” says Woods. science education under his major professor The 35-year-old Woods says he’s just doing John Hoge. what comes naturally and what works. But is this It’s the last week of school, and books have accomplish something they really how he teaches, occasionally breaking into already been turned in, Woods explains as he song and dance with background doo-wops casually moves around the room. from his eighth graders?

“One song the class likes to do is about appreci“I normally sing a song every day or some thought was impossible. ating people while they’re here... because so often kind of choreographed chant or dance to drive we wait until they die and then after they’re dead... home the lesson,” says Woods. “Research shows we say, ‘Oh, I really loved them.’ We need to give is an important thing in the lives of all That is so exciting to me. music people their flowers before they what, class?” people, especially young people. By changing the “Die,” the class shouts back in unison. lyrics to songs they know, I am able to accom“Now, it could be real flowers, but flowers could plish a connectedness with them that gets them also be a symbol for other things, such as...” Woods excited about the lesson. I’m not sure I could — Pren Woods prompts. accomplish that with such success without these “Praise. Love. Talking,” the kids shout out one performing and visual arts tools.” by one.

That success includes being named one of five state winners of the Woods, snapping fingers in a rhythmic beat, floats down the aisle Middle School Magic Award given by the South Carolina Middle between the desks of the students. “You hear that? Where’s my water, School Association for best lesson reflective of a state standard. Woods people?” won the award for his students’ choreographed rap presentation on the Then, in a rich tenor voice he begins an old spiritual.

Articles of Confederation.

“You got to wade in the water, “The Articles of Confederation, “You got to wa-a-a-a-d-e in the water, children.”

It was the start of a new nation, Some students chant in deep voices, “wade in the water,” while othThe situation was rather bleak, ers, in high-pitched voices, chirp, “You got to... you got to...” The whole Because the articles were rather weak. class is clapping rhythmically to the beat. The room pulses with exciteCongress, it wanted the power to tax. ment.

The states said, ‘You know that’s whack.’

But just as quickly as he began the song, Woods stops and again Somebody said, ‘We need a new solution.’ addresses the visitor, “We do a lot of singing and acting in this class. We Somebody screamed, ‘Let’s have a do Jeopardy; we do a lot of quizzes. Now I don’t have a prize today... but I Constitution (...tution ...tution ...tution).’”

EDUCATION 2005 ■ 27

S P O T L I G H T Before the rap, the students gave a mini-lecture about what the Articles were and why they were necessary. After the rap, Woods asked the students questions on the historical importance of each line.

The state recognition brought by Woods’ honor is one step in an ongoing effort to change the perception of Rivers Middle School. “We are not a dumping ground for ineffective teachers,” says Bennett. “We have stars on our campus.”

Woods uses his performing arts skills to make history come alive for his students. He doesn’t lecture, but rather tells stories about historical figures and events.

“I love to see them connect the historical dots - to get cause and effect and correlation,” he says. “I love to see them accomplish something they thought was impossible. That is so exciting to me.”

Fair and consistent in his practices, Woods is high on accountability and doesn’t let students off the hook with “I don’t know” answers, says Bennett.

“He believes in getting the students’ attention and getting them involved in the lessons and will do anything it takes to achieve that whether it’s singing, standing on a table or rapping,” she says. “He has very high expectations and does not lower them for lack of desire, personality or mood swings.”

One of the biggest challenges his students face is the inability to dream and hope for something better in a really concrete way.

“Our kids have so many difficulties at home and in school, but the faculty here is committed to helping them overcome these challenges,” he says. “We try to take our kids on field trips so that they can see what the world outside of their neighborhood looks like. That kind of exposure can inspire a kid - whether it’s a field trip or a teacher’s own personal journey through life.”

Woods himself grew up in downtown Charleston, but in a much different world than the one in which his students exist today. His mother was an elementary school teacher, and his late father was a pastor, heavily involved in state and national politics. He attended public schools, not because he had to, but because his father believed it to be important. His extracurricular activities included drama, poetry, track, band and piano.

In college, where Woods earned two bachelor’s degrees, one in history and another in political science, he focused on singing Broadway, opera and classical tunes. This led him to a 15-month stint with the cross-cultural international group, Up With People, where he honed his skills as a pop/rock singer before audiences around the world.

28 ■ EDUCATION 2005

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But Woods was hardly through with school. He earned a master’s in history from Vanderbilt University and two more in social studies teaching and education supervision from Winthrop University.

“I definitely believe I inspire my kids to a better future,” he says. “I don’t think it’s always about the financial challenges. Sometimes, students have just been so beaten up by life, they just don’t dare to dream.

It’s very disheartening. I don’t give up though. That’s why our heroes from the community, and teachers are included, have to come in and help our kids see that there is hope.”

Toward that end, Woods spends extra time supporting his students’ extracurricular activities, going to basketball games, step shows, even some church activities.

Woods says its important for all kids to have a strong, positive male influence in their lives, and his students have been grateful for the ways that he has cared about them, invested in them.

“I had one kid who was failing, and he told me at the end of the year that he appreciated that I never gave up on him. He said that was the only reason he passed,” says Woods.

While 18 of his 64 students failed his class last year, Woods says that student achievement is more than just passing a class.

“We’re concerned about character as well,” he says. “When students become empathetic and concerned about others around them, that is one of the greatest achievements for me to witness.

“I’ve had some students who did not get why they should care about global issues, and then after a great class discussion or more exposure to the issues that face humanity, they soften and become concerned. That’s great. When kids see that no man is an island - that is a wonderful feeling.”

Woods says students who learn to exhibit manners and good etiquette are showing another kind of achievement.

“I’ve had to model behavior for kids,” he says. “‘When a person does this, it would be nice if you did that...’ You know, some kids just don’t know things that grownups know unless they’re taught. I know I have wondered myself how does a kid not know he should say ‘thank you’ for receiving a compliment?

“So when you begin to see students engage in those behaviors and self-monitoring, that’s really cool,” says Woods. “For example, I don’t allow the phrase ‘shut up.’ The kids say this all the time, but I am relentless. So ‘shut up’ disappears from my classroom, and when a kid slips up, he or she apologizes immediately. That’s achievement, too.”

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Blake Receives Prestigious $20,000 Fellowship to Study Females, Social Aggression amilia Blake, a doctoral candidate in UGA’s College of Education, is one of only three students in the nation this year awarded a $20,000 Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Fellowship from the American Psychological Foundation.

The fellowship sponsors groundbreaking psychological research to create significant new understandings and facilitate children’s development. It will support Blake’s dissertation research of the relationships between young females, ethnicity and aggression.

Previous research suggests that aggression is a stable predictor of maladjustment for girls, with physical and verbal aggression resulting in a more severe pattern of social and psychological maladjustment than social aggression.

Findings suggest that the degree to which aggressive females are maladjusted seems to be moderated by ethnicity as well as the form of aggression exhibited.

Blake, a fourth-year doctoral student in educational psychology, is interested in how differences in family socialization practices and community values may explain why there are ethnic differences in the relation between aggression and maladjustment.

She seeks to understand how parental socialization of aggressive behavior, or the degree to which parents condone certain forms of aggression, affects the behavior of girls.

Blake, a native of Beacon, N.Y., plans to pursue an academic career as a research professor after she graduates in the spring of 2006. She received both her bachelor’s in psychology and master’s in educational psychology from UGA. -Kristen Heflin

J

Graduate Student Honors isa Hammett, a doctoral student in communication sciences and disorders, was one of only six students recently chosen from around the world as a BamfordLahey Scholar for 200304. It is the second year in a row that Hammett has received the distinguished award.

The honor includes scholarship funding of up to $10,000 a year to doctoral students who intend to specialize in children’s language disorders from the Los Angeles-based BamfordLahey Children’s Foundation.

Hammett, in her last year of doctoral studies, is researching the bi-directional nature of parent-child book sharing and the use of abstract language within this interaction context.

Two COE graduate students received national scholarships from Kappa Delta Pi, an educational honor society. Amy Lockwood, a master’s student in social science education, was one of five graduate students in the nation awarded the Counselor’s Scholarship.

Thomas Van Soelen, a doctoral student in elementary education, was one of just seven students in the nation awarded the Henry Hill Laureate Scholarship.

Jennifer Lease, a 2003 graduate of UGA’s

L

Student Affairs Administration doctoral program received the Outstanding Dissertation Award at the Southern Association for College Student Affairs Conference. Lease is now associate director of the Honors Program at the University of Connecticut.

Samantha Arsenault, a senior biology education major, was awarded the Linda Leith Scholar Athlete Award at the Georgia Swimming and Diving Awards Banquet.

Arsenault, of Peabody, MA, received the award given to the UGA female swimmer with the highest grade-point average (GPA) for the past year.

Laura I. Tison, a senior in health promotion and behavior, received the College of Education’s new Outstanding Honors Student Award, which debuted this past spring.

Several College of Education students were among the 45 First Honor Graduates recognized at UGA’s Honors Day 2003-04 for maintaining a perfect 4.0 grade point average.

They included: Bonnie K. Blackburn, art/art education; Donna S. Brooks, Jane E. Brown and Jaime L. Walker, all of communication sciences and disorders; Sarah G. Hendrix, Jason C. Jones and Rachel N. Landers, music education; Matthew J. Jadlocki, foreign language education; Christy L. Jenkins, mathematics education; Lauren A. Lewis, early childhood education; and Martha E. Shell, early childhood education.

COE 2004-05 Undergraduate Scholarships The UGA College of Education awarded $61,500 for a variety of scholarships, most of which are funded by private donations.

Below is a list of undergraduate recipients. * Del Jones Memorial Scholarship Evan Michael Bush Mary Lauren Hamrick Lindsey Morgan Deborah Parker Allison Reagan Christy Westmoreland Ira E. Aaron International Scholarship Alexander M. Rowland Paul Tappan Harwell Scholarship Rachel Lovern D. Keith Osborn Scholarship Heidi Beamon Mary Murphy Robinson Scholarship Alexander Teh Rachel Sibley Sutton Scholarship Christopher Michael Adams Ashley Ann Kulik Student Teaching Scholarships Lori O. Baerne Ava Brooks Martha Kathryn Cameron Amanda L. Cox Catherine Gates Sharon McGrew Beth Peavey Jackie Story Kevin J. Yancey Amy Teng * A list of graduate recipients can be seen on COE Online News: www.coe.uga.edu/coenews

EDUCATION 2005 ■ 29

A Tale of Two Two UGA graduates who wrote about their first year of years in the classroom – a time at which, statistically, a third From New York City’s East Harlem to Atlanta’s upscale Buckhead, and now north to Alaska, the passion for teaching still burns in Cathy Lo Davis

By Cathy Lo Davis (BSEd ‘01) s my third year of teaching came to a close, I was ready for it to end. I was tired, stressed out and frustrated. I am moving to Alaska this summer, but I almost did not apply for new certification because I did not feel like continuing my educational career. I felt unappreciated.

I wondered how many other teachers feel this way at the end of a school year. How many other teachers have doubted their career choice? How many other teachers have lost their passion? Was I one of them?

Well, here I am, one-and-a-half months after my third year of teaching and missing my students. I am in love with teaching. No matter how hard and stressful it becomes, at the end of the day, I love it.

After my first two years of teaching in Harlem, New York City, I moved back to Atlanta where I wanted to continue teaching in the inner city.

However, after applying to more than 20 schools, I only received one callback, and that was from Sarah Smith Elementary in Buckhead.

I thought I had it easy taking a job at a school known for its great staff, great parents and great students. But despite the ideal setting, it too presented many stresses and problems. I struggled with paperwork, parents, other teachers and students with different problems.

But kids are kids. The kids in Buckhead just needed me in a different way than those in Harlem. My Buckhead kids needed me more as a teacher of academics than a teacher of life. I was able to teach without the distractions of discipline. Classroom management was important, but once it was instilled in the classroom, I did not have to spend much time with it. While my Harlem kids needed me academically, they needed me even more as a stable, healthy role model. My lessons in the classroom there were more about life. The kids in Harlem just needed me more, period.

Continued on page 32...

30 ■ EDUCATION 2005

PHOTOS BY PAUL EFLAND

A

Cathy Lo Davis works with her third-grade students at Sarah Smith Elementary School in Buckhead after teaching in an East Harlem school her first two years

Teachers/Part Two teaching in EDUCATION 2003 offer new insights after three of all new teachers leave the profession After three years of teaching in Gwinnett County, Brinna Sinclair says allowing her third graders to experience concepts is more important than test scores

By Brinna Sinclair (BSEd ’01) t is disquieting to observe how many teachers begin their careers so green, optimistic, and full of enthusiasm but leave so withered, jaded, and frustrated. It is hard to imagine that my outlook could have changed in the three short years since I began teaching. Yet, I can already feel some of that pes-

PHOTOS BY PAUL EFLAND

I

Brinna Sinclair says she tries to teach her third graders to solve problems, not just memorize facts for standardized tests

simism seeping in.

My philosophy of education has changed less than my outlook. I agree with the popular adage, “Every child can learn.” I strongly believe that it is my job to help each child in my classroom live up to his/her full potential. However, I think it is unrealistic to expect all children to perform at the same level as current legislation seems to suggest. It can be damaging to a child’s self-esteem as well as his/her motivation to set unattainable goals.

After my first year, I continued to teach at the same school for two more years. I also continued to learn. I learned that to the outside, teaching is about the bottom line – test results. My discord with the current educational system began because I chose to value my students’ sense of belonging and ability to relate to the real world more than memorization of hard-core facts that show up on standardized tests. I would rather a student possess the ability to look up facts than to memorize them. A memory can only hold so many facts, but if a student knows how to problem solve, he/she can handle almost any situation. If I taught only things that applied in my classroom, what good would that be in the real world? Ultimately, I am preparing students to become responsible, autonomous adults. However, I am growing more frustrated with my career as I am judged on matters that are not entirely in my control and, furthermore, that I feel are not in children’s best educational interest.

Continued on page 33...

EDUCATION 2005 ■ 31

Cathy Lo Davis

gets too hard. Some people are not cut out for teaching. It is not a 9to-5 job. It takes countless hours improving yourself to be a better teacher for each individual child. I believe that good teachers are born, not made. The desire to want to guide children must come from the heart, but a teacher needs good preparation as well.

I feel blessed that I was in UGA’s early childhood education program. I was fortunate to have great teachers who had heart, who taught multiculturalism, constructivism, inner-city work, and issues about race in the classroom. My practicums and student teaching experience were crucial in my training.

So, what can we do to keep good teachers teaching? More money?

Less behavioral problems? Less paperwork? Only in a dream world. It comes down to this: teaching is a love that needs to be in the deepest place in our hearts. Even when we doubt, feel frustrated and unappreciated, the drive to be a good role model and a teacher of life and academics to children will keep us going. It is a gift. And I have been blessed with this gift.

What I realized, after three years of teaching, was that all kids need the same thing: LOVE. Many of my Harlem students lacked parental support, and you could tell the difference. What they wanted was acceptance, attention and love, and they would do anything to get it, even if it was negative.

To combat this negativity in their lives, I provided a positive environment in the classroom. I discussed rather than yelled. I gave them positive reinforcements rather than negative consequences. I had high “What I realized, after three years of teaching, was that all expectations for them rather than low. I felt that my Harlem students succeeded largely because of my passion and approach to education. kids need the same thing: LOVE. Many of my Harlem students I missed Harlem greatly this past year. Most of my new students have wonderful homes. They have love and encouragement. lacked parental support, and you could tell the difference.

Conversely, I have students that still call me from Harlem. They leave these two- to five-minute messages about what they are going What they wanted was acceptance, attention and love, and through at school.

In this past year, I learned that my passion for teaching inner-city they would do anything to get it, even if it was negative.” students remains strong and that being a good teacher is tough, anywhere. I taught at an ideal school setting. I had an organized, supportive administration, a strong Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and parent support, and students that respected me. However, even within the ideal setting, I was still left stressed, frustrated, and unappreciated.

I spent much of my time this past year creating an environment in which parents could be involved, fostering a strong communication between school and home. Most parents saw my hard work, appreciated my newsletters and supported me 100 percent.

But some complained and questioned my teaching style. Often, the complaints would be polar opposites. One example came from two sets of AfricanAmerican parents. The first couple thought that because I had taught in Harlem I thought AfricanAmerican children were not bright and set low expectations for them. The second couple thought that since I had taught in Harlem I would not be hard on their child. I had to spend many hours expressing that my high expectations were standard with every child, no matter the color of their skin.

Race became an issue. Being at Sarah Smith, where the population of students was predominantly white, I could not help but think about race. Were the black students treated the same by other teachers? Were expectations lowered because of their race? Why was it that most of the students who got in trouble were black? Did this have anything to do with race? I remain confused on the topic, but I suspect that it has more to do with the child’s home life Davis’ third-grade students listen intently as she reads a book to the class than it does about the child’s race.

Many teachers leave after three years because it 32 ■ EDUCATION 2005

Brinna Sinclair

Because of my beliefs, I try to help students discover rather than lecture. I provide opportunities for students to experience concepts before explaining them. I am a strong believer that students must understand the why before they can understand the how. I really try to help my students conceptually grasp ideas. Concepts that students understand will serve them infinitely more than concepts they memorize. This is the heart of my teaching philosophy.

I began teaching, and continue to teach, to help children – to provide them with a sense of security and self-worth. I want my students to know that I value them – that I care about their futures, even if no one else does. I want to open children’s eyes to the world beyond the four walls of our classroom. I want my students to see that everything we do is in some way tied to a bigger picture. I began teaching to help students understand that it is not all about test scores and that some of the best lessons are learned outside of the curriculum. I began teaching because I want to matter in the life of a child, but more importantly, let him know that he matters in mine.

(Brinna Sinclair taught third grade at Freeman’s Elementary School in Dacula, Ga., for three years. She has now relocated to New York City where she intends to continue her teaching career.)

Granted, I have not taught in schools that are in danger of failing. Nonetheless, I have felt the pressures of No Child Left Behind in other ways.

Since my school is high performing, the pressure is to perform better each year – at almost unrealistic levels.

Although more than 90 percent of our students meet or exceed state standards, we can never feel too secure for fear the newspapers will print an article highlighting our lack of improvement. I have sat in many grade-level meetings where class test scores are emblazoned on the overhead, and an administrator points out that, “Mrs. Smith’s class did well on this part. Mrs. “The pressure to keep pushing my eight-year-olds is Smith, why don’t you tell everyone what you’re doing in your classroom?”

The pressure to keep pushing my eight-year-olds is constant and overwhelming. The problem with test scores is that they are just numconstant and overwhelming. The problem with test scores bers on paper; they do not accurately represent student achievement.

This was the first year in which third-grade students were required is that they are just numbers on paper; they do not to pass a standardized test to be promoted to the next grade. At the beginning of the year, I was asked to identify students who would accurately represent student achievement.” potentially fail. Throughout the year, I met with my principal chronicling what I was doing to help ensure that these students would pass.

Two months before the test, the reading specialists at our school started working in small groups with the “at-risk” students on their reading skills.

While I was grateful that my students were getting the help they desperately needed, it is sad that it took a standardized test for struggling students to get the extra help that the classroom teachers alleged they needed all along.

It is frustrating as a teacher that those in charge of making decisions concerning educational policies are those who are least familiar with the inner workings of a classroom. How many hours do President Bush’s or Governor Perdue’s educational policy advisors, or even local principals, spend in actual classrooms trying to understand and alleviate the daily struggles of teachers?

One thing I have found most disappointing since becoming a teacher is how rarely teachers get involved in the decision-making that affects them. I feel that if teachers, especially in Georgia, would become more active and cohesive it would be a step in the right direction for improving education.

In my opinion, the problem with political agendas in education is that they are ever-changing. Our educational system’s problems have been compounding for a long time. Consequently, it will take a long time to fix. But, how much has our fundamental approach to education changed over the last 100 years? Our student body and its needs have changed Sinclair says she tries to help students discover rather than lecture to them drastically, and our approach to education needs to do so as well.

EDUCATION 2005 ■ 33

From a small north Georgia mountain town to one of the highest posts in the Georgia Department of Human Resources, Janet Oliva is using her education, skills and training to protect Georgia’s children

PHOTOS BY PAUL EFLAND

A

34 ■ EDUCATION 2005

By Janet Jones Kendall

s a little girl growing up in a small town in the north Georgia mountains, Janet Oliva dreamed of being an elementary school teacher when she grew up.

However, that little girl didn’t become an elementary school teacher at all. Instead, she became an ace sharpshooter, an internationally certified criminal profiler, state child welfare director and now special assistant to the state commissioner who oversees the child welfare agency.

Meet Janet Oliva – a two-time graduate from the University of Georgia’s College of Education and special assistant to Georgia Department of Human Resources (DHR) Commissioner B.J. Walker.

Oliva, who was named to her latest position in August, will work with Walker to improve communications with juvenile courts and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and coordinate efforts to fight the effects of methamphetamine use on children and families.

Last fall, Oliva was appointed director of the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) by Gov. Sonny Perdue. At the time, the agency was in crisis — reeling from the deaths of two children and plagued by a reputation of mismanagement.

Janet Oliva discusses her career, from Towns County deputy to GBI special agent to special assistant to state Department of Human Resources Commissioner B.J. Walker, during an interview at the UGA Library Perdue said he chose Oliva because she had the experience necessary to get to the root of systemic problems at DFCS and the enforcement knowledge to bring about change and, more importantly, stability.

Arguably, there is no one better prepared and more experienced in the field of child abuse in Georgia than Oliva, and she ranks among the best investigators in the nation in her field.

“Through hard work and diligence, she created an effective management team, a novel concept for this agency,” said Perdue.

“She took her team to more than half a dozen county offices that were in a state of disrepair.

She created new leadership in those counties and effected change so that children could begin to receive the services they deserve.

“She then began setting performance standards for all of the state’s 159 counties. For the first time in the history of this agency, management and caseworkers know their goals, their benchmarks, where they are succeeding and where they need to improve,” the governor said. “She has laid a solid foundation for DFCS. For this, I am grateful.”

It may have been a long and winding road that led her to such highly visible positions in

state government, but they are posts for which she is uniquely qualified.

From Mayberry to Mayhem “I would describe it as Mayberry, RFD,” Oliva said of her Hiawassee, Ga., hometown.

“I had the typical Ozzie and Harriet household, consisting of a mom, a dad and three daughters. With the exception of serving as a substitute teacher, my mom was a stay-athome mom. Dinner was always on the table at 5 p.m., and we lived within the city limits, so we could walk everywhere we needed to go, including to school.”

Oliva knew at a young age what career path she would choose for her life — or at least the path she thought she would choose.

“I was going to be a school teacher,” she said. “My mother loves to tell everyone how I used to line up my stuffed animals on my bed and hold class. I even called roll to make sure everyone was there.”

She was enrolled in education classes at Young Harris College and working as a teacher’s aide in the Towns County School District when she was approached by the county sheriff — a longtime family friend — regarding a job at the local sheriff’s office.

The job required her to work with female inmates and use her academic skills to get the department in line with state standards.

“I thought, ‘OK, this will be a nice little deviation, and eventually I’ll go back into education, but for now this sounds like a good challenge,’” she recalled.

Little did Oliva realize at the time that, in order to work with female inmates, she would have to become certified as a peace officer within 12 months of her first day of employment.

“Once I entered the police academy, everything changed,” she said. “I really began to love law enforcement. I did well on the firing range and even became a sharpshooter. I also excelled academically, graduating as valedictorian of my group. Then, I went to the sheriff’s office and began to pick up a lot of other law enforcement skills.”

After just a few months in the sheriff’s office, Oliva began to work on some cases with the GBI agent assigned to Towns County.

“One day, I was working with him on a burglary case and felt like I was instrumental in helping him solve it. That really piqued my interest. The investigative challenge of the job appealed to me,” she said.

EDUCATION 2005 ■ 35

With the support of the community, Oliva began the six-month-long application process to become a GBI agent. Following GBI academy training, Oliva was assigned to work as an undercover narcotics agent in northwest Georgia. But her very first field case — involving a pedophile — would lead her in a more specific career direction.

It was on that first case that Oliva met a seasoned DFCS worker who taught her how to effectively interact with and interview abused children.

“Through the years, I have gained so much from working with DFCS workers,” Oliva said.

After working undercover for a year, Oliva was assigned as a GBI special agent in Athens where she investigated sexual assault, rape, homicide and child molestation cases. She developed an expertise for investigating crimes against children. In a short time, she was promoted through several ranks, eventually to assistant special agent in charge and then special agent in charge. She held these titles while co-creating and supervising the GBI Child Abuse Investigative Support Center in Decatur.

But her most memorable accomplishment with the GBI, she said, was becoming certified as a criminal profiler. She was one of only four profilers employed by the GBI who could render analyses concerning unsolved cases. She was also a member of the International Criminal Investigative Analysis Fellowship, an organization comprised of only about 75 recognized criminal profilers worldwide.

“I developed an understanding of how to investigate child abuse cases. I learned how to talk to children and to offenders,” Oliva said.

The Challenge of DFCS Retention failure. Turnover. High caseloads.

Those were the three main problems Oliva faced when taking over the DFCS last fall.

“Those three issues are interconnected,” she said. “The reason we have high caseloads is because we have high turnover. When you have a caseworker walk out the door leaving 30-50 cases that someone else has to take over, then those employees become overwhelmed and feel like they aren’t doing a good job, and that’s when you have a problem retaining them.”

Oliva ordered retraining for all of the approximately 1,500 DFCS child protection workers. She sent experienced staff to individual troubled county offices and replaced the top management in several of them including Clarke, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties. She worked with the governor to create a plan to end the exodus of child protection workers. She wanted to strengthen their skills, require certification and tap into area colleges to fill vacant positions.

Some of Oliva’s new policies drew criti36 ■ EDUCATION 2005

cism, such as her decision in May to do fingerprint and criminal checks on adults in households where abuse or neglect was suspected. Some caseworkers said the policy could hurt their relationships with families they were counseling.

“There was a misconception when I came in from the GBI that I just wanted to lock people up rather than help families in need,” she said. “But I think what was never understood was that I brought a set of tools from law enforcement — such as knowing how to detect abuse before it happens and how to work effectively with children — that I wouldn’t have been able to bring from any other background.”

In fact, during her tenure with the GBI, Oliva trained organizations around the state — including DFCS — on how to investigate cases that involve children and how to interview children and child offenders.

In April 2004, with the approval of the DHR board, Oliva helped create a statewide certification program for child protection caseworkers and college students who are going into social work. The Child Protection Certification Program works with the schools of social work at eight universities across the state, including UGA. “The college consortium allows us to train students in the schools of social work on the very curriculum that we use here at DFCS,” Oliva explained. “That way, they leave college already familiar with the challenges that they are going to face.”

Those certified social work graduates can then be immediately placed in the department’s mentoring program — another innovation by Oliva — when they arrive at DFCS. “This program could really help retain staff,” she said. “If you give workers better training, they’re more confident in their work, and that makes them more competent in what they do.”

Oliva is quick to point out that her UGA degrees in adult education are one of the main reasons she thought of instituting such a program at DFCS. “This is adult education through and through. The underlying foundation is solely adult education, and, of course, that’s my background,” she said.

Oliva also reorganized the division into two main offices: Child Protection and Family Independence.

“It’s always better to focus on doing one thing at a time and doing it well,” Oliva said.

“In Child Protection, the employees primarily concentrate on the safety of the child. In Family Independence, workers focus on providing essential services to families in need, such as assistance in paying their electric bills, obtaining food stamps — whatever we can do to help them achieve independence so they

don’t enter into the state system. In fact, that is one of our primary goals: to help families so that they never have to enter into the system.”

A Red and Black Heart “I’m a Bulldog, and I’ll always be a Bulldog. I come to Athens every chance I get,” Oliva said.

She became a Georgia Bulldog while working as a special agent in Athens in the mid1990s. Because of her expertise, Oliva was traveling around the state teaching law enforcement officials, district attorneys, parent-teacher organizations and anyone else who would listen about child safety and how to detect trouble in a family.

“I was teaching so much that I thought I would like to do something to become a better teacher,” she said. “So, I called the University of Georgia. I called several departments and said I’d like to get a graduate degree that would help me be a more effective teacher. When I called the College of Education, I got a really nice lady on the other end of the line, and when I told her what I did for a living, she said I should look into adult education. To this day, I do not know who that wonderful person was, but she got me to the right department, and that’s how I got into the adult education program at UGA.” Oliva received her master’s degree in 1999 and enrolled in the doctoral program while still working full-time with the GBI. When she received her Ph.D. in 2003, she became the first GBI agent to have a doctoral degree.

“My education has certainly contributed to my career accomplishments,” she said. “It has made me a better teacher and helped me to understand how adults learn. Because of that, I develop programs much more effectively.”

When asked if she has any regrets accepting the governor’s appointment as state child welfare director, a post that has seen four directors in eight years, Oliva gives an emphatic, “No.” “I have never had regrets. I know exactly why I was there. I made a commitment to the Governor’s Office to go to DFCS and help get everything back on track, and I’ve done that.

I’ve given 120 percent and will continue to do that in my new position.”

Indeed, the governor has had nothing but praise for Oliva’s work as state child welfare director.

“We have begun the process of credentialing all caseworkers and establishing an elevated level of professionalism among the DFCS work force,” Perdue said. “The team at DFCS and those working on the front lines day in and day out are the true heroes in this effort.

Janet Oliva is chief among them.”

(Janet Jones Kendall is director of alumni relations for UGA’s Grady College of Journalism.)

A L U M N I

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The 2004 UGA College of Education Distinguished Alumni Awards Seven graduates of the University of Georgia’s College of Education were honored with the presentation of the COE’s first annual Distinguished Alumni Awards in April 2004.

County Foundation for Excellence in Teaching Award in 1990 and was Clarke County Teacher of the Year in 1989-90.

Crystal Apple Award

Cecile Waronker, (BSEd ‘57) of Atlanta, retired after teaching for 20 years in Atlanta area schools. As a UGA student in the 1950s, Waronker served on the College’s Student Council and was active in several educational organizations on campus. She was appointed by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan to the Presidential Scholars Commission.

Waronker has served on the COE’s scholarship committee and currently serves on the College’s Capital Campaign Development Board.

Professional Achievement Award Sally Krisel, (EdD ‘00) of Athens, Gifted Education Specialist at the Georgia Department of Education.

Krisel provides technical assistance to Georgia school systems and Regional Education Service Agencies to help implement education department rules and state laws guiding gifted education programs.

She was selected for the first cadre of Nationally Certified Trainers in the National Association for Gifted Children’s Parallel Curriculum Model in 2002. She taught K-12 in both public and private schools in Athens for 13 years. She received the Clarke

Lifetime Achievement Award Wally Bassett, (MEd ‘73) of Warner Robins, principal of Centerville Elementary School in Houston County for 28 years. Centerville Elementary is a Georgia School of Excellence and was selected as a National Blue Ribbon School, ranking it among the top two percent of schools in the nation. Colleagues, parents and co-workers praise Bassett for his active role in all aspects of the school operation, his leadership-by-example and an unyielding quest for excellence.

Deborah Dillon, (PhD ‘85) of Edina, MN, professor and chair of the department of curriculum and instruction at the University of Minnesota. Dillon has been a leading teacher and researcher in the field of literacy teacher education over the past 20 years. She has served as editor for The Journal of Research in Science and The Reading Teacher. She received an outstanding teaching award from Purdue University where

UGA faculty and alumni are welcome to nominate College of Education graduates for the 2005 COE Distinguished Alumni Awards. Nominees are accepted in four distinct categories that honor graduates in different stages of their careers and lives. For more information: www.coe.uga.edu/research/alumni/awards.html

2004 COE Alumni Award winners (L-R): Sally Krisel, Wally Bassett, Karen Rutter, Cecile Waronker, Sharon Webber, Roger Winston and Deborah Dillon PHOTO BY PAUL EFLAND

Karen L. Rutter, (MEd ‘82, EdS ‘83, EdD ‘98) of Snellville, Career and Technical Education Coordinator for the Walton County School System.

Rutter, who received national board certification in 2002, was selected as one of the top 20 teachers in the country as a USA Today First Team teacher in 2001. Her program in early childhood education at Loganville High School was chosen “exemplary” by the National Center for Career and Technical Education in 2001. She received the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Honor Teacher Award in 2000 and 1995 and was Walton County Teacher of the Year in 1991 and 1986.

Alumni Service Award

she served as associate dean for research and development from 1993-97.

Sharon Webber, (BSEd ‘80) of Greenville, SC, co-founded Super Duper Publications with her husband, Thomas Webber, in 1986. For the past 19 years she has authored and created a wide variety of innovative educational materials for speech-language pathologists, special educators, teachers and parents. In 1997, her company established the University Partner Program for all accredited master’s level speech-language training programs in the United States and Canada. This program has donated millions of dollars worth of therapy and educational materials used by student clinicians in training. She established a graduate scholarship in 1998 at UGA in speech-language pathology. She has also established scholarships at the University of Notre Dame and the University of South Carolina School of Law. Roger Winston, (PhD ‘73) of Athens, a UGA faculty member for 24 years, is recognized nationally as an outstanding researcher and teacher in the field of student affairs. He has received several major awards for the excellence of his work throughout his career capped off by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators’ Outstanding Contributions to Literature and Research Award in 2003.

The College of Education, academic home to more than

a quarter of all UGA student athletes, wishes Athletic Director Damon Evans and all the Bulldogs a great year ahead!

UGA Athletic Director Damon Evans (BBA ‘92, MEd ‘94) is joined by COE student athletes (L-R) baseball pitcher Will Startup (social science education), volleyball middle blocker Alexandra Oquendo (sport studies), football defensive end David Pollack (history) and western equestrian Kari Ellingson (English education). See a complete list of COE student athletes on COE Online News.

Keep up with the College www.coe.uga.edu/coenews

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