Michigan Education Magazine Fall 2021

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Elizabeth Birr Moje Dean, George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor, and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor

his year we celebrate 100 years since the founding of the School of Education on July 1, 1921.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic changed our event plans, it did not diminish our excitement about sharing this remarkable milestone with you. It has been gratifying to see so many alumni and friends join our virtual SOE Centennial Conversation series from their homes across the world.

We have enjoyed illuminating conversations led by faculty and alumni experts on topics that will shape our next 100 years. I invite you to visit our centennial website at soe.umich.edu/centennial to view recordings of these events.

I am also pleased to announce that we will carry the celebration of our centennial into 2022 as we take a particular focus on our future. Later in this issue, I share some of my thoughts about the boundaries we must push for education to fulfill its promise to society; I hope the coming year will provide many opportunities to build the future of the SOE together.

This issue of Michigan Education provides an opportunity to rediscover some of the many vital contributions to practice, policy, and scholarship made by our community; trace the histories that have led us to this moment; and imagine what will define our next century.

Through several historical articles, we explore how the school has both influenced the field of education and been influenced by changes in the field, in the nation, and at the university. Our communications team pored over thousands of pages of articles, bulletins, memoirs, reports, news clippings, and more to reconstruct pieces of our history. Assembling these articles generated many conversations about which stories and perspectives survive through time. Even as we tell “our story,” we know that one definitive history does not exist, marginalized voices are often lost in the historical record, and the legacies of institutions are complex.

Our historical articles focus on four broad areas of our history: research questions that have captivated education scholars at U-M beginning a half century before our school was established; the evolution of teacher preparation and how it has been transformed by our scholarship; generations of SOE community members who have advanced diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus and beyond; and how philanthropy has accelerated the work of the school in both prominent and unseen ways.

We also bring you the story of three SOE alumnae who are connected by their roles in advancing women’s rights on college campuses—particularly our own—in the wake of the Title IX legislation. It is a fascinating look at the monumental efforts required to bring about change, even when the law is seemingly on the side of equity.

We are honored to hear from three former directors of the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, who are now professors emeriti. They reflect on the contributions of the center and how we can build on that work in our next century.

As TeachingWorks turns 10, its team shares reflections on what they’ve accomplished with their partners over the past decade and what they intend to achieve going forward. Supporting novice teachers and teacher educators with resources and networks has a crucial role in disrupting injustice.

In 2020, Dr. Camille Wilson launched a center that will play an important role in our second century. The CREATE (Community-based Research on Equity, Activism, & Transformative Education) Center networks universitybased and community-based researchers and activists to address inequities in our education system. The CREATE Center has already hosted opportunities for SOE researchers to learn directly from community leaders, practitioners, and advocates.

Consistent with our centennial theme, the Champions for Education section, which features recent gifts and stories of philanthropic impact, spotlights gifts made in honor of our centennial year. We are particularly excited to share news of a gift match that is currently available. Our longtime supporter Waltraud Prechter is encouraging donations of all sizes that support work with our partners in Detroit. Learn more about the scope of this project and how gifts fuel the ambitious, collaborative work we’ve launched.

I’ll close by expressing my gratitude to all who have been part of the SOE story. I believe that ours is an extraordinary school, and its excellence is attributable to the people who have shaped it. As we move into our next century, we must apply every resource we have toward achieving a just and equitable world. Education is the way and we are the people to do it. ■

Investigating the Science and Art of Education SOE traces its roots as a leader in education research

Dean Elizabeth Birr Moje

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Editor Danielle Dimcheff Writers Jeanne Hodesh Shaun Manning Chris Tiffany Design Savitski Design, Ann Arbor Hammond Design, Ann Arbor We invite you to join the conversation by submitting ideas for future issues, letters to the editor, and class notes. soe.umich.edu/magazine Stay connected!

Web: soe.umich.edu Facebook: UMichEducation Twitter: UMichEducation Instagram: UMichEducation Office of Communications 610 East University Avenue Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1259 soe.communications@umich.edu

Preparing the Leaders and Best for the Most Important Profession How teacher education at U-M evolved and continues to push boundaries so teachers will be ready for the complex work ahead of them

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The Gift of Education A history of philanthropy supporting students, research, facilities, and programming at SOE

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Title IX at Michigan Three SOE alumnae tell their stories of fighting for equity for women on campus

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Before DEI “Year 1” Generations of SOE community members have long worked to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus and in the field of education

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Antiracist Mini-Grants Support Student Research Two student teams investigate biases in campus policing and teacher evaluations

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Looking Back to Look Forward CSHPE’s leadership in the changing landscape of higher education

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2121 Vision: What It Would Look Like If...

SOE Dean Elizabeth Moje shares her thoughts on the direction of education and the SOE in the next century

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Practice Makes Progress TeachingWorks looks toward its 10th anniversary

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Fomenting Reciprocal Research Relationships CREATE Center launches a network for researchers

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Champions for Education Class Notes The Back Page

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SOE traces its roots as a leader in education research

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Investigating the Science and Art of Education

William H. Payne

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At the time, teacher training was usually conducted in “normal” schools. Payne’s appointment led to intense debate about the role of universities in education research and teacher training at the university level.

But U-M soon emerged as a leader in the formal scholarship of education in the U.S. Since then, the level of scholarly productivity in the SOE has been consistently among the highest for education programs nationally. The research conducted by SOE faculty, staff, and students has demonstrated scholarly impact and informed the work of countless PreK-20 practitioners and policymakers. The Institute for Scientific Information ranked U-M first in the field of education among 100 research universities for citations per paper between the years of 1981 and 1993, spotlighting the high impact of research conducted

by SOE faculty. “Ranking number one in citations is an important indicator of the quality of scholarly activity in the SOE and across the university,” said Cecil Miskel, who served as dean of the school from 1988–98.

he University of Michigan has been a leader in education research since even before the foundation of its School of Education. When William H. Payne was named Chair of the Science and the Art of Teaching at the University of Michigan in 1879, he became the first faculty member at any American university to assume a professorship dedicated fully to the study of education.

Today, the SOE is ranked #1 by the Center for World University Rankings in education and educational research based on the number of research articles in top-tier journals.

Although far from a comprehensive record of all the research generated at the SOE, this issue of Michigan Education provides an opportunity to reflect on the roots of education research at U-M and the shifts that have inspired new areas of focus for well over a century.

Emergence of education research in the U.S.

Six papers, including one authored by John Dewey, were published for consideration at the first meeting of The Michigan Schoolmasters’ Club in 1886.

The debate about the value of the study of education did not end with Payne’s appointment. Three early, ardent supporters were Payne, Burke Aaron Hinsdale—who was the second appointee to the Chair of the Science and the Art of Teaching—and a young philosophy professor named John Dewey.

In 1889, Hinsdale asked, “Why should an institution that exists for the sake of investigating the arts and sciences leave its own peculiar art neglected and despised?” The three men built communities of like-minded educators while sharing their observations and thoughts with a growing audience.

School as laboratory After Dewey’s departure in 1894, the years leading up to and immediately following the founding of the SOE in 1921 were characterized by a growth in research inquiry on topics such as child development, measurement and testing, school administration, hygiene, and comparative models of international education. Researchers were excited about the opportunities presented by model schools, where faculty from both the SOE and other units could make scientific observations. To this end, U-M’s Department of Education arranged with the Ann Arbor Board of Education in 1912 to allow observation in Ann Arbor High School and W.S. Perry Elementary School.

In 1923, one of the school’s first grants was awarded to Stuart A. Courtis to study the effects of heredity, maturity, and training on the success of around 2,500 children in Detroit Public Schools. Courtis had been the Director of Educational Research for Detroit Public Schools (1914–1919) and Director of Instruction and Dean at the Detroit Teachers College (1920–1924). Courtis’ interest in educational measurement—a field then in its infancy—was shared by generations of SOE researchers. In 1938, Courtis wrote,

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From 1884 to 1894, while at U-M, Dewey took an active role in high school accreditation visits and helped develop the Michigan Schoolmasters’ Club, an organization that sought to strengthen the connections between secondary and university instructors. It was at club meetings that Dewey first discussed his developing concepts of education. At the first official meeting, Dewey presented “Psychology in High Schools from the Standpoint of the College,” arguing that psychology should be taught in high schools as a means of making the mind more open to new ideas for the student’s own self-awareness.

Later in his career, Dewey recalled how his time at U-M formed his educational philosophy: “It was there that my serious interest in education was aroused. I have never ceased to be grateful that my first connection was with a state university in the middle-west. I learned there something of the deep significance of the relations between educational institutions and the social communities which they serve.”

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Top left: University High School opened in 1924.

Top right: Construction on University Elementary School began in 1929.

Bottom: The proposed plan for the university schools was much more extensive than what was eventually built due to the economic impact of the Great Depression.

“After thirty years of study my conclusion is that no single test and no battery of tests of any type or description yields unambiguous information about the quantities educationalists wished to measure.” Never abandoning his fundamental belief in the potential of testing to improve education, Courtis was among the earliest of U-M’s scholars of educational measurement.

A contemporary of Courtis, Guy Montrose Whipple’s seminal two-volume Manual of Mental and Physical Tests stood as the exclusive reference of psychological testers for nearly 20 years. Whipple, a psychologist, contributed to the emerging scholarship around gifted education, mental testing, reading instruction, and vocational education.

William Clark Trow began his career at Michigan in 1926 and proved a foundational figure in the field of educational psychology, making the SOE a hub of research for the emerging discipline. Trow wrote 15 books, each filling a different need and reframing the conversation around educational psychology. His book Educational Psychology, published in 1931, was the first true text in the field. One of Trow’s major contributions was to shift focus away from more surface explorations of senses, perception, and memory to foreground the

Later in his career, Dewey recalled how his time at U-M formed his educational philosophy: “It was there that my serious interest in education was aroused. I have never ceased to be grateful that my first connection was with a state university in the middle-west.”

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University Elementary, 1949

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Even after the closure of University High School and University Elementary School in the late 1960s, the SOE continued to partner with school districts, colleges, and community organizations to unite academia and educational practice.

psychological nature of the problems teachers had long faced. In 1977, his Handbook of Teaching Educational Psychology became the standard text for teaching educational psychology at the college level.

Clifford Woody, who was on the faculty from 1921 through 1948, wrote: “Extended experiments dealing with teaching practices in their natural situations are needed. One who is familiar with educational psychology knows that the great body of data, upon which our psychological laws and principles are based, were developed in the laboratory and in the absence of actual teaching situations.” This sentiment was shared by other educational researchers who petitioned the university to build a “laboratory school” on the campus, similar to those that had begun to spring up at other prestigious universities.

Much of the research that took place over the school’s first half century was performed at University High School, which opened its doors in 1924 with funding from the Michigan Legislature. The new University Elementary school opened in 1930, though plans for a larger building were curtailed by the Great Depression. Together, the two schools were envisioned as a laboratory to explore the best theories of education and conduct research on child development and learning.

Shifting national priorities give education research new direction From the late 1930s through the early 1950s, economic depression and war resulted in a period of diminished educational research across the country. However, in 1957, the launch of the Sputnik satellite inspired a new emphasis on education in the fields of mathematics, sciences, and foreign languages. With additional national funding and national attention in these areas, enroll-

ment in the SOE increased dramatically and space was at a premium.

By 1962, the school had 107 research projects in progress and 59 active faculty members. This postwar growth led to pressure on the school’s staff, laboratories, and classrooms, which prompted a reexamination of the school’s resources and priorities. The need for space, coupled with the City of Ann Arbor’s economic decision to build a new high school, led to the closing of the University Schools.

Even after the closure of University High School and University Elementary School in the late 1960s, the SOE continued to partner with school districts, colleges, and community organizations to unite academia and educational practice. These relationships have stimulated advances in the field through the establishment of collaborative environments for research in education. The evolution of these research-practice settings is evident in the current Mitchell Scarlett Huron Teaching and Learning Collaborative and the Detroit P-20 Partnership, begun in 2011 and 2018, respectively.

Just as testing and assessment had fascinated faculty around the time of the school’s founding, the SOE would continue to contribute greatly to the field. An influential researcher through the 1950s and 1960s, Professor Frank Womer had a particular interest in testing and the construction of assessments. In 1967, he began a four-year leave from the university to lead the new National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the first national effort to compare student performance. NAEP soon became known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” Womer believed in the potential of good testing, done right, to help educators improve their work. But he lamented the rise of teachers “teaching to the test” and, though long since retired before the era of No Child Left Behind, objected to the 2001 law’s punitive practices when schools failed to meet its test score standards.

In 1956, professor Wilbur J. Cohen, another preeminent researcher who shaped national policy, joined the university faculty after 22 years as an adviser to presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower. Cohen was among the original architects of the Social Security Act of 1935 and served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Faculty and students from the new Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, 1960s

Wilbur J. Cohen with President Lyndon B. Johnson

Cohen’s teaching and research were directly related to his policy work on problems of economic security. In 1969, he returned to Michigan to become dean of the SOE. His leadership of the school reflected his continuing concerns about educational opportunity and access, affirmative action and equity, and early childhood education.

Additionally, through his efforts, the SOE became the first university department to offer formal academic training in educational gerontology—an area of research and practice for which the school became internationally recognized.

In 1957, the school formally became a leader in the study of higher education. Funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE) was established. The center’s

Centers and institutes lead national, collaborative efforts Grant-funded research thrived in the SOE’s centers and institutes. Broadly speaking, centers carried out systematic research and development activities aimed at improving education from preschool through college.

These were hubs for interdisciplinary teams across the U-M campus and interinstitutional research teams across the state and nation.

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purpose as defined by founding director Algo Henderson was “to serve those having or expecting to have leadership roles in colleges and universities.” The investment allowed the school to add faculty and provide graduate and postgraduate research fellowships.

The center arose from two cultural factors at play in the 1950s. Sparked by the passage of the GI Bill in 1944 and the Truman Commission’s recommendation in 1950 that higher education should be made available to all secondary school graduates, the 1950s saw a boom in college and university enrollment. This coincided with a trend toward universities becoming increasingly dependent on federal funding for research in the postwar period, which brought with it more stringent reporting requirements. The CSHPE was one of three centers founded to address the burgeoning need for trained administrators and the rapidly changing needs of higher education policy. The center was tasked with preparing leaders for an entirely new environment and crafting a more scholarly and professionalized approach to higher education. They were, in effect, forging a new discipline.

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Given the designations “The Man Who Built Medicare” and “Mr. Social Security,” Cohen’s leadership of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare resulted in landmark legislation in the fields of mental health, education, vocational education, medical assistance, and social security reform.

The Program for Educational Opportunity (PEO) was a Race Desegregation Assistance Center funded under Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Beginning in 1970, PEO helped school districts promote equal educational opportunity for students. To help districts transition from segregation to integration, PEO offered needs assessment, Equal Employment Opportunity planning, training, and consultative services to districts in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Working in affiliation with PEO, the Center for Sex Equity in Schools offered free resources for school districts to remove sexist and discriminatory practices, create fair counseling and career education techniques, and encourage community involvement and support.

The first director of PEO, Professor Charles D. Moody, joined the SOE in 1970.

He also directed the Project for Fair Administration of Student Discipline from 1975–80 and the Center for Sex Equity in Schools from 1981–87. Moody founded the National Alliance of Black School Educators, which was originally conceived as a way for Black school superintendents to share concerns, develop a resource pool, and form an organization. NABSE exists today as “the nation’s premiere nonprofit organization devoted to furthering the academic success for the nation’s children—particularly children of African descent.” Moody also directed and participated in numerous major workshops and conferences to promote equity in education. In 1987, Moody became vice provost for minority affairs for U-M. He served in this post until 1993, when he became executive director of South African Initiatives and vice provost emeritus for minority affairs.

The Bureau of Accreditation and School Improvement Studies (BASIS) in the SOE was the sole statewide accreditation agent for Michigan high schools. The BASIS program of research emphasized the role of accreditation as a tool for school improvement. Through data collection, organization, and analysis, researchers involved with BASIS sought to relate school reform to knowledge about local, state, and federal policy initiatives. BASIS was also the co-sponsor of the annual Michigan School Testing Conference, which was founded by professor Frank Womer. Through a generous gift from Womer, the school holds an

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Annemarie Palincsar partnering with Ypsilanti schools to improve literacy instruction, 1993

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Paul Pintrich and Phyllis Blumenfeld, faculty members in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology

annual conference in his memory that features experts in the field of educational assessment.

During Marvin W. Peterson’s leadership of CSHPE from 1976–96, the center’s focus evolved from its professional development roots to become known nationally and internationally for its research and policy expertise. The National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning (NCRIPTL) was established in 1986 under the auspices of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. With co-sponsors across campus, CSHPE faculty members led the center’s scholarship and dissemination efforts. Their research focused on five aspects of college learning environments that can affect learning outcomes: classroom learning and teaching strategies, curricular structure and integration, faculty attitudes and teaching behaviors, organizational practices, and the use of emerging information technology.

Established as a five-year program, the center served 2,800 colleges that had undergraduate teaching as their primary mission.

As part of the scope of NCRIPTL, professors Jan Lawrence and Robert Blackburn completed a large-scale national survey of 4,240 professors that culminated in their book Faculty at Work: Motivation, Expectation, Satisfaction. The study was unparalleled in its variety of institutional settings, scope of disciplines, and coverage of the many facets of faculty work.

A common theme among many of the school’s prestigious centers was the integration of research and practice. This approach to education practice and research was aptly summed up by Dr. Carl Berger during his term as dean of the SOE from 1983–88. “We can’t divorce research from what’s happening in education,” Berger said. “Our research will be problem-oriented and applied, more like engineering than basic science.”

Supported by grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Center for Education Improvement through Collaboration (CEIC) developed pilot projects to improve teaching curricula in grades K-12. “University faculty often complain that their research findings are not implemented in the schools, but when teachers assist in the research, the results are carried back to the classroom immediately,” said Jay L. Robinson, CEIC director, in 1987.

CEIC’s efforts grew from an initial focus on literacy programs to include an internship program for secondary school science teachers in U-M laboratories; programs in environmental studies; a humanities program linking the arts, natural sciences, social sciences, and local cultural resources; and a program to evaluate the decision-making processes in local school settings.

Similarly, the Center for Research on Learning and Schooling (CRLS) was founded in 1985 to provide a focal point for research on issues of K-12 education. With a mission to generate empirical research in schools that promoted the cognitive and social development of students, CRLS provided a space for interdisciplinary scholarship and collaborative research by faculty and students throughout the campus. CRLS was also a vehicle for collaboration between field-based educators and academic partners.

In the 1990s, Combined Program in Education and Psychology faculty Phyllis Blumenfeld, Jacquelynn Eccles, Stuart Karabenick, Martin Maher, Carol Midgley, Scott Paris, and Paul Pintrich, along with their graduate students, were in the vanguard of psychologists redefining theory and research regarding the relationships among motivation, self-regulation, and epistemology. Their research yielded new measures of these constructs and reshaped interventions designed to enhance academic learning.

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and invented spellings as these transition into more standard reading and writing.

Professor Elfrieda Hiebert, co-author of the landmark 1985 book Becoming a Nation of Readers, turned her attention a decade later to exploring new approaches to early literacy. “We’re attempting to focus and build on what kids already know about reading so we’re not taking a deficit perspective,” she said. Noting that part of learning to read is coming to recognize through repetition different patterns of letters and the sounds they create, Hiebert described language as a system with predictable rules.

“I want to let kids in on the secrets of written language.”

The research activity surrounding reading and literacy led to the birth of a new center in 1997. Led first by Hiebert and later by Professor Joanne Carlisle, the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA) was a consortium housed at the SOE whose purpose was to discover theoretical, empirical, and practical solutions to persistent problems in early reading.

Researchers accomplished this through a broad range of research inquiries, including analyzing how increasingly diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds of America’s students interacted with existing models of teaching reading and exploring how culturally familiar songs can work with children’s existing knowledge to aid in literacy. One crucial aspect of CIERA’s mission was making sure its research could be easily accessible to teachers, policymakers, and other researchers, so all CIERA documents were made available free to read online, and nearly all were downloadable.

The 1990s also saw a renewed interest in assessment, continuing a research tradition going back to the first faculty of the newly formed SOE in the 1920s. As traditional assessment methods were criticized for testing students’ knowledge in a way that was both one-dimensional and out of context, there arose a desire for systems to test more complex thinking, as well as for testing that was more developmentally appropriate for younger learners. But there was resistance to the emerging new methods of assessment as too subjective and difficult to measure against a meaningful standard.

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As the challenges facing the field of education changed, so too did the research focus of the school. The revitalization of the SOE following the extreme budget cuts of the 1980s led to a research boom in the 1990s, when new faculty members Annemarie Palincsar, J. Gary Knowles, Joseph S. Krajcik, and Pamela Moss joined prominent faculty including Anne Ruggles Gere, Phyllis Blumenfeld, Valerie Lee, Paul Pintrich, and Karen Wixson. Although federal funding had also been in a long period of decline, corporate and organizational funding was on the rise. A 1996 report showed that grants and contracts had increased from $3,125,000 to $6,141,000, or by nearly 100 percent, over the previous six years.

Literacy and language acquisition was a major research interest throughout the 1990s.

Professor Arnetha Ball’s research focused on the cultural contexts of literacy, including its use in job applications, diary entries, letters, rap songs, and other formal and informal contexts. “I want to understand the characteristics of those environments that are conducive to learning for different groups,” she said. Ball spoke with youth at community-based organizations in Palo Alto and San Jose, California, and in Detroit and Pontiac, Michigan, to form a picture of the modes of learning and expression that occur outside of schools. “Schools are indeed looking for ways to see students become more successful, yet the schools seldom look to community-based organizations as resources,” she noted.

During a time when many states were making significant efforts to rethink what school can and should be, Professor David Cohen led a five-year project, based in California, South Carolina, and Michigan to study how each state’s education reform policies were implemented in schools and their effects

on students, particularly those from lowerincome households. “We wanted to see what states’ actions made a difference in what teachers do and how these reforms played out in schools, especially schools in which children come from disadvantaged homes,” Cohen said. Among the significant changes taking place in those classrooms in the mid’90s, Cohen and his team found “a greater use of real literature, real books written by real authors” instead of basal readers. There was also a shift away from ability grouping and a more open dialogue in the classroom—“kids talk more, teachers listen more.”

Professor Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar’s scholarship transformed the field of cognition, learning, and instruction by developing a program of research based on the belief that the purpose of education is to facilitate children’s ability to think, reason, problem solve, and transfer learning to novel situations. She launched a new field of instructional intervention called Reciprocal Teaching (RT) in which students and their teachers co-construct the meanings of shared texts through dialogue.

In particular, she designed RT to support students who struggled to learn with text so that they could flexibly and dialogically use the comprehension strategies documented among successful readers.

Professor Anne Ruggles Gere focused her work on the language of peer-response writing groups and how discussions within these groups help the writers develop a sense of audience. In one project, she explored the lives of women in book groups around the turn of the 20th century and how involvement in such groups was both a form of self-education and an instrument for adapting to the rapidly industrializing and modernizing world.

Professor Elizabeth Sulzby further contributed to the SOE’s research on reading as a pioneer of “emergent literacy,” studying childhood communications such as scribble

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Research revitalizes the school and demonstrates institutional expertise in literacy, assessment, and emerging technologies

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Multimedia classroom on display at the opening of the Prechter Laboratory for Interactive Technology, 1994

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10 Professor Samuel J. Meisels of the Center for Human Growth and Development developed a system for early childhood assessment called Work Sampling, which won praise as a framework for teachers to review student work such as crayon drawings against a national standard using developmental benchmarks and other interrelated criteria. The Work Sampling System proved to be a more reliable predictor of a child’s progress through the school year than more traditional measures.

Professor Pamela Moss argued for a broader definition of validity in educational assessment to expand the ways in which assessment might be used to support teaching and learning. Informed by research discourses outside educational measurement (hermeneutics, sociocultural studies, critical theory), she argued for the value of alternative ways of drawing and warranting interpretations of learning; tracing the consequences of assessment practice, including the identities and positions afforded teachers and students; and conceptualizing assessment as an interacting element of larger educational system. Among the outcomes of this work was a multidisciplinary collaboration among scholars in psychometrics and sociocultural studies, sponsored by the Spencer Foundation, that resulted in the edited volume, Assessment, Equity, and Opportunity to Learn.

It was also during this time that evaluating uses of emerging technology in the classroom became an urgent need. Professor Magdalene L. Lampert advocated for the benefits of technology in teacher preparation for its ability to present the complex problems of teaching while also providing a platform to think through and discuss them within the classroom. And, as teachers “teach what they are taught,” bringing such technologies into their own classrooms further allows their students to develop “tools for analyzing and connecting information in personally meaningful ways.” “Interactive multimedia technology can support a new

image of the teacher as one who provokes and guides students’ thinking and problem solving, rather than one who merely ‘tells’ knowledge and judges answers to be right or wrong,” Lampert said.

The SOE was an early adopter of many new technologies of the 1980s and 1990s, exploring the full potential of computers, networking, and “multimedia” in classrooms. These new technologies offered fresh approaches to problem solving, innovation within teacher training and teaching practice, and adapting to meet the evolving needs of modern students in an increasingly connected world. The Prechter Laboratory was a key component of this research and training, a centralized hub of technology in an era before students could regularly carry a computer in their backpacks (or indeed in their pockets).

New research foci for the dawn of the 21st century Just as an influx of new faculty in the late 1980s shaped the course of research at the school for the next decade, new researchers joining the SOE in the late 1990s similarly recast the research environment for the new millennium. These new faculty members included Deborah Loewenberg Ball, whose research interests included teacher education and math education, and who would serve as the dean from 2005–2016; Gary D. Fenstermacher, an expert in the fields of philosophy of education and teacher education, moral dimensions of education and educational theory, and policy analysis in teaching and teacher education; Carla O’Connor, who focused on urban education and social psychology of education; Virginia Richardson,

Magdalene Lampert meets with the M.A.T.H. Project Study Group, 1993

By the end of the 1990s, several new centers had emerged, funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation to conduct some of the most vital educational research in the nation, bolstering the SOE’s reputation as a leader in the field. These included the Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools, which was dedicated to building case studies on reform strategies, addressing inequity, and studying “actual effects” of interventions in teaching, and the National Center for Research on Policy and Teaching, a project studying the relationships between teachers’ opportunities to learn, teachers’ practice, and students’ achievement.

whose focus was on teaching pedagogy, including teacher beliefs, decision making, and change; and Nancy B. Songer, whose research explored science education curriculum, learning trajectories, and educational technology.

As the 21st century began, the school introduced a new mathematics education program, ushering in a new focus on mathematics research areas. From 1993 through 2000, the entire mathematics education faculty had changed, and the new leaders were keen to improve instruction not just through new curricula but more effective practice. “That piece—making a curriculum work, figuring out what you really do dur-

CSHPE brings a critical lens to diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education U-M’s Center for Social Solutions estimated that at the height of student activism in the 1960s, one in five student protests demanded an end to racial discrimination on campus. By the 1980s and 1990s, many colleges and universities had implemented admissions policies and multicultural programming aimed at increasing the diversity of the student body.

Soon there was backlash against affirmative action practices. The future of such policies was to be decided, in part, by major court cases, including two involving U-M. CSHPE faculty and staff contributed their expertise on diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education systems to state and national governmental agencies and higher education institutions. Professors Deborah Faye Carter, Sylvia Hurtado, and Edward St.

Research projects examine controversial legislation The new century also introduced new opportunities and challenges in the form of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a 2001 education reform law. The law provided for a number of new research grant opportunities, but also included new assessment guidelines for both teachers and students that many education researchers found more punitive than constructive.

Professor Joanne Carlisle assisted the Michigan Department of Education in securing a Reading First grant in 2002, part of the No Child Left Behind legislation, and conducted a statewide evaluation of the funded product. Though the act was contentious, Carlisle saw the Reading First program as having more potential benefit than some other sections of the law, in part because it provided support for teachers to receive professional development to better help students learning to read. Professors Elizabeth Sulzby and Deanna Birdyshaw also received an Early Reading First grant to work with seven of the lowest-performing school districts in the nation, to help preschool teachers expand their students’ oral language skills and basic understanding of reading and writing.

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CSHPE professors Eric Dey and Sylvia Hurtado provided evidence to the federal courts that U-M’s race-conscious admissions policies were justified by their educational benefits. Their work demonstrated that a “racially and ethnically diverse student body has significant educational benefits for all students, nonminority and minority alike.”

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John examined topics such as admissions, financial aid, student retention, curricula, and campus climate to illuminate the effects of policies and propose actions that could better serve students of color.

In the late 1990s, CSHPE professors Eric Dey and Sylvia Hurtado provided evidence to the federal courts that U-M’s race-conscious admissions policies were justified by their educational benefits. Their work demonstrated that a “racially and ethnically diverse student body has significant educational benefits for all students, nonminority and minority alike.” Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the university in 2003 in Gratz v. Bollinger, they upheld the consideration of applicants’ race in Grutter v. Bollinger. Dey and Hurtado subsequently co-authored Defending Diversity: Affirmative Action at the University of Michigan with other social scientists and university leaders involved with the case.

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ing class to get kids to learn—is really what all of us study,” said Deborah Ball, part of the new wave of faculty that also included professors Hyman Bass, Patricio Herbst, Magdalene Lampert, Vilma Mesa, and Edward Silver.

Professors Ball, Bass, and Herbst collaborated on the Mathematics Teaching and Learning to Teach project, which sought to understand the work of teaching and how the teachers themselves may influence student learning paths. “There are lots of professional development programs that educate teachers, but to a large extent they are based on an analysis of curriculums,” Hyman Bass said. “The best way to learn what the dynamic of a teacher’s interaction with kids looks like is to actually observe it.”

“This is a very unusual math ed group in that we are all very connected to mathematics as a subject field,” Ball said. “All of us are people for whom mathematics as a discipline is a central thing we work on and think about. But we think about it in relation to teaching children.”

The mathematics education faculty was subsequently joined by Professor Maisie Gholson, a Black feminist mathematics education scholar whose research has focused on the learning and development of mathematical knowledge and skill among Black children.

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The Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research (CEDER) partners with Dow to help teachers enact place-based, sustainability-focused learning units in their classrooms. Dow Innovation Teaching Fellows, 2019

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Professor Steve Raudenbush, who had long held that programs aimed at improving teaching needed to be tested scientifically, found the school evaluation systems put into place as part of NCLB were “scientifically indefensible.” His research was published in the monograph

Schools, Statistics, and Poverty: Can We Measure School Improvement?

Professor Steve Raudenbush, who had long held that programs aimed at improving teaching needed to be tested scientifically, found the school evaluation systems put into place as part of NCLB were “scientifically indefensible.” His research was published in the monograph Schools, Statistics, and Poverty: Can We Measure School Improvement?, which was distributed to 10,000 educators by Educational Testing Service, a nongovernmental organization that constructs some of the tests used to evaluate performance under NCLB. Raudenbush’s research complemented that of a contemporary project by Professor Lesley Rex, who studied the effects of NCLB’s mandated accountability measures on teachers and their students. She and research assistant Matt Nelson found that “increasing external accountability measures on teachers is counterproductive when they compete with teachers’ internal accountability,” and that such measures do little but frustrate teachers and lower morale.

Professor Donald Peurach, who did his doctoral work under Professor David Cohen in the 1990s and joined the SOE as a faculty member in 2011, studied large-scale efforts to improve classroom instruction in ways responsive both to the educational ambitions of reformers and to the accountability demands of such policies as NCLB. Peurach and colleagues have advanced theory and evidence showing that sustained (if incoherent) policy dynamics pressing to improve educational quality and to reduce disparities have driven (and continue to drive) the evolution of schools, districts, and networks as educational systems that organize, manage, and improve the day-to-day work of students and teachers in classrooms.

Even in the midst of these challenges, the early 2000s set the stage for meaningful reform through the emergence of inquiry- and

project-based education, which have grown into central themes of SOE faculty research.

The Center for Highly Interactive Classrooms, Curricula & Computing in Education (hi-ce) was an interdisciplinary group of science educators, computer scientists, psychologists, scientists, and literacy and learning specialists dedicated to inquiry-based curricula, learnercentered technologies, comprehensive professional development, and administrative and organizational models. This group included Joseph Krajcik, Ron Marx, Barry Fishman, Elizabeth Moje, Betsy Davis, Phyllis Blumenfeld, and Elliot Soloway.

One of the hi-ce projects, the Curriculum Access System for Elementary Science (CASES) offered a number of teacher resources, including 4- to 8-week unit plans focused on a particular theme or question.

It was also one of only a very few websites designed for new teachers. Teachers who used CASES praised its activities, ease of use, and inclusion of background information to ensure teachers really understand the material they are teaching. Betsy Davis, who created the grant-supported software, advocates for inquiry-oriented science as a way to address American students’ lagging scores in science. “By engaging in inquiry-oriented science, the teacher and the students all slow down and get into a concept in depth,” Davis said. “Teaching for understanding and inquiry-oriented teaching go hand in hand.”

A new generation of collaborations at the heart of engaged public scholarship Karen Wixson, dean of the SOE from 2000– 2005, said, “As higher education champions the vision of ‘an engaged university’ working for the public good, we’re becoming an engaged school of education, working collaboratively to address real-world problems

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and intervention approaches for promoting youths’ positive social and educational outcomes. CSBYC provided—and continues to provide—training for early scholars and students around skills necessary to do research and practice with diverse populations of children in diverse community and school settings.

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Long gone are the days of the “laboratory school,” but two robust partnerships with public school districts keep a strong connection between the university and local teachers, students, and administrators: the Mitchell Scarlett Huron Teaching and Learning Collaborative and the Detroit P-20 Partnership.

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in public education.” This is a vision that future deans Deborah Ball and Elizabeth Moje championed and advanced.

Beginning in 2004, the SOE launched an effort to reform its teacher training programs, with a focus on developing a more practice-oriented curriculum for learning to teach. This initiative was the foundation for an organization that reaches far beyond U-M: TeachingWorks. Initially, faculty and practicing teachers worked together to identify a small set of instructional practices that are crucial for beginning and early career teachers to be able to do well, and a number of topics and ideas that they should understand and know how to teach. TeachingWorks has flourished and connected educators and educator preparation programs around the country as they continue to develop and share knowledge about learning to teach. (see pg. 58) Originally housed in the SOE, the Center for the Study of Black Youth in Context (CSBYC) was funded by the National Science Foundation in 2008. Professors Tabbye Chavous, Robert Sellers, Stephanie Rowley, Carla O’Connor, and Robert Jagers partnered to study ways families socialized their children around race and to examine the influence of various types of parenting on child academic and social outcomes. This work depended on the cultivation of collaborative relationships with local communities to help inform, improve, and create practice

In 2011, the Mitchell Scarlett Huron Teaching and Learning Collaborative emerged out of a discussion about how the SOE and the Ann Arbor Public Schools could address pressing needs of both organizations while positioning K-12 students as the most important beneficiaries of all the work done in the partnership.

Ann Arbor Public Schools needed to address the achievement gap in its two lowest SES and lowest-achieving schools relative to other district schools, and the SOE needed a school site where teaching interns could learn, alongside expert educators, how to teach diverse students, and where faculty and staff could implement and refine the newly reformed, practice-based elementary teacher education curriculum. A decade later, numerous projects have grown out of the partnership, and the addition of Huron High School has expanded the scope of the work. The shared understanding that work must be mutually beneficial, respectful, and always child-centered has assured the collaboration’s longevity.

hi-ce Summer Science Institute, 2006

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The SOE launched the Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research (CEDER) to create a gateway for schools, nonprofit organizations, researchers, other universities, and companies looking to connect with experts at the SOE.

The Detroit P-20 Partnership, announced in 2018, involves the SOE, Detroit Public Schools Community District, the Kresge Foundation, Starfish Family Services, and the Marygrove Conservancy in a collaboration to create a truly outstanding “cradle to career” campus in northwestern Detroit. The K-12 public school on the campus, called The School at Marygrove, opened in 2019.

The project- and place-based curriculum centered in community-based and social justice-oriented learning opportunities isn’t the only remarkable thing about this school: it is also home to the first Teaching School, which includes a supportive model for teaching interns interested in urban education, a novel three-year residency program for novice teachers, and opportunities for expert educators to continue to grow in the profession.

In 2014, the SOE launched the Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research (CEDER) to create a gateway for schools, nonprofit organizations, researchers, other universities, and companies looking to connect with experts at the SOE. Through

CEDER, dozens of new collaborations have formed. The results have been innovative curricula for K-20 classrooms, new professional development opportunities, and educational grant and award programs.

The research landscape at year 100 In fiscal year 2020, the SOE had $8,897,188 in research expenditures. Today, with 55 active grants at the SOE, the breadth of the work reflects the diverse expertise among the faculty.

Although federal funding for research at higher education institutions has declined, support from foundations committed to the improvement of educational practice and policy has propelled the work of SOE researchers forward. Significant funders include the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Knight Foundation, Ford Foundation, Spencer Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the George Lucas Educational Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.

Facing page: Michael Chrzan’s mathematics class, The School at Marygrove

■ The W.K. Kellogg Foundation also returned to the higher education sector, supporting Nell K. Duke’s Great First Eight curriculum development research, with a goal to develop, pilot, and refine 0-8 interdisciplinary, developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive curriculum.

■ Pamela Moss and Carl Lagoze (School of Information) received a Lyle Spencer Research Award to Transform Education for work on infrastructures that underlie education research—systems of technical resources, social structures, modes of communication, standards, routine practices, rights of access, and incentives—that shape how knowledge is produced and used. The award supports participatory co-design of a prototype exploring elements of “living” community-centered knowledge commons, intended to encourage collective action across conventional silos in education research.

■ Beginning in 2020, the Spencer Foundation supported Camille Wilson’s Urban Learning and Leadership Collaborative, a research-practice partnership that unites Detroit community members with university researchers to create innovative, inquiry-based solutions to challenges identified by community residents.

■ TeachingWorks received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish a Teacher Preparation Transformation Center.

In addition to continued scholarly contributions in areas that have defined the expertise of the SOE for decades—such as teacher education, literacy, instructional technologies, higher education, educational psychology, mathematics instruction, school leadership, and policy—new research teams and centers tackle emerging topics with

“We consistently hear calls for improved education systems, better-prepared practitioners, and policies that make sense for children, families, educators, and employers. The way to achieve all of those demands is to start with solid research that engages the communities that the work is meant to serve, relies on scientific methods of inquiry, and challenges norms that currently lead to inequity and injustice,” says Dean Moje.

A number of SOE faculty members bring a global perspective to their research. These foci include cross-cultural comparisons in college admissions systems, language learning, and cognitive processes of students.

Also included is investigation of the impact that experiences with violence, asylum, and peace and justice processes have on students’ participation in school and society.

Currently, over 10 percent of the active projects investigate aspects of education affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. These projects range from a study of the personnel turnover in early childhood education centers to the effects of the pandemic on college enrollments. Among the projects that

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are informing the path forward in the wake of the pandemic is a suite of high-quality, free, online professional development modules for Michigan’s teachers and school staff focused on inclusive teaching and learning.

In 2020, Professor Camille Wilson launched the Community-based Research on Equity, Activism, & Transformative Education Center—the CREATE Center—in order to advance the collaborative efforts of equity-driven scholars, education advocates, and activists to conduct or leverage research in the service of transformative public education for children, families, and communities impacted by the injustices of systemic racism and poverty. (see pg. 62) “We consistently hear calls for improved education systems, better-prepared practitioners, and policies that make sense for children, families, educators, and employers. The way to achieve all of those demands is to start with solid research that engages the communities that the work is meant to serve, relies on scientific methods of inquiry, and challenges norms that currently lead to inequity and injustice,” says Dean Moje.

The SOE community heads into this next chapter hand in hand with the people who work in education and those served by educational systems. Acknowledging that research is only as meaningful as its reach into practice and policy, the future of research relies on the continued growth of respectful, mutually beneficial partnerships and a commitment to center the experiences of learners and educators in all aspects of the work. ■

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■ In 2017, professors Patricio Herbst and Chauncey Monte-Sano each received grants from the James S. McDonnell Foundation for their research in the fields of mathematics education and inquiry-based education in history and social studies, respectively, representing the first grants to SOE from the McDonnell Foundation since 1996.

fresh approaches, which will no doubt redefine our coming century.

Robust programs of research advance scholarship that aim to dismantle racist and oppressive educational practices, policies, and systems; deconstruct barriers to educational access and opportunity for children, youth, and adults; and present new paths toward equity and inclusion. In addition to ongoing work across the SOE, the addition of four faculty members—Charles H. F. Davis III, Jamaal Matthews, Rosemary Perez, and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas—in 2020 and 2021 enhanced the school’s scholarship in these areas.

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Recent foundation grants have advanced important work in diverse areas of education research:

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Preparing the Leaders and Best for the Most Important Profession How teacher education at U-M evolved and continues to push boundaries so teachers will be ready for the complex work ahead of them

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ver the past 150 years, teacher training at U-M has evolved to meet changing needs, grown to partner with community schools and organizations, and demonstrated leadership in researchbased innovations in student learning.

Throughout expansions, contractions, shifting policies, and rotating leadership, U-M has remained among the best universities for the preparation of educators.

Professional teacher training in the state of Michigan was initially the responsibility of the Michigan State Normal School—now Eastern Michigan University—in Ypsilanti.

The Normal School was, at the time, one of only six such institutions dedicated to teacher training in the United States and was the first normal school west of the Allegheny Mountains. Teacher training at U-M was initially viewed, in the words of President Henry P. Tappan in 1856, as a means to “prepare men to teach in the university itself, or in any other institution.”

U-M would not immediately compete with the Normal School, which was focused on the elementary level, but did offer coursework designed to prepare high school teachers and school administrators.

U-M would soon take a leadership role in the field of education in the state. Professor John Dewey’s Michigan Schoolmasters’ Club, an association of local teachers and administrators as well as faculty members from both U-M and the Michigan State Normal School, began meeting in 1886 to “discuss matters that pertain to our common work, with particular reference to high school and collegiate training.” Dewey, who became the intellectual leader of progressive education reform upon publication of his book School and Society in 1899, was among the first scholars to emphasize child-centered learning. He favored the teaching of psychology in high school as a bridge to better learning in college, and proposed that the role of a

James B. Angell

This teacher’s certificate signed by U-M President James B. Angell was granted to W.G. Coburn who graduated from U-M in 1890. So far as can be determined, it was the first teacher’s certificate issued by the university under the law of 1891, which gave the university the right to grant them. Coburn was superintendent of Battle Creek Schools from 1895 to 1935.

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teacher should be “largely one of awakening, of stimulation,” to allow the student to “realize the material in himself.” The Michigan Schoolmasters’ Club continued for 80 years.

Education at U-M came into even greater focus in the years leading up to the formation of a department. In 1871, a year after U-M began admitting women, James B. Angell was named university president.

Angell was a major proponent of education and soon instigated a number of programs to grow Michigan’s presence in the field and prominence as an institution for teacher education. Before the end of his first year, Angell had begun the voluntary accreditation of secondary schools as a path for students into the university, taking the place of entrance exams. Under this scheme, high schools were reviewed by faculty committees to ensure high standards, and the program led to a “steady stream of wellprepared freshmen.” The Michigan model of foregoing entrance exams for students from accredited schools was revolutionary at the time, and contributed to what Dewey saw as a more democratized model of higher education “of and for the people.” But it was also controversial, and the presidents of U-M and Harvard feuded publicly over the new standards.

In 1874—soon after establishing this new model—U-M would offer another innovation in the field when the faculty approved a “teacher’s diploma,” a document which had no legal weight but testified to graduates’ qualifications to teach, backed by the prestigious university. Although in 1891, the Michigan legislature approved a teacher’s certificate to be paired with a degree, which created a legal qualification to teach at any public school in the state, the diploma also remained in use until the SOE formed in 1921.

“A large proportion of our students engage in teaching after graduation,” President Angell said in 1878, expounding on the need for a more formalized program of teacher training at the university. “Some adequate exposition of the science and the art of teaching, some methodical discussion of the organization and superintendence of schools, would be most helpful.” To this end, in 1879, William H. Payne was appointed Chair of the Science and the Art of Teaching, the first per-

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manent chair of education dedicated solely to teacher training in an American college or university. A Harper’s Weekly editorial of the time lauded U-M as “upon another plane” compared with normal schools. The Normal School, perhaps understandably, objected to Payne’s appointment.

In 1874, U-M would offer another innovation in the field when the faculty approved a “teacher’s diploma,” a document which had no legal weight but testified to graduates’ qualifications to teach, backed by the prestigious university.

Burke Allan Hinsdale, who succeeded Payne as the second Chair of the Science and the Art of Teaching in 1888, labored to elevate education to professional status. His views were based more on his practical experience than theoretical philosophy. Hinsdale’s most significant achievement was winning for U-M the responsibility for the certification

University Elementary School ca. 1938

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Top: University High School was used for student teaching until its closure in 1968.

Bottom: University Elementary students work on a model cities project, 1939

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When Hinsdale resigned in 1900 due to declining health, Payne returned to Michigan and resumed the position of chair, which he held until his death in 1907. Allen Sisson Whitney assumed leadership of the university’s Department of Education upon Payne’s death, making his mark by expanding and invigorating the teacher training program.

The culmination of Whitney’s work came in 1921 with the establishment of the SOE. Whitney also oversaw the earliest formal relationships between the Department—and later, the School—of Education and community schools.

Many aspects of the development of the SOE would stem from its early focus on educational psychology. By 1916, the Department of Education offered a course in educational psychology, which may have been the first in the field.

In 1911, the university signed a contract for teacher training students to observe classes at W.S. Perry Elementary School. But even with the observation and training provided at Perry, the faculty still wanted their own “demonstration school.” This led to the opening in 1924 of University High School, which held among its ambitions to “provide an education laboratory for scientific experimentation.”

University President Clarence C. Little, whose academic background was in biology, liked the idea of the school as a laboratory for other departments, which would also open new avenues of funding. “Education is in its infancy,” Little said in his address to the Michigan legislature in 1927 requesting that an elementary school be added to University High School. “Its fundamental sciences need to be studied, and it needs a laboratory in which to study them.” (It must be noted that Little’s legacy is problematic: he subscribed

to eugenicist views and testified before Congress that smoking does not cause cancer.

His name was removed from a U-M building in 2018.) University Elementary School opened its doors in 1930, though its role at the university was purely for research rather than student teaching in its early years.

University High School and Elementary School marked a significant turning point for the young SOE, but they did not spring

up spontaneously. Many aspects of the development of the SOE would stem from its early focus on educational psychology. By 1916, the Department of Education offered a course in educational psychology, which may have been the first in the field. In the 1930s, William Clark Trow founded the first school psychology program in the state of Michigan and wrote the emerging discipline’s first textbook.

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Howard McClusky arrived at the University of Michigan in 1924 with the specific purpose of working in the campus’s educational psychology laboratory—the first in the country. McClusky was interested in what he called “ecological psychology,” the effects of a community on students. He liked to “give away” psychology to parents, teachers, and other community members to help them understand how best to help the students in their lives. The progressive advances in educational psychology culminated in the creation of laboratory schools at U-M as part of the effort to conduct research within a school setting.

In 1922, a “coaching school” was inaugurated for teachers who held responsibility for high school sports teams and needed training from specialists. This summer program was a direct response to new laws mandating physical education in secondary schools. Soon, as more students specialized in this emerging field, the need for graduate programs became apparent. A graduate curriculum for physical education launched in summer 1931.

Though the university had initially only offered secondary-school teacher training (out of deference to the Normal School) the SOE began offering an elementary teacher preparation program in 1938, in response to growing demand for teachers in the state.

The new program included the first methods course for elementary teachers and required one semester of practice teaching in the fourth year, but students were unhappy spending part of their final year away from campus. And so in 1942, the University Elementary School opened to student teaching. While this satisfied students’ desire to stay on campus and augmented the elementary school’s capability as a site for educational research, the “free democratic environment” of this school did not always match the schools where graduates would be employed. Most were able to adapt to their placements, but the disconnect emphasized the need to train students in a number of different student teaching environments.

After World War II, veterans’ return to campus and the baby boom led to a period of rapid growth. In 1943, 607 undergraduates and 1,254 graduate students were

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enrolled in the school; by 1948, those numbers had nearly tripled, to 1,825 undergraduates and 3,285 graduate students.

With two demonstration schools up and running and a novel course planned for physical education teachers, the school also branched out into preparing teachers to conduct adult education. The Program of Adult Education was established in 1938, growing into an extension service unit called Community Adult Education and, separately, into the Bureau of Studies and Training in Adult Education in 1947. The two worked together: the bureau was intended to further academic research in the field of adult education, while the extension service unit would serve as a laboratory environment. In 1950, the bureau became the Department of Community and Adult Education.

The school, being situated within a research university, was interested from its early days in educational theory improving practice. A 1955 newsletter mentions a new interdisciplinary program with the School of Architecture and Design (now the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and The Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design) to incorporate elements of art and design instructional methods for use by “regular teachers.”

Student teacher Edith Wellons teaches social studies at Pioneer High School, 1974

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Top: Student teacher Rita Woods teaches her third grade students at Thurston Elementary School, 1977 Bottom: Student teacher David Shumacher teaches at Thurston Elementary School, 1977

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As the postwar period gave way to the Cold War era, the changing world put pressure on schools to adapt as well. The 1957 launch of the Russian Sputnik satellite led to a new emphasis on math, science, and foreign languages in schools as education became a national security priority. This new emphasis was supported by federal funding through the 1958 National Defense Education Act, along with fellowships and loans for college students.

The civil rights movement led to an increased focus on remedying long-standing inequities in urban education. Professor Melvyn Semmel launched the Advanced Study in Elementary Core-City Teaching program in 1968, which enrolled teachers working in urban districts for at least three years to train with SOE faculty.

Wilbur J. Cohen, who became dean in 1969, placed a focus on urban education, including efforts to expand teacher training in urban schools and recruit a more diverse faculty to manage new programs.

In 1970, the federally supported Program for Educational Opportunity was introduced to provide schools with assistance in racial desegregation; that same year, the Program for Fair Administration of School Discipline began. Cohen’s efforts immediately grew the school’s teaching program: 1,471 candidates were recommended for teaching certificates in the 1970–71 school year, and an additional 1,367 degrees were earned that year by students in the SOE’s other undergraduate and graduate programs.

The rapid growth of the SOE did not last forever. In 1975, the Michigan State Legislature reduced funding for teacher education, citing an oversupply of teachers. The university had played a role in making a career in teaching a more desirable profession, only to become a victim of its own success as more people entered the field. This was the beginning of a period of severe contraction for the school, one which would see its budget reduced by 40 percent and physical education moved out of SOE a decade later.

Despite the intense challenges presented by the budget cuts, the refocused school continued to lead and innovate in several important areas throughout the 1980s.

The SOE was an early adopter of emerging technology in teaching, recognizing its necessity in preparing students for an evolving workplace. By 1980, the school was already making use of computer terminals networked to the university’s mainframe, and in 1985 resources were significantly upgraded with an additional lab for “microcomputers,” individual workstations more akin to the desktop PCs still in use today. The availability of more computers allowed faculty to provide meaningful, hands-on instruction to a greater number of students, both at the introductory and advanced levels.

The school also continued to receive recognition for its excellence in teacher training and research, even during periods of severe upheaval. In the depths of its mid-’80s budget crisis, SOE nevertheless exceeded the rig-

MAC students participate in team building activities, 1991

In the 1990–91 academic year, the first five students graduated from the Master or Arts in Education with Secondary Teacher Certification (MAC) program, which was designed to serve students making a career change to education.

Recalling the intensive study of education that resulted from the Russian space program of the 1950s, Professor William C. Morse suggested the need for a “Sputnik II Plus” initiative to address the dual anxieties of national defense and economic competition, two major challenges facing the United States in 1985. But, he stressed, the solution would not be confined to laws and policies. “We need to seek out new concepts to guide us if we are going to solve our problems,” Morse said.

In an effort to both inspire and be inspired by reform movements on campuses nationwide, in 1986 U-M joined the Holmes Group,

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a consortium of computer proeducation deans gram enabling looking to reform networked teacher educacommunication at research tion, allowed universities. Dean faculty in Ann Carl Berger saw Arbor to offer a an opportunity version of the for Michigan to International serve a leaderConflict Simuship role in the lation to Detroit group since “we have already achieved many students and teachers remotely. At this time, of the Holmes goals….We can bring the group Dean Berger and education researcher Paul exciting alternatives in teacher education,” Pintrich were working with Apple to provide he said. The Holmes Group at the time was training for teachers to offer computing focused on structures of recruiting and retainclasses in Detroit high schools. ing exceptional teachers and highly qualified The technology collaborations with DPS individuals they called “instructors” (who took a number of forms in the 1980s. The may serve in the classroom for only a few SOE and Detroit Public Schools partnered years), and provide meaningful incentives for on the Starnet Project, an early version of those who embark on a career in teaching. online classrooms focused on math and sciMichigan’s active role in the education ence education. The Starnet Project paired reform movement would continue under a live television broadcast of a lesson with Dean Cecil Miskel, who took over from functionality that would enable students to Berger in 1988. “The School of Education interact with the instructors and computmust become deeply involved in the reform ers. The U-M center was one of five Starnet and improvement of American education,” hubs nationwide and was seen as a way Miskel said. “The enlightened self-interest to immerse both students and teachers in of the university requires such involvement, innovative new methods of learning. not only because In addition K-12 schools to technological provide the advancement university with and community its diverse and partnerships, high-achieving this era saw the student body, but school embark also because the on another university’s key innovation that constituencies would transdemand such form teacher involvement in recruitment An advertisement in the Michigan Daily urges undergraduate return for public and training. students to consider a pre-student teaching program based support.”

In the 1990–91 in Detroit The bonds academic year, between the university and Detroit Public the first five students graduated from the Schools were renewed during a symposium Master of Arts in Education with Secondary in June 1984, where preparation, recruitment, Teacher Certification (MAC) program, which and graduation from U-M of Black students was designed to serve students making from Detroit Public Schools emerged as an a career change to education. Under this explicit goal. The SOE was a leader in these program, students spent a full school year efforts, focusing on improving social studies, in field placement while also enrolled full language, science, and math instruction. time in graduate study. Dean Miskel spoke The university’s CONFER system, an early about the MAC course during his comments

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orous standards of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), which praised the faculty’s “outstanding” knowledge of the challenges then facing the field of education, as well as the “excellent scope of materials and equipment” available to students, including state-of-the-art computers and multimedia technology.

But in addition to the budget crunch, the 1980s also saw pressure to reform education from outside the campus. In 1983, the National Committee on Excellence in Education released A Nation at Risk, a broadside against the contemporary state of American schooling. Nation bemoaned “a rising tide of mediocrity” and a deterioration of American education that threatened “our very future as a nation and as a people,” calling for significant education reforms. This report informed much of the debate around teaching practice and school policy throughout the 1980s and ’90s, with different states and school districts attempting various reforms until the advent of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation in 2001.

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Top left: ED 516: Theory and Practice in Early Childhood Education, taught by Professor Sally Lubeck, 1997 Top right: hi-ce project at Taft Middle School

before the U. S. Congress Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education of the Education and Labor Committee in 1991, regarding the reauthorization of Title V. “We have created an alternative route to becoming a teacher that effectively addresses alleged shortcomings of traditional programs and points to new ways of looking at our schools of education as valuable national resources,” he said. Miskel cited a former accountant, a computer software salesperson, a bank executive, and others who returned to school to become teachers under the MAC program. The program was unique in

that the program was primarily field-based from the first day of class.

“The goal is to educate teachers who not only know their subject matter and how to teach, but also are reflective, critical thinkers,” Miskel said. Miskel noted that the program was already proving popular by its second year, when, without advertising, the school received 200 inquiries and 65 applications for a class of 30.

In 1997, the Master of Arts in Education with Elementary Teacher Certification (ELMAC) followed the success of the MAC program. Many of the first ELMACers were returning Peace Corps members. Like the MAC program, ELMAC also drew career changers who discovered their passion for teaching after years of being in the workforce. Both MAC (now called SecMAC) and ELMAC continue to be cohort-based oneyear programs that provide an unparalleled cohesion between coursework and field placement experiences.

If the 1980s were an era of retrenchment for the school, of becoming “slimmer and trimmer,” the 1990s were a time of reinven-

Above: Biff Barritt teaching an undergraduate methods course, 1993

Teaching interns gather to discuss their practice as part of Clinical Rounds, 2016

several ways. Eligible students had to hold an undergraduate degree with a subject area minor; once admitted, they worked in cohorts of about 15 students. Courses were built around themes for each cohort, and students were either in class or teaching from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. One of the most significant differences, however, was

tion. The early years of the decade saw a reconceptualization of the early childhood education program, efforts that began with the 1991 formation of the Teacher Education Curriculum Committee, a group of faculty members studying and evaluating existing programs. Their recommendations were finalized in 1993 and these changes, includ-

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with her and with each other. “If they have a question or concern, they don’t have to come directly to me. They can ask someone in their group,” she said at the time. Whitner also said that this allowed some students to perform as “captains,” and that tackling “real” (as opposed to textbook) problems helped them engage with the material.

Not all reform movements of the ’90s prioritized finding new and more effective methods of learning; as education came under fire for what was seen as mediocre testing results, policies around teacher certification became a topic of debate. Some legislators and policymakers suggested doing away with state certification altogether and allowing districts or even individual schools to set their own standards. Others defended certification as necessary for protecting the learning and safety of students, as well as reducing variation in the quality of teachers from one district to the next—that is to say, where a child lives should not determine whether they have access to good teachers. Reformers, including leaders at the SOE, also emphasized the interest of the state in perpetuating a welleducated citizenry. Without certification, they said, there would be no way to assess whether teachers had any knowledge of their subject matter or the skills necessary to ensure a successful classroom.

The debate continued into the new century, especially as teachers and administra-

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ing field placements for education students in each of the program’s four semesters and an expansion of the cohort program, began to be implemented in the mid-’90s.

“There isn’t any one right answer about the best way to educate teachers, but I think we have the ingredients for a very strong preparation program,” said Professor Helen Harrington, who was integral to developing and implementing the new program.

The proliferation of new technologies couldn’t help but influence exploration of new methods of educating teachers.

Professor Magdalene Lampert was a pioneer in the use of interactive media to prepare students for the real-world problems they would face as teachers. Recognizing that the information prospective teachers have to learn about teaching is complex, and learning bit by bit is difficult to apply in practical situations, Lampert noted that “high level practical learning can occur when novices are presented with problems that are complex and difficult, if this is done in contexts where they have the opportunity to think and talk about such problems with others who have different levels of experience.”

This style filters through to their teaching practice, where the teacher leads an engaged discussion rather than simply handing down knowledge and marking students’ answers as correct or incorrect. Lampert also advocated for technology in teacher preparation as vital to new teachers’ knowledge and understanding of how to use emerging technologies in the classroom.

In addition to the new Prechter Laboratory for Interactive Technology, the Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education (hi-ce) was a resource for tackling the problems of technology in schools through perspectives of research, curriculum building, assessment, home and community engagement, and professional development for teachers.

Evelyn Whitner was a veteran teacher of 25 years when she first used hi-ce’s air quality and water quality curriculum with her 7th grade students at Detroit’s Taft Middle School in the mid-’90s. She noted that the interactive program had changed everything, from the physical setup of her classroom to the ways students communicated

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Teacher education students pursuing ESL endorsement work with Ann Arbor youth at the Summer ESL Academy, 2016

Evelyn Whitner was a veteran teacher of 25 years when she first used hi-ce’s air quality and water quality curriculum with her 7th grade students at Detroit’s Taft Middle School in the mid-’90s.

She noted that the interactive program had changed everything, from the physical setup of her classroom to the ways students communicated with her and with each other.

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In 2019, the first Teaching Resident joined The School at Marygrove.

tors searched for ways to meet the standards of the 2001 No Child Left Behind legislation.

“A rigorous and professional system of initial and continuing education of teachers is essential,” wrote Dean Deborah Loewenberg Ball in a 2005 response to a New York Times editorial decrying the reform movement and teacher training programs. “Teachers deserve nothing less than first-rate training for the complex work we ask of them.

Without this, and the major investments it will demand, dreams of school reform will remain nothing more than vain hopes.”

For its part, the SOE continued to make those major investments to realize the dream of education reform, both by launching new initiatives and expanding successful programs. Joining the Holmes Group helped establish SOE as a national convener of researchers on teacher education. Soon, the university’s leadership in reform would bear fruit in the Teacher Education Initiative (TEI), which then grew into TeachingWorks. Since 2004, Teaching-

Works has focused on improving teacher preparation and establishing a professional standard for starting a career as an educator, with an eye toward addressing the inequities facing so many Black, Latinx, and Native American children, and children living in historically marginalized and underserved communities.

The school also explored a new method of teacher preparation with ties to the training of medical professionals. Beginning in 2005, professors Bob Bain and Elizabeth Moje introduced Clinical Rounds, a concept initially focused on students who were training to become social studies teachers. Over the next decade, though, the program expanded to include prospective teachers in mathematics, science, English language arts, and world languages. The Clinical Rounds system rotated teacher candidates through a series of clinical environments, observing five different teachers who each excel at particular instructional skills and each hold their classes in schools within different socioeconomic contexts.

“Direct experience is more powerful than vicarious learning,” said Patricia King, who was director of CSHPE from 2003 through 2006. King, who is also the author of Learning

Partnerships: Theory and Models of Practice to Educate for SelfAuthorship, believes that a focus on subject-matter expertise at the expense of decisionmaking skills and applications of understanding does a disservice to teacher education students.

The Detroit P-20 Partnership, launched in 2018, offers an integrated preschool through grade 12 education system on a single campus, research-based curricular offerings, and services to meet the needs of students and families. The scope of this partnership also includes one of the most exciting innovations in teacher education: the Teaching School, located within the public K-12 School at Marygrove. Further building on the benefits of the medical education model, the Teaching School provides a professional environment in which teacher education students (interns and student teachers) and new, certified teachers (residents) are carefully and consistently supported by veteran teachers and other education experts. Twenty-nine SOE students

■ In 2019, the Social Justice Transformative Educator Institute introduced inclusive curricula and practices to incoming secondary education students.

■ The International Baccalaureate (IB) certificate prepares future educators to assume roles in IB schools around the world.

■ The popular English as a Second Language endorsement, which includes a summer experience with students in the Summer ESL Academy at Scarlett Middle School, became available to students in all teacher preparation programs.

■ The SOE introduced a Trauma-Informed Practice certificate, which focuses on understanding and applying trauma knowledge to inform teaching practices and understanding and enacting roles in interprofessional collaboration.

The demand from educators outside of the SOE to be equipped with knowledge in the area of trauma-informed practice led to the creation of a free, online course on the topic, launched in October 2021. The course is part of a suite of online courses focused on inclusive teaching and learning.

Driven by a commitment to prepare educators who are well-equipped to do the complex work of teaching, the SOE is continuously improving its own teacher education programs and sharing research and practices with other teacher preparation programs across the country. ■

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have already been interns or student teachers at Marygrove and four SOE graduates are currently completing their residencies.

Like the SOE’s vital partnerships, the teacher education curriculum has continued to evolve. In the past several years, new courses, certificates, and endorsement opportunities have emerged to meet the needs of students preparing to be educators in a diverse range of classrooms and school systems.

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Ann Arbor’s Mitchell Elementary and Scarlett Middle School (with the recent addition of Huron High School expanding the scope of the partnership through 12th grade). Students, teachers, families, and university partners (including SOE students, staff, and faculty) teach and learn together as part of a cohesive learning community. The collaborative supports a continuum of professional learning where all educators and administrators commit to studying teaching practices in ways that lead to improved student achievement.

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The school’s research centers also proved valuable hubs of innovation. The Center for Improving Early Reading Achievement (CIERA) launched in 1999, was a consortium of researchers from five universities: the University of Michigan, University of Virginia, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, and University of Southern California. The work of the school’s established research centers, notably the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE), also continued their innovative work.

“Direct experience is more powerful than vicarious learning,” said Patricia King, who was director of CSHPE from 2003 through 2006. King, who is also the author of Learning Partnerships: Theory and Models of Practice to Educate for Self-Authorship, believes that a focus on subject-matter expertise at the expense of decision-making skills and applications of understanding does a disservice to teacher education students.

Partnerships with school districts and other organizations, though, can provide interdisciplinary learning in diverse contexts. King also advocated for networked communities, which would include colleges and universities across different regions of the state or country to create more seamless communication and collaboration toward shared goals. One such network sponsored by SOE in the mid-’00s was the Oakland Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project in collaboration with Oakland Schools and Adrian College. The National Writing Project program sought to create “intellectual homes” for practicing teachers and create a learning community that would last beyond the four-week intensive program.

The SOE’s partnerships with local schools have taken a number of forms throughout the 100-plus year history of teacher education at Michigan, from short-term projects aimed at achieving defined goals or research outcomes to longer-term collaborations that improve teacher preparation as well as classroom learning. Two robust partnerships established in the last decade continue to set a new standard for collaborations between K-12 schools and teacher education programs.

The Mitchell Scarlett Huron Teaching and Learning Collaborative is a partnership with

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100 YE ARS

The Gift of Education A history of philanthropy supporting students, research, facilities, and programming at SOE

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ndividual philanthropy shapes the student experience, powers the breakthroughs of educational research, and flings wide open the doors of opportunity. It is impossible to imagine the SOE without the profound impact of private giving because it is visible everywhere. The generosity of donors provides the foundation for people and programs to thrive.

Donors are partners in our shared vision for educational improvement, access, equity, and innovation. Whether contributing to organized fundraising campaigns, endowing scholarships to support students pursuing a career in education, or funding the creation of vast research centers that will define the future of the field, donors have transformed the school through giving.

From the beginning, alumni opened doors for future generations In the first years of the school’s existence, alumni began a tradition of annual giving that predated a formal fundraising program at the SOE. These early donors gave rise to a culture of philanthropy.

The class of 1923 established an annual teaching award of $1,000 to a faculty member—usually a junior faculty member—who was determined by a committee to have made the most valuable teaching contributions. In 1976, an endowment fund was set up by the class of 1923 in order to continue supporting the SOE community in perpetuity.

Individual alumni like Nina Sanchez (AB ’22, TeachCert ’22) and Eleanor Wagner (AB ’27, TeachCert ’27) were among the first

graduates of the newly formed school who supported SOE students throughout their lives, eventually establishing gifts through their estate plans. Wagner’s motivation was to take some of the financial burden off of students so they could focus on studies and perhaps not work as much as she and her husband had during their college years.

We called, you answered In the ’80s and ’90s, phonathons were a significant fundraising tool for the school.

Students were responsible for reaching out to SOE’s extensive alumni network, including some 17,000 regional alumni in 1986. That year, the school had set an annual phonathon goal of $50,000, which was nearly reached in just its fall campaign.

aspects of the student experience and provide important financial aid. By the end of the 1986-87 academic year, the phonathon raised a staggering $132,000 from more than 6,000 donors, an increase of 35% over the previous year when the program was initiated. The following academic year, the SOE raised nearly $275,000 through a combination of phone banking and direct mail appeals, allowing the school to offer $165,000 in student aid the following year as well as acquiring new technology resources, inviting prominent guest speakers, and supporting additional student and faculty endeavors.

“Direct support of our students continues to be a high priority for the use of gifts from our alumni and friends,” said then-dean Cecil Miskel in 1990. Miskel noted that the number of donors is every bit the measure of success as dollar total, as a more engaged alumni and donor network creates additional opportunities to benefit students.

University-wide capital campaigns lead to major transformation

“The students are what make the phonathon work,” said Barbara Hower, who was then a graduate student responsible for coordinating the event. “They have a genuine enthusiasm for talking with people and a strong desire to help the School of Education.”

During a period of deep budget cuts for the school, this funding was able to improve

The ’90s ushered in an exciting time of growth driven by pivotal gifts to the SOE. Over the past 30 years, three major campaigns have brought donors and school leaders together around shared visions for the future of the SOE. A gift from Heinz and Waltraud (ABEd ’79) Prechter established the Prechter Laboratory for Interactive Technology, which opened its doors in 1994. The Prechter Laboratory was a state of the art computer suite used to design

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assistance with job searches, and information about education-related job opportunities. Their campaign gift also established an endowed scholarship supporting teacher certification students. Like the Towsley Foundation, the Marsals also provided resources for the development of TeachingWorks and the expansion of community engagement efforts.

At the outset of the universitywide campaign called Victors for Michigan, The Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation committed a $1 million cornerstone gift directed toward supporting three specific areas: community engagement, facility updates, and TeachingWorks.

In 2017, a gift from Mike (BBA ’72) and Sue Jandernoa expanded TeachingWorks partnerships in their hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Their vision with the gift was to transform the quality of elementary mathematics teaching in Grand Rapids. For this project, TeachingWorks collaborated with Grand Rapids Public Schools, Godfrey-Lee Public Schools, Kent Intermediate School District, and Grand Valley State University to jointly design a program of training, development, and support to improve mathematics teaching in grades three through eight.

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and create highly sophisticated interactive educational materials and provide opportunities for teacher education students to learn how to employ these materials in their teaching. “Our vision is to encourage the creation of schools that resemble highly sophisticated workplaces in which computing is commonplace and teachers and students use interactive technology to design and create the artifacts of education,” said Miskel.

Also in 1994, the SOE received its first gift of an endowed professorship, the Jean and Charles R. Walgreen, Jr. Professorship in Reading and Literacy. The professorship helped solidify the SOE’s reputation for excellence in literacy research. The gift from Jean and gift directed toward supporting three specific Charles (PhC ’28, MS Hon ’51, LHD Hon ’92) areas: community engagement, facility Walgreen would remain the only endowed updates, and TeachingWorks. This gift helped professorship at the SOE for a quarter century to create more flexible and hospitable classuntil Douglas (PhD ’70) and Karen Dunn rooms, lecture halls equipped with state-ofestablished the Dunn Family Professorship of the-art technology, and improved spaces for Psychometrics and Test Development in 2019. research and collaboration. The support had In 2008, Professor Betty Mae Morrison a key role in launching partnerships between gave the largest bequest made to the SOE— TeachingWorks, teachers, more than $1.6 million. and teacher educators The Dr. Betty Mae Moracross the country—partrison Endowed Fund for nerships that now number Doctoral Student Support more than 70 and are provides tuition, fees, and transforming how teachstipends for doctoral stuers are prepared for our dents doing scholarly work nation’s most important using quantitative research profession. The portion methods. “Professor Morriof the gift designated for son was devoted to the succommunity engagement cess of her students,” said helped to launch the ambiProfessor Carla O’Connor. tious P-20 Partnership on “She kindled their passion the Marygrove Campus in for quantitative research, Detroit, which is home to and her generous gift Jean and Charles R. Walgreen, Jr. the Michigan Education ensures ongoing support Teaching School. In 2020, the Towsley Founfor doctoral students with a demonstrated dation, once again, made a cornerstone gift, interest in methodological rigor.” this time to help launch the school’s Teach In 2011, the Brandon Center for the Study of Blue initiative, aimed at supporting educaEducation Practice opened thanks to a genertors in all stages of the profession. ous gift from Regent Emeritus David Brandon During the Victors for Michigan Campaign, (ABEd ’74, TeachCert ’74). Today, this center is a 2014 gift from Bryan (BBA ’73, MBA ’75) and a hub for individual study as well as collaboraKathleen (ABEd ’72, TeachCert ’72) Marsal tive work, with several rooms equipped for changed the way SOE students and recent videoconferencing and integrated technology. graduates approached their careers. Their gift At the outset of the most recent universityestablished the Marsal Family Career Services wide campaign, called Victors for Michigan, and Placement Fund to provide personalThe Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Founized career counseling, alumni networking, dation committed a $1 million cornerstone

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The SOE gratefully recognizes funds that make up the SOE Endowment

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Charles H. Aurand Early Career Faculty Enhancement Fund Deborah Loewenberg Ball Scholarship Fund Georgeanne Zimmer Barton Scholarship Dr. Percy Bates Scholarship Fund

Year 100 Today, there are more than 130 endowed funds at the SOE, most of which are designated for scholarship or fellowship support.

These contribute to an endowment that is valued at nearly $45 million.

The annual fund, called the Fund for Excellence, remains a vital resource to which hundreds of donors contribute each year.

New funds—both endowed and expendable—power the school’s ambitious projects in communities around Michigan and across the country. As 130 endowed funds contribute individual donors to a School of Education launch endowment that is valued the school in new at nearly $45 million. directions, professional foundations and corporations have increasingly invested in the SOE, radically changing what’s possible in the field of education.

“The School of Education has been committed to excellence in scholarship, in teaching and learning, and in creating more civically-engaged citizens for over 100 years,” says Krissa Rumsey, Director of Development and Alumni Relations. “Philanthropy has allowed the school to move this commitment forward in more nimble ways.”

“There are so many more examples of the transformations our donors enable, that I do not believe it is an overstatement to say philanthropy has changed the lives and trajectories of SOE students, and impacted the partners and communities we serve in profound ways,” Rumsey adds. “To the thousands of alumni, faculty, staff, and friends who have contributed their philanthropy to further the mission and vision of the SOE over the years, I say thank you for demonstrating your love for the School of Education and its people, both within and outside of the walls of 610 E. University Ave.” ■

Louis O. and Lois Glessner Birr Endowed Scholarship Fund Barbara Ann Bissot Fellowship Fund Betty Hollis Breeden Scholarship Fund Viola I. Brown Scholarship Fund Brownlee Supplementary Awards Donald S. & Floydene Beardslee Brownlee Scholarship Loan Fund Dr. Kenneth Burnley Legacy Scholarship Fund Dr. Kenneth Burnley Memorial Scholarship Fund Marshall Byrn Memorial Library Endowment Fund Mary Florence Cejka Graduate Fund Class of 1923 Award Class of 1927 Educational Memorial Research Wilbur J. Cohen Endowment Fund Lawrence Conrey Memorial Endowment Joseph H. and Ella Mae Gardner Cook Endowed Fund CSHPE Graduate Student Support Fund Education Dean’s Discretionary Endowment Thomas A. and Elizabeth Mann Diamond Scholarship Fund Stanley E. and Ruth B. Dimond Best Dissertation Award Patrick A. and Ivy Lai Dixon Endowed Scholarship Mary M. H. Douglas Endowed Scholarship Dunn Family Professorship of Psychometrics and Test Development J. B. Edmonson Award Feinberg Scholarship Fund Judith Edison Forker Scholarship Judith C. Frey Fund Lillian and Harry Gaines Endowed Scholarship Fund Howard H. Gerrish Scholarship Fund Eileen Linovitz Greenberger Memorial Scholarship Fund Charles Milne Greig Endowment in Educational Administration Laris Stalker Gross Endowed Scholarship Grove Family Endowed Scholarship in Elementary Education Fund Regina P. and Daniel J. Gunsett Scholarship Fund Lois Hansen Scholarship for Urban Education Fund Don M. Harlan Endowment Fund Hartwig Endowment Fund Heid Educators Abroad Endowed Fund Wendy Stalo Huntoon Graduate Support Endowed Fund Mildred W. Istock Scholarship Fund George L. Jackson Book Fund Dr. Louis P. James Scholarship Fund Jacob B. Janz Award in Literacy

Kaegi Family Scholarship Fund

Anna Lou Johnston Roth Scholarship Fund

Jim and Judy Kamman Endowed Scholarship Fund

Beatrice Rottenberg Global Studies Fund

Stuart A. Karabenick Award

Donald H. and Elizabeth F. Runck Student Aid Fund

Charles Kern Award Fund

Grace Larsen Sagendorf Scholarship Fund

Edward and Susan Kleiman Family Education Scholarship Fund

Alfred W. Santway Fund

William G. Kring Family Endowed Scholarship Fund

Cynthia Schember Memorial Scholarship Fund

The Krips Family Endowment

Ada Cogswell & Ira L. Schluter Scholarship Fund

Professor Janet H. Lawrence Fund for Global Engagement

School of Education Special Endowment

Valerie E. Lee Award

Richard E. Shafer Endowed Scholarship

Sue Lehmann Tuition Scholarship Fund for Ethnic Diversity

Clare Sliney Memorial Fund

Duane London Endowed Scholarship

School of Education Graduate Student Fellowship Fund

Kala Lyngklip Endowed Fund

SOE Centennial Scholarship Endowment

MAC Program Endowment

SOE Teaching School Partnership Fund

Malian Education Fund

SOE Undergraduate Need-Based Scholarship Fund

Rose Mary Marin Scholarship

Phyllis Cahen Sokolow Endowment Fund

Marsal Family Career Services and Placement Fund

Florence M. Steinberg Scholarship Fund

Marsal Family Scholarship Fund

Student Aid Endowment from Various Sources

Evy Eugene Mavrellis Service in Education Award

King and Frances Stutzman Scholarship Fund

Kathleen McKenney Endowed Scholarship Fund

Nelda Taylor Endowed Scholarship Fund

Lila Ann Ferrance McMechan Endowed Scholarship Fund

Teach Blue

Regina Clark McNeil Endowed Fund

Antonia Agatha Teernstra Scholarship Fund

Margaret Elizabeth Mulcahy Meeske Scholarship Fund

Eugene “Scott” Thompson Memorial Scholarship Fund

Michigan Schoolmasters’ Club Scholarship

Professor & Mrs. Cho-Yee To Fund

Cecil and Sue Miskel Centennial Scholarship for the Study of Educational Administration and/or Educational Policy

Ruth L. Townsend Endowed Graduate Fund Peter Aron Toews Award in Literacy

John H. and Patricia W. Mitchell Fund for Arts, Media, and Communication Studies

Lawrence B. Trygstad Endowed Scholarship Fund

Dr. Joseph R. Morris Doctoral Fellowship

Valenti Family Scholarship for Future Teachers Endowment Fund

Dr. Betty Mae Morrison Endowed Fund for Doctoral Student Support

Marcia Istock Van Tuyl Scholarship Fund

William C. Morse Fund

Vezzani Memorial Fund

C.S. Harding Mott Award

Eleanor M. and Harvey A. Wagner Student Aid Fund

Thomas A. and H. Ellen Mullett Scholarship Fund

Fred G. & Edith Carlson Walcott Scholarship Fund

Joan Nelson and Herbert E. Neil, Jr. Scholarship Fund

Jean and Charles R. Walgreen, Jr. Professorship in Education

Louise R. Newman Endowed Scholarship

Jean and Charles R. Walgreen, Jr. Scholarship

Jonathan and Kelly Opdyke Detroit P-20 Urban Educator’s Endowed Fund

Martha Coburn Waltemade Endowed Scholarship

Frances Cousino Osband Endowed Scholarship

William H. Ward Memorial

Barbara Longon Yaney Palmer Scholarship Fund

John E. Warriner Scholarship Fund

Evan G. and Helen G. Pattishall Junior Faculty Enhancement Fund

Jane Alexy Wheatall and Jacqueline Ward Welsh Scholarship Fund

William H. Payne Graduate Grant Fund

Wheeler Family Memorial Fund

Marvin W. Peterson Endowed Fellowship Fund

The Lynn Towsley White Fund for Teach Blue

Paul R. Pintrich Education and Psychology Fellowship Fund

Allen S. Whitney Memorial Fund

Prechter Detroit Education Endowed Fund

Irene H. and Dr. Lloyd M. Williams Endowed Scholarship

Prechter Scholarship in Literacy, Reading, and Language

Jonnie L. Williams Endowment

Jacqueline D. Prins Scholarship Fund

Frank B. Womer Endowed Faculty Fund

Public Policy for Higher Education Endowed Fund

Clifford Woody Memorial Award

Carol D. and George J. Quarderer Endowed Education Scholarship Fund

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Ann Revelle Scholarship Fund

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Anson G. and Marian Raymond Endowed Scholarship

Jones-Payne-Coxford Award in Mathematics Education

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100 YE ARS

Title IX at Michigan Three SOE alumnae tell their stories of fighting for equity for women on campus

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hen it became federal law nearly 50 years ago, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 promised more equitable opportunities for women in education, from grade school through grad school. Although it immediately forbade discrimination on the basis of sex for any educational program or activity receiving federal funding, the full implications of the law and its applications would take several decades to unfold. For this centennial issue, we spoke with three School of Education alumnae who played a role in implementing Title IX at the University of Michigan and nationwide.

Jeanette Lim Esbrook: Enforcing Title IX Jeanette Lim Esbrook (BS ’62, TeachCert ’62) graduated from U-M in 1962 with a degree in chemistry, adding a teaching certificate because teaching, at the time, was considered one of a limited number of career options for women with science degrees. After pursuing graduate studies in medical genetics at the University of Wisconsin, however, the political and social movements of the late 1960s and early ’70s set her on a new path. “The Women’s Movement and the Civil Rights Movement changed my career focus, and I decided to go to law school, which I did in 1972,” Esbrook recalls.

Before beginning law school, Esbrook was hired to help implement affirmative action measures at the University of Delaware. “Back in the early ’70s, a group of women discovered that the Department of Labor had contract compliance executive orders requiring universities with federal contracts including the University of Delaware to take affirmative action to include women and minorities in its faculty hiring practices,” Esbrook says.

“That job was my introduction to the federal government’s civil rights requirements. The two E.O.s were my introduction to regulatory and statutory requirements similar to Title IX, which eventually was passed in 1972.”

Jeanette Lim Esbrook with her sister Lida Lim (AB ’61, TeachCert ’61)

After receiving a JD and passing the bar in 1979, Esbrook was hired as a member of the general counsel’s office at Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), a federal government agency that was later divided into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services.

At the time, HEW’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) was preparing final regulations for the implementation of Title IX over intercollegiate athletics. Esbrook was assigned to work on the policy. The final policy document setting out Title IX requirements was published on December 11, 1979. The OCR

“The Title IX sexual harassment policy established while I was working as the Policy Director in OCR formed the basis of the anti-harassment policies based on disability and based on race,” she says. “It was one of the few areas where sex discrimination was the leader in establishing a civil rights policy.”

Her career in government would later find Esbrook advocating for Title IX protections as a senior litigating attorney at the Department of Justice. In 1996, she was a member of the team litigating a major 14th Amendment and Title IX case against The Citadel, an all-male public military college in South Carolina, which, concurrently with the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), had been taken to court by plaintiffs seeking the admission of women. Both the Citadel and VMI received public funds.

“Even when the Naval Academy, West Point, and the Air Force Academy opened their institutions to women, these two institutions were still limiting admissions to men,” Esbrook says. While the Citadel had offered to create a separate, similar institution for women, Esbrook compared this arrangement to Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled against “separate but equal” schools on the grounds that they could never truly be equal.

“If you got a degree from and wore the Citadel ring, you had access to the power structure of South Carolina,” Esbrook explains. “If you

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wanted to get into politics in South Carolina, or become a bank board member, or a big corporation board member, if you were a Citadel grad, you became a member of a network that opened doors.” These were aspects of the Citadel experience, Esbrook says, that “you could not replicate in a so-called separate but equal institution for women.” Even as the DOJ team including Esbrook was presenting the Citadel case in the U.S. District Court of South Carolina, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision in the parallel VMI case before them that settled the matter, and both the Citadel and Virginia Military Institute were compelled to open their enrollment to women.

“We were actually in court the day the Supreme Court came down with the VMI decision, and our judge said, ‘Guess what, folks? The Supreme Court has spoken, and I’m asking you to retire and work out a corrective action plan for the Citadel to enroll women,’” Esbrook recalls. She added that the Supreme Court had ruled against VMI using the same argument the DOJ team had been employing in the Citadel case: that the established prestige and networks of the schools would not carry through to any newly created institution for women.

Now retired from government, Esbrook serves as Vice President, Legal Affairs for the Clearinghouse on Women’s Issues (CWI). Because of her deep expertise on policies surrounding sexual harassment on college campuses, Esbrook testified before the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump administration, challenging proposed rule changes to Title IX that many felt weakened protections for complainants. “Basically, the Trump administration and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos felt that the regulations and the policy on sexual harassment did not provide the person who is accused sufficient due process rights,” Esbrook says. “So they retracted a group of policies that have been promulgated since the early ’80s, and they wrote a prescriptive and limiting regulation that required due process implementation to the point where universities’ investigative processes were turned into quasi courtroom-like proceedings. I recognized

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working as the policy director in OCR formed the basis of the anti-harassment policies based on disability and based on race,” she says. “It was one of the few areas where sex discrimination was the leader in establishing a civil rights policy. Title VI and race were typically at the forefront in terms of how we learned to deal with discriminatory issues, but this harassment issue was one of the areas where Title IX and sex discrimination led.”

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had received several Title IX complaints against university athletic programs alleging unequal athletic opportunities for women.

With the policy published, Esbrook and her team were tasked with investigating the numerous complaints. This required traveling from Washington, DC, to explain the policies to the department’s 10 regional field offices with responsibilities to investigate complaints filed in their regions. “As the policy was so new, we had to do a big training,” Esbrook recalls. “HEW had a training center in Denver, Colorado, where the investigators from the 10 regional offices of the Office for Civil Rights came, and I was part of the team that taught the investigative approach to attorneys and investigators from the regions so that we could start dealing with numerous complaints we’d already received.”

At the time, women’s teams were under the administration of the AIAW, not the NCAA, and none of the women trainers had experience with the NCAA. After training was completed, teams were named, and Esbrook found herself a member of the team investigating complaints at the University of Michigan, among other schools.

In addition to intercollegiate athletics, Esbrook was assigned to develop policy for investigating what became known as “sexual harassment” complaints. In the early 1980s these were new types of complaints made by students and received by OCR, as well as the Justice Department, Department of Labor, and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC). In 1983, as a policy attorney in the Office of Civil Rights in the recently reconfigured Department of Education, she wrote the first internal OCR guidance instructing the department’s regional offices how to investigate these new complaints. “That’s how the term ‘sexual harassment’ originated,” Esbrook says, “for better or worse.” She now feels the term “sexual” may have distracted from the “harassment” or bullying aspects of the complaints and caused misunderstanding. “Looking back, maybe there was a better term we could have chosen, but that’s what we chose.”

Eventually Esbrook’s and others’ work on sexual harassment policy had an influence broader than expected. “The Title IX sexual harassment policy established while I was

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100 YE ARS from years of university experience that the culture of the university isn’t suitable for courtroom-like disciplinary procedures.

Universities are places of education and a less formal discipline process which can include attention to due process and fairness can be consistent with a university’s learning environment.

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“Even back then, William Shakespeare knew that it’s very difficult for victims of sexual harassment to be believed... there’s been a culture of disbelief.”

“The result of the revised regulations has made sexual harassment investigations more difficult for universities to deal with, and puts a toll on the person who wants to file a complaint. It’s difficult enough for an individual who has been sexually harassed to come forward, and with the new sexual harassment regulation, it was even worse.

So that’s what informed my decision to help with the Clearinghouse statement.”

Esbrook hopes the Biden administration will put a hold on implementing the new regulations and instead conduct a listening tour of universities and advocates for both survivors and the accused, hearing their concerns to find a better way forward in addressing sexual harassment complaints.

“This is a serious matter, and we need to know that universities and school districts are safe places where students are free from bullying and harassment,” Esbrook says. She emphasizes the difficulty, well before the Trump-DeVos policies, of victims of sexual assault finding justice. She cites the scene in William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, written around 1603, in which the seemingly pious Angelo offers to spare Isabella’s brother’s life if she sleeps with him; when she threatens to expose him, Angelo says simply, “Who will believe thee, Isabella?”

“Even back then, William Shakespeare knew that it’s very difficult for victims of sexual harassment to be believed,” Esbrook says.

“It’s a very difficult psychological trauma, and there’s been a culture of disbelief.”

Sheryl Szady (pointing) with the jacket gals

Sheryl Szady: Leader of the Jacket Gals Sheryl Szady (BSEd ’74, TeachCert ’74, AM ’75, PhD ’87) says the thinking when Title IX passed in 1972 was that the law was primarily intended to open graduate school programs to women. “Medical schools, hospital administration programs, had very few, if any, women in them,” she says. “I don’t know that it was one of the primary goals to get women’s varsity athletics on an even footing with men’s athletics.” But as the guidelines for implementing Title IX started to take shape, it became clear that addressing college sports would be essential.

The Title IX legislation passed while Szady was a student-athlete at U-M, but the guidelines for implementation were not released until 1975, a year after she graduated. As such, there was no clear guidance on how the law might support her fight to institute varsity women’s sports at Michigan

against considerable resistance. Yet through perseverance and a bit of good fortune, she got her message across.

As student leader of U-M’s club sport field hockey team, Szady was responsible for calling the varsity coaches of universities throughout the state to arrange a schedule of matches. “They would pretty much dictate what was the best for them,” Szady says of the varsity squads the Michigan women’s team played in the early 1970s. But in 1973, Szady found that the coaches who had graciously granted the Michigan club a game in years past were now denying her requests.

“Finally, the Eastern Michigan field hockey coach called me back and said, ‘Sheryl, just to let you know, we decided at the SMAIAW [a women’s organization parallel to the men’s NCAA] that nobody was playing Michigan this year. We’re basically excluding you until Michigan steps up to create a varsity program.’”

Before graduating in 1974, Szady lettered in field hockey and basketball. But as she

been considered for the female varsity athletes. “I asked the Advisory Committee, ‘And where are our varsity letters? Where are our varsity awards?’ ” “The committee members were all positive. This is something that the [women’s physical education faculty and staff ] couldn’t do because if they fought for women’s athletics, they’d be fighting against Don Canham and Paul Hunsicker and they would risk getting fired,” Szady says. That spring and summer, an advisory committee met to recommend the six strongest women’s club sports that would gain varsity status. In August 1973, Hartwig called Szady to let her know that Fleming had directed her to begin women’s varsity athletics in September 1973. Szady quite aptly described the timeline as “incredibly fast for the university to move on anything.”

The initial lineup of women’s varsity sports included field hockey, volleyball, basketball, swimming and diving, tennis, and synchronized swimming. “Because of the turnaround, we looked a lot like the club program of previous years in terms of who we played, but where we used to borrow or steal cars (as we would say) to jam into them, now we had university vans,” Szady says. She mentioned that the players for the first time also received meal money, $1.50 for home games and $3.50 on the road.

“We still were taking our own uniforms home and washing them. You were issued one for the season and you were responsible for showing up clean,” she says.

Before graduating in 1974, Szady lettered in field hockey and basketball. But as she stayed on to complete a master’s degree, she found that varsity awards had not been considered for the female varsity athletes. “I asked the Advisory Committee, ‘And where are our varsity letters? Where are our varsity awards?’ And everybody said, ‘Don’t even go

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there, you got your varsity programs,’” she recalls. “But we represent Michigan!” This would be the beginning of Szady’s second major fight for women’s athletics, and this one would take considerably more than a single summer to resolve.

Szady found herself on the Board in Control of Intercollegiate Athletics’ committee— appointed by Don Canham—to review the schedule of varsity awards for the student-athletes. “I’m sure he wasn’t really happy in the end because while I surveyed all the women’s teams and came up with a schedule of awards that blended well with the men’s, the question of the Block M proved contentious. I asked to stipulate the same Block M be used on awards for women and men, and this was not popular at all.” The issue was initially put to a vote by the board, but Canham “didn’t like” what he saw, so he tabled the issue.

Two days later, they sent out letters to the former male letter-winners from the president of the all-male Letterwinners M Club, and a letter from Bo Schembechler and then-basketball coach Johnny Orr, that said, among other things, “how can you let women have the same M that you bled and sweated on the fields of Michigan for?”

The letter included the home addresses of Szady and the other board members. “I just received tons of letters, like, think of a Kroger brown paper bag two-thirds filled with the nastiest letters from Michigan letter-winners, well-placed people. ‘How dare you ask for the same Block M?’” But as the next board meeting loomed, Szady also began receiving correspondence of another sort. “I started getting letters from some educators who said, ‘you’re doing the right thing. You deserve the Block M,’” Szady recalls.

Though she would not discover this until afterward, Szady received a significant lateinning boost from an unexpected source.

“The night before the meeting, Al Ackerman, Detroit’s Channel Four sportscaster, said, ‘I got wind of these letters to the Letterwinners,’” Szady recounts. “And he said, ‘I will never report another Michigan athletic score if Michigan doesn’t give women the Block M.’” In Szady’s telling, this set off frantic activity among Fleming and the executive officers, who cut short a retreat for two vice-

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In addition to some logistical hurdles to meeting Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women guidelines for establishing women’s varsity sports at U-M, Szady and her allies faced catch-22 scenarios when they approached then-athletic director Don Canham. Canham would ask Szady about the teams they played, she says, but was unsatisfied with her answers. To be a varsity team, Canham said, the women would need to play bigger schools. But to play those schools, Michigan women would need varsity program status. “So he’d say, ‘you’re so close, you’ve got to grow these club sport programs, grow your numbers, your competition level, your skill level. You need to win,’” Szady recalls. At one point the athletic director did offer the women’s teams $2,000, to assist 12 club teams.

“I actually thought, we need more money so that we could travel and hire coaches. I was approaching the Office of Development because they would mail out a card every year to alumni asking for money for different programs,” Szady recalls. She asked for a line in the donation request specifically for the women’s sports teams. This request moved the philosophical question of supporting athletics for women up the university administration to Henry Johnson (SOE faculty 1970–72), the then-Vice President of Student Affairs. While a meeting with President Robben Fleming was not granted, this would start Szady down the fateful path to her meeting with the university’s Board of Regents.

Szady put together a presentation outlining what was required for Michigan women’s varsity athletics under the AIAW guidelines—notably not referencing Title IX. She would have five minutes to make her case before the regents.

After watching a group of students who were presenting before her be dismissed hastily, Szady was not optimistic, but to her surprise, after the presentation, Fleming reviewed her materials and asked Marie Hartwig (who had led the women’s sports program before the women’s and men’s Physical Educations departments merged and would be later be named the first associate director of athletics for women) to begin exploring whether varsity women’s sports could be implemented at Michigan.

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34 presidents who returned to Ann Arbor with instructions to make sure women received the Block M. Before the meeting, Szady, who did not yet know of the power hitters in her lineup, was called in to Canham’s office. “I sat down, and he said, ‘What do you want?’ And I said, ‘the same Block M for men and women.’ He said, ‘you aren’t going to get that.’” Canham reportedly offered a variety of alternatives including a blue M, a script M, and others.

He repeated his question. “In retrospect, I should have said I want four tickets on the 50 for life,” Szady jokes. “I said, ‘I want the same Block M, and I’ll take my chances with the board,’ because clearly he wasn’t going to negotiate.” As she turned to leave, “I realized that the alum members and some of the faculty members of the board were standing in the office behind me. It seemed quite confrontational, even though I hadn’t seen them going in.”

After Szady’s proposal was reviewed, the majority of the Board of Regents voted in favor of granting the women student-athletes Michigan’s famous Block M, the same as the men’s. The only holdout has since established scholarship funds for every varsity sport, both men’s and women’s.

The day after her victory with the regents, Szady was photographed by the Ann Arbor News holding a sweater with the Block M she had earned, a photo which graced the front page of the paper’s next edition, “right next to a picture of Henry Kissinger.” But when, a year later, she received a package from the university with her varsity award, she discovered a letter jacket with “this little square orange M on it.”

No one then at the university was willing to take up her fight, but when Szady returned in the 1980s to pursue her PhD she renewed her efforts. “I met with every athletic director to tell them that these were the wrong Ms and not only for the current women, but these past women,” who had played for Michigan in the years since 1973– 74, she says. Finally, when Jack Weidenbach became athletic director in 1991, he agreed that “it was time to change.” Women student-athletes began receiving the same Block M as their male counterparts immediately, but still the past letter recipients held

what Szady describes as “the wrong M.” Finally, in 2016, her first meeting with incoming athletic director Warde Manuel proved a breakthrough. Manuel agreed it was time to provide the iconic Block M to all the women who had earned one playing varsity sports at Michigan, from 1973 to 1991.

From there, the challenge was logistics.

Szady had provided a list, with contact information, of 900 women who should receive new jackets, but the Athletic department would not tell her who had ordered one, citing privacy. “I’m the one that gave you the contacts!” she laughed. Eventually, Szady was told that 120 women had signed up for new jackets, a number that pleased the department but not Szady. So she began networking, asking her contacts to reach out to anybody they knew from their teams, and so on. This resulted in an initial order of 647 letter jackets. Eventually, Szady managed to contact all but 29 of the 900 women.

A Facebook group was formed to reconnect Michigan’s women student-athletes, many of whom had lost touch in the predigital era. Once the jackets started arriving and the Facebook group filled with photos of the women in their Block M jackets, the former varsity student-athletes asked Szady to arrange a gathering in Ann Arbor. The “Jacket Gals” were celebrated at halftime on the field after the Marching Band program.

“It was the most magical day,” Szady says. “I’m leading the long line of Jacket Gals down the tunnel, and coming up the other way is Warde Manuel and he’s cheering us on and that was nice. We are walking along the sideline as the band is playing, then heading toward the southwest corner of the field to the flagpole. And one of the neatest moments was when I turned around and saw this long line of women in their new letter jackets, and we were still coming out of the tunnel. That’s how many 300 is. We line up and we’re a large group along the entire goal line as we are celebrated on the scoreboard screens.”

On their way off the field, the Jacket Gals climbed the section two steps where “the people are high-fiving every single one of us, and the women are just in tears because they’re finally being recognized as Michigan student-athletes.”

Carmel Borders: Michigan’s first female women’s basketball coach Carmel Borders (AB ’72, TeachCert ’72, AM ’78) transferred to the University of Michigan in 1971, when she and her husband moved to Ann Arbor to launch Borders Books. “It turned out I was pregnant, so I did not have a traditional college experience at Michigan,” she says. “I studied hard, I took 18 hours every semester, I went summer, spring, and I was able to graduate before my kid started walking.” Borders received her bachelor’s (from LSA) and teacher certification in 1972. She would later return for a master’s degree in kinesiology, which was then a unit within the SOE, in 1978.

Coaching in those early days was further complicated by student-athletes’ academic commitments, as faculty did not always support the women’s sports programs. “I had an engineering and a nursing student on the team, and their teachers would not let them miss the exam.”

After completing her undergraduate work, Borders began teaching and coaching basketball at Saint Thomas the Apostle High School, where her team reached the state final four two years in a row. “When my son was about four, I would bring him to practice with me sometimes, and he always went to the games with my husband,” Borders recalls. One day, her son asked her, “Mom, can boys play basketball, too?”

Meanwhile, women’s basketball was just gaining varsity status at U-M. Borders was hired to coach the team beginning in its second season. As the program grew, Borders was able to expand the basketball schedule from its initial six-game season up to 22 games within her three years of coaching.

Recruiting players was a challenge when she started coaching at U-M, Borders says, a challenge made more difficult by the fact that

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Carmel Borders (top row, far left) with the women’s basketball team, 1976-77

her job was to begin just before the start of the season. “There were just a handful of girls who came out, and you were putting up signs everywhere, trying to get the women to come out,” she says. Borders also describes difficult training conditions, including holding practice in “the old ice hockey arena, with concrete floors that they had covered with a rubber surface.” Without professional trainers, the women on the team had to learn to tape ankles and shin splints. By the third year, Borders recalls, her team was able to practice in Crisler Arena, where they also had their games.

“The girls really played for the love of the game, and I coached for the love of the game,” Borders says, also noting that her salary at the time “wasn’t enough to cover day care.”

Coaching in those early days was further complicated by student-athletes’ academic commitments, as faculty did not always support the women’s sports programs. “I had an engineering and a nursing student on the team, and their teachers would not let them miss the exam,” Borders recalls. “So we’d have a game and we’d be short two of our

best players. Oh, it’s really fun to figure out the roster when you don’t know who you’re gonna add in.”

Borders’ current work with her family’s charitable organization and with the Texas Book Festival stem from her experiences in the classroom. “The bottom line that became clear to me as a teacher was the importance of reading,” she says. “As a high school teacher, I did not know how to address this issue. When we developed the Tapestry Foundation in 1992, the family decided that reading should be one of the things that we focus on. So I went on a journey of learning all about how reading is taught and how we could support it as a family.”

Borders and the Tapestry Foundation decided to focus on preparation for the teaching of reading in teacher training programs as well as social-emotional learning.

Borders has also served as board chair for the National Institute for Literacy, where she learned about the National Early Learning Panel and its research into the science of reading and how to teach it. ■

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Before DEI “Year 1” Generations of SOE community members have long worked to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus and in the field of education

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he University of Michigan has long considered itself a champion of the critical social causes that have arisen over the years. Yet we know that the university has not always acted on the side of justice, and has sometimes espoused ideals not backed up by its actions. In an effort to chart a course toward meaningful engagement with the issues of representation, anti-racism, and lack of opportunity that have long existed but which have come into greater focus over the past decade, in 2015 the university launched its five-year Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Strategic Plan.

The SOE was the first unit on campus to submit a school-specific plan to the university’s administration. The Education Diversity Advisory Committee developed a multifaceted proposal to provide the SOE community with

a framework and charge to prioritize, develop, and implement actions necessary to realize the commitments outlined in the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion statement. The statement began: “At the School of Education, our effort to study and improve educational practice is inseparable from our determination to develop more effective and socially just systems of education. This mission is grounded in our commitment to promote diversity and to advance equity and inclusion.”

The plan that was submitted in 2015 may have said “Year 1,” but it wasn’t the first time the SOE community had championed diversity, equity, and inclusion—both within its own walls and in the broader context of educational policy and practice. The centennial milestone provides an opportunity to explore several of the projects, people, and

initiatives that built the foundation for what the SOE community now calls dije (Diversity, Inclusion, Justice, and Equity).

Efforts to increase diversity at the SOE have not always grown out of official policy, but have often been initiated by students and faculty members. In a committee meeting in 1969, the student Black Caucus demanded the school achieve 20 percent Black enrollment and 20 percent representation in the faculty.

While the faculty agreed to work toward these goals, which were reaffirmed during the campuswide Black Action Movement strike in 1970, the school ultimately fell short of this goal. However, because of this effort, the SOE did significantly improve its numbers of Black students and faculty throughout the ’70s, rising to 16.5 percent non-white students and 13.3 percent Black students by 1982,

Opposite: Black Action Movement strike on UM-Ann Arbor campus

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Members of the faculty, too, have had profound impact beyond the school. Wilbur J. Cohen, who taught at U-M for 28 years and was the dean of the SOE from 1969 to 1978, came to the university from Washington, DC, after helping to establish the Social Security program, and later took a hiatus from campus to serve in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. As dean, he focused SOE policy around educational opportunity and access, and his tenure saw the launch of major equity initiatives including the Urban Program in Education and the Program for Educational Opportunity.

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both of which were the highest among U-M schools and colleges at the time. Today, the SOE student population is 34 percent Black, Indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC) across all programs and 27 percent BIPOC across the faculty population. Despite these gains, there is still significant work to be done to diversify both the SOE community and the field of education at large.

Coinciding with the student activism of the late 1960s and early 1970s, SOE students won representation on school committees, thanks to the activist group Students for Educational Innovation. This group also hosted conferences and workshops on urban education, women in education, and other issues of the day.

Student activism also helped launch major initiatives beyond the Ann Arbor campus.

Inspired by then-Senator John F. Kennedy’s speech at the Michigan Union only a few weeks before his election as the 35th president of the United States, SOE graduate student Judith Guskin (MA ’61, PhD ’70) began excitedly discussing the potential for students to improve lives in developing countries. After publishing a note in the Michigan Daily asking for letters of support for a student-led international aid program, the enthusiastic response led Guskin to start a petition drive to gain official backing for their project. This in turn led to a sit-down lunch with Senator Kennedy the weekend before his election. “I gave him the petitions and he looked into my eyes,” Guskin said in a 2010 interview with the Daily. “And he listened, he really was attentive.” Kennedy promised Guskin immediate action on their proposal after the election, and in the summer of 1961, the Peace Corps was born. Guskin served in the first program and went to Thailand. After her return to the U.S., she worked to further develop the global Peace Corps program.

President Kennedy’s famous speech was not the only time inspiration for change came from guest speakers. Dr. Foster Gibbs, superintendent of the Saginaw Public Schools, emphasized a need for districts to “grow their own” BIPOC teachers since not enough people of color were entering the field of education.

The school instituted the Preferred Admissions plan with LSA to encourage more minority first-year students to become teachers.

Dr. Alvin Loving, Sr.

Beginning in the 1950s, Black faculty members blazed trails and contributed to the school’s research and instructional eminence. Professor Alvin Demar Loving, Sr., the first Black teacher in the Detroit Public Schools, began his career at U-M as an associate professor in 1956 as one of the inaugural 16 faculty members of UM-Flint, and the only Black scholar among that number. Loving joined the SOE’s Executive Committee in 1969, and the following year became the first Black faculty member to become a full professor at U-M. That year, Dean Wilbur J. Cohen also named Loving Assistant Dean of the SOE. In that role, Loving improved the school’s work on urban education and expanded teacher training programs in urban schools.

Professor Betty Mae Morrison (AB ’52, AM ’65, PhD ’66) joined the U-M faculty in 1970 after a career as a medical technologist and research psychologist. As a Black woman—and, for much of her 22 years at the SOE, the only woman to attain the rank of professor—Morrison helped open the traditionally male fields of research and statistics to women.

Dr. Betty Mae Morrison

The plan that was submitted in 2015 may have said “Year 1,” but it wasn’t the first time the SOE community had championed diversity, equity, and inclusion— both within its own walls and in the broader context of educational policy and practice.

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200 people from local school districts attended a February 1974 workshop about “Purposes and Roles of Student Advisory Committees” hosted by PEO.

In 1998, the SOE and the School of Social Work, in collaboration with other campus organizations, offered the first MLK Children & Youth Program. In its 23 years, the program has served over 9,600 K-12 students and engaged hundreds of U-M students, faculty, and staff.

Morrison’s research in the area of educaMoody became Director of the Project for tional psychology was cited in a 1973 report Fair Administration of School Discipline in by the United States Commission on Civil 1975, Director of the Center for Sex Equity in Rights during the Commission’s investigation Schools in 1981, and Vice Provost for Minorof the barriers to equal educational opportuity Affairs in 1987. nities for Mexican Americans in the public When Moody was promoted to U-M Vice school systems of the southwest. When MorProvost for Minority Affairs, he launched rison passed away in 2008, she King/Chavez/Parks College established a scholarship fund Days, part of a state-led initiafor doctoral students pursutive to increase the presence in ing quantitative research that higher education of students will continue to support new from historically marginalized generations in perpetuity. communities. The program In the same year that Morfocused on junior high school rison joined U-M, Charles students, helping them underMoody joined the SOE faculty stand not only the preparation as professor of education needed before college, but and director of the Program also the broad array of careers for Educational Opportunity, they might not have considDr. Charles Moody a federally funded program ered. The program also used a designed to support school variety of current technology desegregation over a tri-state area through to practice the skills necessary to navigate a consultations with school systems, conferrapidly changing world. ences focused on training and policy, and a Prominent faculty continued to shape publication series. Moody would continue to equity efforts throughout the decades that be a leader in diversity efforts at the school followed. Before joining SOE, Arnetha Ball for more than 25 years. Shortly after joining (AB ’71, MS ’72) enjoyed a teaching career the SOE he founded the National Alliance spanning 25 years, during which time she of Black School Educators, which continues also founded the Children’s Creative Workto serve children, teachers, and adminisshop, an early education center for students trators more than 50 years later. At U-M, from diverse backgrounds. During her time

Percy Bates speaks at a seminar celebrating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, 2004

than a decade later: current Dean Elizabeth Birr Moje served on it while an assistant professor. Professor Percy Bates, Director of the Programs for Educational Opportunity, noted that, after this cultural audit in 2001, “we found out that while the school was not necessarily openly hostile to minorities, there was some feeling that we needed to do a lot more.” One concern was that the lack of diversity among students and faculty

courageous people who have advanced social justice through education, and acknowledge when we have fallen short of our ideals.”

Henry Meares introduces a panel discussion titled “Strategies for Teaching in a Multicultural World,” 1998

could be self-perpetuating—that if prospective students and visiting faculty did not see other people of color, Bates said, “they might not see much that represented them or their concerns, which would just reinforce the recruitment problem.”

This led to the creation of a Social Justice Initiative, which made several recommendations to the executive committee during the

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at U-M, from 1992 to 2001, Ball’s research focused on the writing of Black students, including the use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and teaching to the strengths of students from diverse cultural backgrounds. She continued her work at Stanford and remains an active researcher.

Professor Cho-Yee To, who served on the faculty from 1967 to 2003, challenged his undergraduate students to think critically about race, multilingual education, and socio-emotional learning through the creation of a student journal. Participation in the journal was required for students in To’s Education 392 class. The undergraduate journal, which was published under several different titles, featured essays on the contemporary issues facing teachers.

An introductory note to the Winter 1994 edition of T.E.A.CH.: Tomorrow’s Educators Accepting the Challenge, noted that “future teachers cannot consider teaching as the only challenge they face in education,” charging its readers to become “careful observers” of the effects that parental involvement, extracurricular activities, multicultural education, and technology would have on their lives and those of their students. To, who is now professor emeritus, also established a travel scholarship fund to enable SOE students to study in China and Hong Kong.

In 1998, the SOE and the School of Social Work, in collaboration with other campus organizations, offered the first MLK Children & Youth Program. Professor Henry Meares, who continues to direct the event, utilizes storytelling, group projects, discussions, music, and art, to help participants explore contemporary issues regarding race, class, justice, and diversity. In its 23 years, the program has served over 9,600 K-12 students and engaged hundreds of U-M students, faculty, and staff.

As the new millennium began, Dean Karen Wixson formed a task force to construct a “vision for the school’s role in diversity, to make sure it is incorporated in the school’s research and curriculum, and devise ways to communicate this vision to the larger community.” The task force included both junior and senior faculty members and students.

The legacy of that task force may have set the stage for the emergence of dije more

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100 YE ARS Henry Meares welcomes students to the MLK Children & Youth Program, 2017

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In 2019, Professor Maisie Gholson organized a Race and Social Justice Institute designed to support doctoral students in learning about race, racialization, and racism within an educational context. The three-day workshop continued the legacy of the Race and Social Justice Symposium series started by Professor Carla O’Connor. Keynotes, panel discussions, and interactive workshop sessions supported current students and grounded incoming students in the work of researching race and educational justice.

2005–06 year, including the establishment of a Social Justice and Education Studies concentration in the PhD program, inclusion of readings and coursework relevant to the experiences of historically marginalized people, and the recruitment of senior scholars of color, especially those whose work directly addresses social justice themes.

The early 2000s also saw additional initiatives from student activists. In 2003, a group of nine graduate students had gathered to share their concerns about the culture and climate of SOE, forming the Social Justice and Educational Equity Graduate Student Committee.

Sonia Deluca and Alina Wong, two doctoral students in CSHPE on the committee, coordinated a new course that grew from the group’s work; the seminar called Critical Issues in Social Justice and Education was first offered in fall 2003. The committee was also responsible for hosting a Social Justice Initiative seminar celebrating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education in 2004.

“In our concern for the climate at the School of Ed, we kept coming back to the fact that our experiences as graduate students did not reflect those of a socially just community,” Deluca said at the time. “We did not feel adequately prepared to enact change in education for the promises of a diverse democracy.”

Deluca received the university’s Leadership Tapestry Award, given to students, staff, and faculty in recognition of those “instrumental in promoting social justice, multiculturalism, and diversity locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally for the creation of a more enriched and socially just world.” She is now engaged in this work

as Associate Vice Provost for Educational Equity at Penn State University.

Penny Pasque, another graduate student involved with the committee, said that student involvement and energy “helped some faculty, staff, and students conceptualize the work [of social justice] more broadly.”

“The initiative has effectively served as a broad introduction to ‘what could be,’” said Bates, in 2006. He added that the seminars and guest speakers “challenged all participants to look hard at program designs, hiring practices, teaching methods, and new possibilities.”

Dean Deborah Loewenberg Ball led a strategic assessment of the SOE in 2010.

The large group of faculty, staff, and students who crafted the report identified the school’s two core commitments as the study and improvement of educational practice and the advancement of the twin imperatives of diversity and equity.

“We live in an increasingly diverse and deeply inequitable society,” says the report.

“So, on one hand, we seek to develop ways to work to support and make usable the positive educational and social resources of diversity. On the other hand, we also aim to redress the inequities that result from social, cultural, and economic differences. Diversity is both an asset and the source of deep societal and educational inequities, and we think it is crucial that our work take active and deliberate account of both.”

The three broad ways to advance equity and diversity articulated in the 2010 report are evident in the DEI plan submitted in 2015: “in developing who we are, in defining what we work on, and in the ways in which we organize and practice our organizational culture, policies, and practices.”

The SOE community continues to track and assess progress annually through a combined report/plan made available at soe.umich.edu/dije.

Dean Elizabeth Moje says, “We must both celebrate the courageous people who have advanced social justice through education, and acknowledge when we have fallen short of our ideals. As the urgent work of anti-racism and social justice continues, this community takes seriously our responsibility to live the principles of dije and help create a more just and equitable world.” ■

Antiracist Mini-Grants Support Student Research Two student teams investigate biases in campus policing and teacher evaluations

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upporting the work of scholars promoting social justice through their research, the SOE’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion, Justice, and Equity (dije) and the Race and Social Justice Institute awarded inaugural Antiracist Mini-Grants to two pairs of graduate students in the 2020–2021 academic year. The mini-grants are intended to foster research that pushes our understanding of race, racism, and processes of racialization in educational systems in ways that promote social justice.

Jarell Skinner-Roy and Cassandra Arroyo, doctoral students in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, were awarded a grant for their research project “Safety for Whom? A Critical Spatial and Qualitative Exploration of Campus Policing, Racial Geographies, Surveillance, and Institutional Rhetoric,” which grew out of a class they took in geographic information

systems. Arroyo and Skinner-Roy had undertaken a study of campus policing at several institutions in Michigan. The mini-grant will allow them to expand their work to look at additional aspects of the spatial components of campus policing, with a focus on the University of Michigan.

“Even before that, everything that happened over the summer, with the protests going from just being in one state to all 50 states to worldwide, that provided a lot of mobilization, and prompted a lot of institutions to try to respond, including the University of Michigan,” says Arroyo, whose primary research interests focus on the intersection of higher education policy, college access, and success for minoritized students, specifically Latino students. As students mobilized, institutions responded with statements and policies of their own—positions that sometimes created tensions on campuses.

The mini-grants are intended to foster research that pushes our understanding of race, racism, and processes of racialization in educational systems in ways that promote social justice.

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“Safety can mean something very different to everybody,” he says. "Yet all too often— especially at predominately white institutions—the safety and comfort of white folks are exclusively prioritized at the expense of racially minoritized students, faculty, and staff.”

In the fall of 2020, the striking U-M Graduate Employees’ Organization union had included several campus policing reform measures in their negotiations, Cassandra Arroyo creating what Arroyo sees as a unique case at U-M. “That warranted further analyses that go beyond just, ‘okay, where are these interactions taking place, who are these interactions affecting,’” she says. To get meaningful answers, bigger questions are needed. “What is the institutional rhetoric that the University of Michigan specifically has used to try to talk about these issues? Have they been effective, have they been particularly harmful?

And then getting students’ perceptions to try to align whether institutional rhetoric on campus safety aligns with how students— specifically students of color—are perceiving the environment.”

Skinner-Roy said his interest in this research also extends from his personal experience with campus police as an undergraduate. “Safety can mean something very different to everybody,” he says. “Yet all too often—especially at predominately white institutions— the safety and comfort of white folks are exclusively prioritized at the expense of racially Jarell Skinner-Roy minoritized students, faculty, and staff.” Skinner-Roy’s research focuses on the self-defined success and experiences of students of color in higher education. “I’m really interested in how Black students in particular experience race, racism, and other contextual experiences within higher education, and how those experiences can impact things like identity development,” he says. “And also, what are some things that the institution, staff, faculty, everyone can do to facilitate positive outcomes in a non-deficitbased way.”

The mini-grant-funded “Safety for Whom?” project will use quantitative data from the Division of Public Safety and Security, the U-M Police Department, and the Ann Arbor Police, all of which have some overlapping jurisdiction. “We’re trying to disentangle where interactions congregate—they’re called hotspots—where a lot of this density of interactions are, and if these locations of densities differ by someone’s race or ethnicity,” Arroyo explains. “So, are Black students more likely to be policed and have these interactions in proximity to campus but not directly on campus? If so, does that mean it’s more tied to Ann Arbor Police that this is happening? Or is it that a lot of these interactions are happening in places like the residence halls, which is also very problematic because this is supposed to be the home of our undergraduate students?

We are disentangling some of that with a spatial analysis.”

In addition to the data from policing organizations and collecting emails, announcements, and other university communications on campus policing, Skinner-Roy and Arroyo will also conduct focus group interviews with students of color to gauge their perceptions and experiences of policing on campus and their perceptions of the institution’s response, which has included creating the Advancing Public Safety at the University of Michigan Task Force.

Arroyo and Skinner-Roy say that their goal is to make their research accessible and understandable to the campus it serves. This may include reports specific to different audiences including U-M staff, faculty, and students, as well as data visualization components and an interactive map that can filter by the different demographics studied.

The mini-grant will help the team accomplish its goals by funding the production and dissemination of research products, but will also assist in the research itself by providing incentives for focus group participants and enabling the team to purchase high-quality transcription services and data software. “It’s really important for us to compensate folks for their time and their energy and their labor,” Skinner- Roy says, “as they are sharing their stories and engaging with us in this research.”

“We’re both former teachers so we know how challenging teaching can be,” Truwit says.

He and Bardelli were interested in why so few people choose to become teachers and why so many leave the profession.

They study issues of teacher retention and the benefits for all students of having teachers of color.

“Observation ratings and evaluation systems have very clear conceptions of what it means to be a good, effective teacher,” Truwit adds. “To what extent are those imbued with the same sort of oppressive cultural values that it means to be anything in America?”

Truwit says that his and Bardelli’s project is unusual in that quantitative research is more associated with providing evidence as to whether or not a system works rather than assessing ways that it might be improved. “There’s tons of documented concerns that quantitative work can’t sufficiently reflect the experience and relatedly that quantitative work is never truly critical or transformative,” he says. “I think those are really valid and well-taken points, but at

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the same time I think there is potential for really skeptical quantitative work that questions the assumptions of the systems that are currently in place, rather than making evidence of what works.

“And so I think as quantitative researchers we have a responsibility to ask questions or pursue lines of inquiry that are not about ‘does this work?’ but rather looking for evidence of what’s broken, what’s not right.”

Truwit says he would like to see his research help hold evaluation policies and programs accountable when they are not working as intended and may even be causing harm.

“For us, the mini-grant was an opportunity to start thinking about these ideas and how to bring antiracist work into our own research,” Bardelli says. He described the grant as an inspiration to build toward a meaningful research product and receive feedback on their work. Truwit added that the funding will be used to purchase statistical software essential to their research, but echoed Bardelli’s sentiment about the value of access to “a community of like-minded scholars” and avenues for dissemination to a receptive audience that being part of a grant initiative provides.

All four grant recipients also took part in the School of Education’s Antiracism Colloquium during the week of May 10–14 to discuss their research.

The mini-grants are part of SOE’s Antiracist Research Program and are administered as direct grants made to students in amounts ranging from $500 to $2,500. The grants are available to any student who wishes to apply, from first-year to dissertating students.

The school is proud to congratulate Jarell Skinner-Roy, Cassandra Arroyo, Emanuele Bardelli, and Matthew Truwit on their awards and for taking up the important work of social justice research. ■

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“We are told that these evaluation systems are objective, and they are not biased, and they are able to measure teaching for what it is,” Bardelli says. “But the more Matthew and I talk about it and learn more about antiracist work, we realize that there are hidden biases in the system that we need to be aware of, especially as we do a lot of work about teachers, and we use this evaluation data for a host of things so we need to be aware if and how these are biased, and against whom.”

Bardelli sees the project, too, as a way to explore what it means to be a teacher in the United States and how that is informed by the history and culture of the country, with its roots of racism and oppression. He hopes that this research will help inform a new way forward.

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The other team receiving an Antiracist Mini-Grant are doctoral candidate Emanuele Bardelli and doctoral student Matthew Truwit, whose project “Teacher Evaluation Systems: Measures of Instructional Effectiveness or Mechanisms of Structural Bias?” uses quantitative methods to evaluate the biases in current systems of teacher assessments.

Truwit and Bardelli have worked together in the same lab at the School of Education for two and a half years, primarily with Professor Matthew Ronfeldt in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Education.

“We’re both former teachers so we know how challenging teaching can be,” Truwit says. He and Bardelli were interested in why so few Matthew Truwit people choose to become teachers and why so many leave the profession. They study issues of teacher retention and the benefits for all students of having teachers of color.

“Our project feels very much like the culmination of all those different lines of inquiry together,” Truwit says. “Here we’re thinking about our teacher evaluation system, something that makes the teaching profession— which is already really challenging—more challenging, especially for teachers of color, who we know are so important to have in the classroom.”

Bardelli’s research focus is on new teachers and their experience of beginning their careers. “This mini-grant ties into that because it will answer the Emanuele Bardelli side question that I’m asking in my dissertation, which is ‘can I even trust these evaluation outcomes when I study teaching, the way that I’m starting in it?’” He described the project as an exploration of how good the measures are that he relies on for his own work, and whether there are hidden biases he needs to be aware of.

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Looking Back to Look Forward CSHPE’s leadership in the changing landscape of higher education

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ounded in 1957, the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE) was intended to focus on “leadership and excellence” in the emergent discipline of higher education. Since then it has gained a national reputation, producing scholars and university administrators who have gone on to become leaders in their field.

Michigan Education asked three retired CSHPE directors to reflect on what the center has accomplished since it broke ground, and how future generations might build on its legacy.

Marvin Peterson (PhD ’68) CSHPE Director 1976–1996

During the center’s first decade, a practitioner-focused PhD program focused on training administrators who would fill high level positions in the rapidly growing higher education sector. However, starting in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the doctoral program, while maintaining its focus on “excellence and leadership,” shifted markedly toward a more scholarly PhD program.

One of the outcomes of this era was the focus on the study of higher education as a “complex social institution.” Higher education was to be viewed as such, and its study would not be descriptive or prescriptive, but rather draw on theory from the social and behavioral sciences. The four areas of concentration grew out of this perspective: organizational and administrative behavior (planning, governance, and administration); academic affairs (student, faculty, and curricular development); public policy (economics, finance, and politics); and institutional research (student, faculty, curricular, and financial). These four concentrations became the base for the curriculum. The courses would predominantly draw on theory and concepts from sociology, psychology, economics, political science, and history. All students were required to have the basic course in each of the four areas of concentration as well as an introductory proseminar and a course in history of higher education. The importance of this design is reflected in the fact that it served as a model for many other higher education programs around the country that were being introduced in the 1970s and ’80s.

To a greater or lesser degree, this focus and these curricular emphases are evident in today’s PhD and master’s programs. Over the years, as more doctoral graduates entered research and faculty positions, their influence on the field of higher education has expanded and is reflected in the design of—and their contributions to—other higher education programs.

“Recently, connections are being forged between higher education and educational studies researchers who seek to strengthen outreach efforts from higher education to secondary schools, enhancing access for underserved groups of students. Creating and maintaining network relations continues to play a critical role

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A key feature of CSHPE that may not be immediately apparent is that it is grounded in a deep belief in the value of multiple perspectives, especially multiple disciplinary perspectives. In the early years of the center, it was quite common for faculty in the program to have degrees in sociology, economics, business administration, and psychology rather than the then-nascent field of higher education. The center remains known for the breadth of expertise among its faculty that in turn supports the range of its academic concentration areas. Another example of the value of multiple perspectives is that a common question in classes and meetings is ‘What’s another perspective on this issue?’ Although institutional accomplishments are typically framed in terms such as influential research projects and their resulting policies and programs, I consider the resolve to maintain an interdisciplinary focus and the accompanying intellectual restlessness about the adequacy of our current perspectives to be a major contribution and accomplishment of the center.

This broad approach to higher education in general and to scholarship and teaching in particular provides a strong foundation for the center’s future. Many issues facing higher education have come into sharp focus during the pandemic; these include the need to better address students’ financial, housing, and emotional needs; the importance of better understanding and improving campus climate and responses to local and national incidents targeting minoritized students; the need for different kinds of pedagogical training and research support for faculty at different points in their careers; and using technology effectively and responsibly in the service of institutional and community values. These issues require sustained scholarly and administrative attention and will be well served by addressing them from a range of perspectives and by having learned how to turn intellectual restlessness to productive scholarly, administrative, and personal ends.

CSHPE Director 2003–2006

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When the Center for Higher and Postsecondary Education was created with funding from the Carnegie Foundation, its mission was to prepare graduates who would shape the field of higher education, as administrators, researchers, policy makers, and faculty. The center’s accomplishments have always been benchmarked against this lofty goal. CSHPE has an impressive network of alumni/ae who provide guidance in many different areas of higher education, inside and outside the U.S. Throughout its history, the center has found ways to build with this resource network to enhance the preparation of graduates and the quality of higher education.

The field of higher education is constantly changing. Consequently, a persistent question is how the CSHPE can best utilize its network of graduates and associates to keep abreast of and address contemporary challenges in its teaching service and research? Over the years, the faculty has identified and anchored instruction in traditional core curricular areas (e.g., teaching and learning, policy, administration), monitored changes in higher education, and built out the core areas to address emergent issues. CSHPE needs to maintain its current depth and breadth in traditional areas of expertise while continuing to attract and support faculty work on matters of critical importance such as access, equity, and inclusion.

CSHPE is fortunate to be part of a university that values and supports interdisciplinary collaborative research and to have alumni/ae who teach specialized courses, facilitate the development of internships and doctoral research assistantships, and contribute in myriad ways to the center’s graduate education initiatives. Recently, connections are being forged between higher education and educational studies researchers who seek to strengthen outreach efforts from higher education to secondary schools, enhancing access for underserved groups of students. Creating and maintaining network relations continues to play a critical role in building the center’s future.

CSHPE Director 1996–2000

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Patricia King

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Janet Lawrence (PhD ’72)

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in building the center’s future.” — Janet Lawrence

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Champions for Education

$1M Matching Gift Fuels a Transformative Model for Detroit Youth, Educators, and Communities

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aking a difference in this world was always the philanthropic motivation for Heinz and Waltraud (“Wally”) (ABEd ’79) Prechter. From their early investments in engineering education at UM-Dearborn to the founding of the Prechter Laboratory for Interactive Technology at the SOE to Mrs. Prechter’s creation of the Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Program at U-M, the family has given back by supporting innovative and educational initiatives around the Detroit area. Her recent matching gift supporting the SOE’s work on the Detroit P-20 Partnership continues the family’s tradition of giving both to U-M and to communities in the state of Michigan.

Both originally from small German hamlets, Heinz and Wally Prechter came to call southeast Michigan home approximately five decades ago.

Mr. Prechter, who had launched a thriving automotive business in California, moved his operations to the Motor City in 1967. Mrs. Prechter, who had begun college in Germany, later joined him in Michigan and enrolled in the SOE to complete her training to become a teacher.

The Prechters became generous donors across southeast Michigan, giving out of a deep sense of gratitude and what Mrs. Prechter describes as “a conviction to help others.” Along with their financial support of many charities, the Prechters contributed their time to shape both local nonprofits and U-M schools and programs.

As a long-serving member of the Dean’s Advisory Council at the SOE, Mrs. Prechter became aware of a partnership forming around a shared vision of community-centered education in Detroit. She could see the potential for the new collaboration—called the Detroit

P-20 Partnership—to be a hub for transformational approaches to education.

Partners, including the Marygrove Conservancy, Detroit Public Schools Community District, Starfish Family Services, The Kresge Foundation, and U-M, have created cradle-tocareer educational offerings co-located on the former site of Marygrove College. The new campus is home to a preschool, a K-12 Detroit public school, family and community services, and a new model for teacher preparation called the Michigan Education Teaching School.

Mrs. Prechter recognized the unique nature of this undertaking, and knew Detroit was the perfect city to develop what she believes will be a transferable model. “Detroit has an incredible chance to be a model for the rest of the country,” she says. “We can give cities great hope by demonstrating what’s possible when everyone works together to improve education, community, and opportunity.”

Eager to invest in the collaborative work of these partners and encourage others to do the same, Mrs. Prechter is offering to match up to $1 million in gifts that support the SOE’s work on the Detroit P-20 Partnership. Qualifying donations support teacher education students with scholarships as well as training in Detroit;

“The truest measure of whether you have been successful in life is asking the following question: ‘Have I in some way made a difference or made life better somehow, somewhere, for someone other than myself?’

If the answer to this question is yes, then that is true success.”

— Heinz C. Prechter advance curriculum development, implementation, and evaluation; and further the professional growth of Detroit educators.

Mrs. Prechter says, “I believe that we need to help children build self-confidence and become problem-solvers. Through educating youth to design creative solutions, we prepare the kind of leaders who will shape our communities in the future.”

She points to several ways the Detroit P-20 Partnership brings a fresh approach to education: The Teaching School is a new model for teacher

Support the Detroit P-20 Partnership and get your gift matched 1:1 donate.umich.edu/Prechter-Detroit

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To learn more about the P-20 Partnership, The School at Marygrove, and the collaborators’ vision for an educational campus that is strongly connected to its Detroit neighborhood, visit soe. umich.edu/marygrove.

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Photo: Tony Barchock

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Waltraud (“Wally”) Prechter

preparation based on medical training. U-M education students (called “interns”) and fully certified recent graduates (called “teaching residents”) work under the supervision of the school’s teaching staff and U-M faculty. Residents continue at the school as members of the teaching staff for three years, while still receiving support from U-M faculty and staff. The goal of this strategy is to train highly qualified teachers and retain them both in the profession and in the city.

The K-12 school—The School at Marygrove— offers a community-engaged educational experience. The curriculum and teaching practices empower Detroit students to learn engineering and design principles, become problem-solvers, and see themselves as leaders in their community.

The partnership is committed to a “community schools” approach, which directs attention and resources to all of a student’s needs. Services and supports will address students’ physiological, sociocultural, and socioemotional needs so that students and families alike can flourish. This approach has been proven in many settings to be a powerful method for improving educational opportunity.

“Under Dean Moje’s leadership, the School of Education is the place for educational innovation.

Investing in innovative and forward-looking approaches to education is crucial. I hope our matching gift will act as a catalyst for others to support this groundbreaking educational partnership,” says Mrs. Prechter.

Moje emphasizes the potential of gifts like Prechter’s to bring about the kind of change that many have called for. She says, “We frequently hear people say that they want education to be better. Mrs. Prechter is challenging all of us to make significant strides together, right here in Detroit, and she’s committed to raising the resources needed for us to be successful.” ■

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Champions for Education

New Gifts, Endowments, and Bequests C

harles H. Aurand (Ph.D. ’71) of Tucson, Arizona, recently documented an estate gift establishing the Charles H. Aurand Early Career Faculty Enhancement Fund to provide financial support to early career tenure-track faculty in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education to advance their research. Aurand enjoyed a long career as a professor of music, including serving as chairman of the Department of Music at Hiram College, Dean of the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University, and Dean of the College of Creative and Communication Arts at Northern Arizona University.

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o honor the memory of their colleague, faculty in the SOE established the David K. Cohen Scholarship to support graduate students who, like Cohen, demonstrate an interest in the relationship between policy and practice, and connecting the two in ways that influence and support successful teaching practices. Cohen, John Dewey Collegiate Professor of Education, transformed how scholars understand educational improvement. He passed away on September 23, 2020 after a brief illness.

Starting with his activism in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Cohen probed how education policy affected practice, and why it so often did not succeed at improving teaching and learning.

Collaborating with colleagues over five decades, Cohen studied practice itself, in high schools and elementary schools, examining how teachers and school leaders interpreted and enacted policy initiatives. He analyzed policies and showed how often they lacked the guidance that would support implementation in context.

Examining education systems in several other countries, including Australia, France, and Singapore, Cohen showed that teaching in the United

States lacked an underlying system or infrastructure to guide it, and thus made it much more difficult for practitioners than is true in other professions. As a whole, his work was optimistic about what was possible in education if pessimistic about the ways in which the United States has repeatedly not provided the needed conditions to support that improvement. His work has influenced not only many researchers, policymakers, and school leaders, but also states, districts, and charter networks that have sought to create the conditions that he argued were important for successful reform.

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indy and Marc Feinberg have created the Feinberg Scholarship to support undergraduate students who are pursuing a degree in elementary or secondary education, with a preference for those who graduate from the School at Marygrove. A second preference is to support students who are pursuing the profession of teaching via the Detroit teaching pathway. Mindy says, “We felt it was important to help a student graduate from the School of Education and enter the field of teaching without the burden of massive student loans, or give the opportunity to a student who would not otherwise be able to afford it. It was our pleasure to set up this scholarship and we do so with great gratitude to the School of Education and Dean Moje. Go Blue!”

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aunched by friends and family of SOE Professor Stuart Karabenick, the primary purpose of the Stuart A. Karabenick Award will be to provide scholarship or fellowship support to CPEP graduate students conducting psychological research to address important educational topics. First preference will be given to students whose research forges innovative school-university partnerships or explores novel interventions to improve educational practice. Karabenick’s children, Scott, Robin, Rachel, and Leah, have committed their support, and CPEP alum Eric Fretz (AB ’85, MS ’02, PhD ’10) has generously committed to matching donations to this fund dollar-for-dollar up to $10,000.

Karabenick was a scholar with wide-ranging interests who significantly contributed to understanding the role of motivation and self-regulated learning. Devoting his professional life to research and mentoring, Karabenick published with his students and a lengthy list of collaborators throughout the world. With his kindness, professionalism, wisdom, positive disposition, and open mindset, he shaped the growth of countless graduate students and colleagues. He left an indelible mark on the fields of strategic help-seeking, self-regulated learning, relevance for learning and motivation in education, academic delay of gratification, perceived achievement goal structures, teacher responsibility and motivation for professional development, culturally diverse instructional practices, and computer-mediated instruction.

The Feinberg family

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om Ostrander (AB ’72) and Kelli Turner (BBA ’92, JD ’97) of Nashville, Tennessee, recently made a planned gift to the Dean’s Discretionary Fund. Ostrander and Turner have been longtime volunteers for and donors to U-M, supporting initiatives at the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the Law School, and Michigan Ross, among others. Ostrander, a Detroit native whose maternal grandparents met on the Diag in 1899 and whose son graduated from U-M 110 years later, was recently introduced to some of the School of Education’s initiatives in Detroit and has been an ambassador for the school’s work at The School at Marygrove and within the Detroit P-20 Partnership. This particular gift is made in recognition of Dean Elizabeth Moje and her leadership of the school.

An unrestricted gift from the Edna Gross Trust was designated to the SOE Fund For Excellence. For Gross, U-M was a family affair: she and her husband were both U-M alumni, and their son earned an undergraduate degree from the School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

An unrestricted gift from the Elizabeth Harrison Estate was designated to the SOE Fund For Excellence. Elizabeth (Betsy) Quinn Harrison graduated from U-M with a bachelor of arts degree in education and teaching certification in 1965 and embarked on a career in teaching and volunteer work. Harrison later served as president of the Flint chapter of the University of Michigan Alumni Association and the Chairwoman of the National Alumnae Council from 1991–1993. She worked on committees to refurbish the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre and build a new alumni center on campus.

Her leadership earned her the Alumnae Council Award in 1985 and the Distinguished Alumnae Service Award in 1987.

An unrestricted gift from the Vesta P. Hons Estate was designated to the SOE Fund For Excellence. Hons earned a master’s degree from the SOE in 1954.

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Realized Planned Gifts

An unrestricted gift from the Selma K. Richardson Estate was designated to the SOE Fund For Excellence. Richardson earned a PhD from the SOE in 1969.

An unrestricted gift from the Helene C. Rowehl (née Conlin) Estate was designated to the SOE Fund For Excellence. Rowehl earned her BA and teacher certification from the SOE in 1959.

support SOE

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here are many ways to contribute to the

School of Education. We welcome you to contact us anytime to discuss your philanthropic goals.

Krissa Rumsey Director, Office of Development 734.763.4880 rumseyk@umich.edu leadersandbest.umich.edu

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he Valerie E. Lee Award was initiated by Robert Croninger (PhD ’97), one of her former students, to honor Lee’s memory and recognize her as a prolific scholar, dedicated teacher, ardent mentor, and friend to many.

The award will support graduate students in the School of Education who are completing their dissertations, and are addressing educational inequities and social injustices through innovative research.

Lee, who retired in 2011, focused her research largely on public policy with respect to educational equity, and on identifying characteristics of schools that make them simultaneously excellent and equitable.

Although much of her research focused on secondary schools, she also studied similar issues in the early grades and broadened her focus to study schools’ effects in Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa. In recognition of her many contributions to the field of education, she received the Rackham Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award in 2008 and was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2010.

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Scholarships Honor Extraordinary Teachers

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he School of Education strives to produce the sort of teachers who create lasting memories for their students and instill in them a lifelong love of learning. And thanks to the generous support of U-M’s community of donors, we have had the opportunity to honor such exemplary teachers, whether they got their start at SOE or elsewhere. We are pleased to present the stories behind two of the school’s endowed memorial scholarships celebrating the lives of extraordinary teachers.

The Eugene “Scott” Thompson Memorial Scholarship

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Eugene “Scott” Thompson

opular Burns Park Elementary teacher Scott Thompson passed away in 2018 after a battle with cancer. But Olive Martin, who was a third grade student of Thompson’s at the time, was inspired to keep her teacher’s memory alive by launching a scholarship fund to support the great teachers of the future. The Eugene “Scott” Thompson Memorial Scholarship will support students in the ELMAC program, which helped launch Thompson’s career.

“He was very good at teaching. He would never just stay in the classroom,” Martin says, describing a project where the students would go outdoors and work together in teams. “We’d all have to work together to build a house out of pool noodles that he could stand in and dance in. It was a lot of fun and it made our class come together a lot more.”

After Thompson passed, Martin worked with her father, former LSA dean Andrew Martin, to establish the scholarship fund. Olive donated a portion of her allowance, while her parents provided the rest of the endowment. Martin says she wanted to establish the scholarship because “I really want more teachers to be like Mr. Thompson and more people to be as kind and as amazing as he is.”

With her gift supporting future teachers studying at the SOE, Olive Martin has some advice for up-and-coming educators. “My advice to new incoming teachers would be to not be so hard on the rules of a classroom, and to be able to bend with the class and with the lesson that you’re teaching,” she says. “Mr. Thompson had this plastic stick that would bend and whenever he wanted us to be flexible and be able to change our schedule he would always bend the stick and we would always remember to do that.”

“I really want more teachers to be like Mr. Thompson and more people to be as kind and as amazing as he is.” — Olive Martin

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liff and Laura Craig have long been generous donors to multiple schools and colleges at U-M. Though neither are SOE alumni, the Craigs have established the Charles Kern Award in honor of Dr. Cliff Craig’s high school teacher and mentor. The scholarship is given to undergraduate students in their final year who plan to become high school teachers.

“He taught me how to think,” Cliff Craig says of his early mentor, whom he describes as a “sharp dresser” who stood out among teachers at Denby High School in Detroit. After graduation, Craig attended Tufts University for his undergraduate degree and then completed his MD in 1969 at the U-M Medical School. He returned to campus in 1999 as a clinical associate professor of pediatric orthopaedic surgery after a career in Boston. Throughout all that time, he and wife Laura kept in touch with Kern and his family.

Craig recalls taking a seminar class during his senior year of high school taught by Kern and two other teachers where students were assigned to present on a topic that was important to them.

“I had been interested in medicine for a long time, so the topic I picked was socialized medicine, which at the time was a big topic in 1961,” he said. Craig opposed the still-controversial system in his presentation. “I really got shredded by the faculty,” he says. “You learned very quickly, if you were gonna put something out, you had to be ready to defend it pretty well.”

Despite his argument failing to win over his teachers, this would mark the beginning of a relationship that would prove formative to Craig’s ongoing education. Kern would periodically host other teachers at his home and invite them to debate whatever issues he found in that month’s Time magazine, Craig remembers. He sometimes found himself at these gatherings after graduation.

“You couldn’t be agnostic about anything. You had to be either for it or against it, and you better be ready to defend your position,” Craig says, laughing. “And I’ll never forget, he took his Time magazine once and he tore out all the ads from it, and he said, ‘See how little information is really in this magazine!’”

Craig’s friendship with his former teacher continued until Kern’s death in 1984. Craig wanted to

Charles Kern

“He was a person who said, ‘Hey look, we’ve got this great world out there. How are we to think about this great world?’”

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honor Kern’s memory, landing on a scholarship fund to help teaching students grow into mentors themselves—though Craig jokes that “he might be mad at me about setting up an award in his name actually, and that’s okay.” Though Kern was not an SOE alum, Craig chose to establish the scholarship at U-M because of his own connection to the Medical School (and because he once rented a room from former SOE dean James Edmonson’s widow during his student days in Ann Arbor).

Though she did not get to know Kern as well as her husband did, Laura Craig described him as “a very charming man,” and the Craigs would often get together with Kern and his wife when visiting Ann Arbor from Boston.

“He was a person who said, ‘Hey look, we’ve got this great world out there. How are we to think about this great world?’” Laura Craig says.

She recalls Kern sending articles in the mail for the two couples to discuss. “That was also the time when we were starting to have children, so it was nice to have something more intellectual come along other than a picture book.”

Craig has been involved in teaching since his earliest days practicing medicine, and here, too, Kern’s influence informs his practice. “I just find it very rewarding to teach students and be with them when they get this sort of aha moment,” he says. “And to be honest, you learn a lot. If you have to teach something, you have to really know it very well, because the students will ask you questions, they’ll challenge you. It makes you a better physician to be able to teach.”

Craig continues to feel Kern’s influence on his teaching today, even reaching into the unique challenges of the COVID-19 environment. “When my lecture to the surgery students went virtual last year, I struggled with how to keep the 30 students engaged on a Zoom call. Recalling how Mr. Kern always asked us questions, I decided to flip my class similarly,” he says. “I sent my lecture slides out a day ahead of the lecture and let the students know that after each segment of the lecture I wanted them to ask me questions about the material, and if no one volunteered I would call on students for questions. Students came with very good questions that greatly helped to enhance the material and change the lecture going forward.” ■

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Champions for Education

A Former Dean Grows His Legacy Cecil Miskel’s centennial gift supports education administration and policy students

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hen Dr. Cecil Miskel became dean of the School of Education in 1988, he arrived with the goal of reinvigorating the school by recruiting the best faculty members and students, both in the state of Michigan and nationally. Looking back, Miskel feels his mission was accomplished. Under his leadership, the school expanded both the number and the stature of its faculty, and the ’90s became a rich era for research in education. But, of course, the work is ongoing, and supporting students is a key way to enrich their educational and research experience at Michigan.

When Miskel retired as dean in 1998, friends and supporters honored him by creating a scholarship fund in his name. Now, in recognition of the school’s 100th year, Miskel has chosen to expand and enhance that fund through a centennial gift bequest.

Renamed the Cecil and Sue Miskel Centennial Scholarship Fund for the Study of Educational Administration and/or Educational Policy, the new scholarship will bolster research in two areas that were the focus of Miskel’s 36 years in education.

“One of the problems in the field of educational administration and policy was there was never really enough support to bring in many really good students to become future practitioners or scholars,” Miskel says of the inspiration for his gift. “The University of Michigan has a unique capacity to

recruit really good students in that area, and it has a vast repertoire of opportunities for students to pursue in the school and across campus.”

When the previous fund was first established in Miskel’s name in 1998, it started with what Miskel describes as “a modest amount of money” contributed by well-wishers in the SOE community. “It was designed to provide pretty modest kinds of support for travel and finishing dissertations and that sort of thing.” Even so, with the university’s financial management and the growth of the stock market over the past 20+ years, “that fund has grown quite a lot.”

The new Cecil and Sue Miskel Centennial Scholarship Fund for the Study of Educational Administration and/ or Educational Policy has broader criteria for consideration than the previous scholarship and is open to any student researching K-12 school administration and policy training. This gives school leaders greater flexibility to consider students working on innovative projects. “Times are going to change and are going to change over many decades,” the former dean says. “And so the specific criteria are really left open because the needs will evolve and in directions no one can really anticipate.”

“My first class as a PhD student was with Cecil, when he was dean of the SOE,” says Don Peurach, Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership, and Innovation. “At that time, Cecil was on the editorial board of Educational Administration Quarterly, and

cational administration and policy was there was never really enough support to bring in many really good students to

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“One of the problems in the field of edu-

Dean Cecil Miskel, 1989

he and Wayne Hoy were completing a new edition of their textbook on educational administration [which was the standard for the field for many years]. Cecil was always generous in sharing insights and providing guidance from his perspectives as dean, as a leader in the field of educational administration, and as an informal mentor. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with him at that early point in my career.”

PhD candidate Rachel Kuck was among the most recent recipients of the Miskel Centennial Scholarship.

She is studying the work of advancing schoolwide Project Based Learning (PBL) as an innovation with potential to promote both quality and equity in student learning as part of a broader study at the University of Pennsylvania examining teacher and leader practices of implementing PBL. “There’s been a lot of research about the curricular requirements for implementing PBL, but not as much about the people involved [students, teachers, community members or orgs/disciplinarians],” Kuck says. “On top of this lack of research on the people involved with PBL implementation, there’s also been little work concerning scaling and the role of

leadership in supporting or driving PBL implementation.” Her research questions involve the leaders’ views on the defining characteristics of PBL, the ways PBL requires educators and institutions to change their practice, and the organizational characteristics that support implementation.

“My time at Michigan has truly changed my life and career trajectory,” Kuck says. “I have learned more than I ever thought possible and am so motivated to use this new, deepened lens to do the best work I can for and with our students and their communities. It has been more challenging than I anticipated to conduct research and to do my writing from afar, and this generous endowment will make all the difference in my ability to progress smoothly.”

Miskel says that he hopes the new Miskel Centennial Scholarship will provide meaningful support to a greater number of students. With his bequest and the more ambitious scope of eligible research, he says, the scholarship “will be substantially enhanced and we’ll be able to provide quite a bit of student support.”

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100 First Gifts for 100 Years

New donors show their support for the Fund for Excellence

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Champions for Education

Dr. Ruby Siddiqui and Dr. Salim Siddiqui with their two daughters, Saira (14 years old) and Noor (8 years old)

n recognition of our centennial, we are celebrating the impact of the school’s annual fund, the Fund for Excellence, with a goal to recruit 100 new donors to the fund. The fund is the school’s most flexible resource, providing aid for students and other needs whenever they arise. This past year, the Fund for Excellence provided critical emergency support to students who faced challenges due to the pandemic. Gifts counting toward the goal can be of any amount, made at any time during the centennial year.

To help propel us toward this ambitious goal, Linda (ABEd ’59, TeachCert ’59) and Martin Frank (AB ’58)—loyal donors who have supported the Fund for Excellence nearly every year since 1986—matched all gifts up to $5,000 from first-time donors to the fund during Giving Blueday. Giving Blueday is the university’s annual day of giving.

March 10, 2021 marked the seventh year Giving Blueday has encouraged U-M donors to support their favorite schools, colleges, and projects.

On Giving Blueday 2021, 16 donors made their first gift to the Fund for Excellence, totaling $6,810. These donors helped us make the most out of the Franks’ match and brought us closer to our goal of 100 new donors.

One of the families who made a generous gift on Giving Blueday—their first gift to the fund—was Dr. Ruby Siddiqui (PhD ’20) and her husband Dr. Salim Siddiqui.

Siddiqui, who had been an administrator at Temple University before attending the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, says of the recent donation, “My gift represents an opportunity to pay forward the benefit I received from my Dissertation Finishing Grant. My husband and I enjoy giving to provide others with such opportunities and with the generous matching gift for first-time donors, we felt this was a great way for us to double the impact of our gift.”

Siddiqui is grateful for more than the grant that supported her dissertation work: she also credits the faculty, staff, and her classmates for making her Michigan experience meaningful.

“I was fortunate to have Dr. Patricia King as the chair of my dissertation committee. As a profound mentor, she provided excellent feedback and continuous support throughout my doctoral program,” she says, adding faculty members Dr. Janet Lawrence, Dr. Simone Himbeault Taylor, Dr. John Schulenberg, and staff members Melinda Richardson and Linda Rayle to the long list of individuals she recognizes as instrumental to her success in the program.

Siddiqui adds, “Beyond the exceptional faculty, my amazing doctoral cohort provided—and continues to provide—personal, academic, and professional support. As people say, ‘It takes a village,’ and I can’t begin to name everyone, but there are so many individuals throughout U-M that supported me as a graduate student and I’m eternally grateful for all of these individuals, opportunities, and experiences.”

Each gift has its own “origin story,” but gratitude is the inspiration for many of them. So far this calendar year, 30 donors have made their first gift to the Fund for Excellence, with donations totaling $13,665.

The Siddiqui family proudly joins in the efforts of the SOE to improve the world through education. Siddiqui says, “As education is the only hope for the continued growth of our society and civilizations, I hope that SOE continues to engage in vital research and dialogue that affects K-12 and higher education. U-M has always been and should continue to be a leader in education.

I think philanthropy will play an important role in order to continue to make this aspiration a reality and to allow alumni like myself to contribute to that vision.” ■

Give to the Fund for Excellence: myumi.ch/soe-excellence

Support Future Educators

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It’s our birthday, so we made a wish list! And everything on our list

Why? The SOE established both endowed and expendable Centennial Scholarship funds in honor of our big milestone. This new scholarship fund is available to SOE students pursuing any degree in any program. The Centennial Scholarship supports today’s students and tomorrow’s students—who will enter programs that do not even exist yet.

Why? The Teach Blue initiative, announced in 2020, is a new approach to support teachers—from recruiting diverse candidates to elevating the expertise of experienced educators. The challenges facing the profession of teaching are multifaceted so the solutions will need to be, too. Our goal is to introduce resources to support educators at all stages of their careers.

Beginning with programs that encourage youth to consider the teaching profession, Teach Blue supports the Grow-Your-Own model of preparing diverse teachers to return to the communities they call home to be leaders inside and outside their classrooms. The next barrier that many face when weighing the possibility of a teaching career is concern about overwhelming student debt. Teach Blue provides scholarships to reduce or eliminate the need for loans. Most new teachers are left to learn on the job with very few supports. The SOE has launched a firstof-its-kind teaching residency, with plans to grow these opportunities to serve more beginning teachers. Teach Blue covers costs of on-going professional development and supports for new teachers. In addition to promoting better instruction, these supports help retain teachers through the challenging first years of the profession. In its final stage, Teach Blue supports accomplished teachers who will be incentivized to study problems of education and share their expertise with fellow educators, including novice teachers.

How? Make a gift online: myumi.ch/soe-centennial-schlp Or, contact the SOE’s Office of Development and Alumni Relations to discuss making gifts of securities or setting up a bequest intention.

Fund for Excellence Why? The Fund for Excellence remains the #1 resource for students who find themselves in need of emergency student aid due to unexpected financial constraints. And emergency aid is only one of the many things the fund makes possible. This fund is expendable, meaning that every dollar raised is available, immediately, to support student’s or other needs. SOE deans have used it to bring in speakers, support student activities, and launch new initiatives. For decades, this has been one of the largest and most utilized annual funds on campus thanks to generations of alumni who regularly make donations so that each year students will have the opportunities that they enjoyed—and more.

How? Make a one-time gift or set up a recurring gift online: myumi.ch/soe-excellence.

How? Give directly to our Teach Blue fund, which provides flexible support: myumi.ch/soe-teach-blue. Or contact the Office of Development and Alumni Relations to contribute to an existing fund or establish your own fund to provide opportunities specifically for future and current teachers.

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has something in common: they are funds established for the benefit of future educators. Director of Development Krissa Rumsey says, “All three funds are important because they provide different ways for alumni and others to celebrate our legacy or ‘pay it forward’ to the educators of tomorrow—and in some cases, the educators of today who are in the field. All three funds provide tremendous flexibility in encouraging the next generation of educators and education leaders.”

School of Education Office of Development and Alumni Relations 610 East University Ave. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 734-763-4880 soealumnirelations@umich.edu

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2121 Vision

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“What it would look like if…”

SOE Dean Elizabeth Moje shares her thoughts on the direction of education and the SOE in the next century

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e do not know for certain what our second

This vision is deeply optimistic, immensely ambitious, and yet

century will bring. Yet as educators, we under-

highly achievable. I have the honor of working with the brilliant

stand the power of planting the seeds today that

minds that are building toward this future of education—our

will flourish tomorrow. My vision for the future

world-class scholars, our SOE students and alumni, and the

of education and for the School of Education is to fulfill the

educators, youth, and children with whom we engage. The work

promise of just, equitable, and quality education opportunity

each of us does as individuals has the power to change lives.

for all children, youth, and adults in this country. In our future,

But our collective work has the power to transform education—

education is a human right to which every individual has access;

and society—as we know it.

it is meaningful and central to all of our lives; and it empowers people to address the most pressing challenges of their communities and of our world.

To set the course for 2121, let’s explore where we want education to be and how our school is heading in that direction. I’m asking you to imagine with me what it would look like if…

Meaningful life-long learning is accessible to everyone

How is the SOE working to make meaningful and continuous life-long learning a reality?

In 2121, society collectively values education, and education’s central role in addressing all societal problems and community needs.

We are committed to providing meaningful life-long learning opportunities for all individuals. Stable partnerships among schools create seamless learning pathways among preschool, K-12, and higher education that are aligned to assure education access from birth through adulthood.

Organizations, institutions, and communities collaborate and engage with schools to provide and receive resources. Schools are a hub in which students, community members, and educators are learning from and with one another. Schools are thus inseparable from the neighborhoods in which they are located; indeed, schools become the cultural hubs of neighborhoods, and it is through education opportunities that individuals make sense of the world and their ability to shape it.

Transformative learning experiences: By employing our own research on the learning sciences—which includes the study of how people learn, the design and implementation of learning innovations, and the improvement of instructional methods—we are developing high-quality learning experiences for children and youth in and out of school. Concomitant with our contributions to the field of learning sciences, we produce curricula, new models of teaching and learning, and materials to guide instructional practices in early childhood education, literacy, history and social studies, science, mathematics, and world languages.

Our work helps teachers engage in best practices based on the science of learning.

Education access from birth through adulthood: We are leading the way in removing barriers to education access by advocating for universal pre-K and effective pre-K curriculum. We are also working tirelessly to dismantle long-standing barriers to postsecondary education access and retention through admissions reform, college preparation, financial aid, and student support.

Learning-focused degrees and certificates for U-M students: We drew from our research to launch the Learning Experience Design certificate, which is available to graduate students across campus.

Through coursework and authentic design opportunities, students gain the foundational knowledge necessary to design innovative and engaging educational experiences in diverse contexts. For U-M undergraduates, we are planning a new 4-year bachelor’s degree program focused on the role of education in building just and equitable communities. By understanding how people, communities, and organizations learn, students will gain a new set of tools with which to offer solutions to complex problems.

Detroit P-20 Partnership: We have launched a prenatal-through-career (P through 20) education partnership on the Marygrove campus in northwest Detroit to serve as a national model for neighborhood schools. Learners age 0–20+ are empowered by innovative problem- and place-based learning that allows them to lead positive change in their communities.

Robust partnerships engage experts in facilitating projects and offering resources that address the holistic needs of students and families.

Research on the teaching profession: We are distinctive from other schools of education as a research institution that studies teaching and learning to teach. We are also distinctive as a teacher preparation program that uses our own cutting edge research to develop our programs and inform our pedagogy.

Among our studies are investigations of effective teaching practices, use of curriculum materials in supporting ambitious teaching, performance-based assessments of teacher development, and consequences of teacher churn.

Michigan Education Teaching School: Within The School at Marygrove, we are leading an innovative educator preparation community based on the medical education model. It is grounded in supportive communities of practice that include pre-service, novice, and expert teachers as well as teacher educators.

Teach Blue initiative: We are developing the teaching force of the future by bolstering the entire trajectory of the teaching career. This involves recruiting diverse young people to the profession through grow-yourown programs; investing in teaching students; supporting early career teachers; and elevating advanced career teachers.

Trauma-Informed Practice Interprofessional Collaboratory: The SOE leads collaboration among professionals seeking to address the sources and consequences of injustice and trauma in the lives of children, youth, families, and communities. This work is critical for supporting educators, but also professionals in medicine, law, public policy, and social work, who must work together to meet the needs of children and communities.

Certificates and endorsements: We continue to build programming that prepares teachers with specialized knowledge to support them throughout their careers. Teacher education students have the option to add a certificate to teach in International Baccalaureate schools, an endorsement to teach ESL, and a certificate in trauma-informed practice. We also offer high-quality, affordable continuing education opportunities through our new digital EdHub. Courses and certifications in topics such as educational technologies, disciplinary literacy, trauma-informed practice, early literacy development, and inquirybased learning join the suite of online offerings that began with our MicroMasters in Leading Educational Innovation and Improvement.

Diversity, inclusion, justice, and equity are fixtures of education and education systems 2121 would be an era in which inclusive education systems are the norm rather than exception, serving diverse groups of learners, creating equitable access to educational opportunities, and centering justice.

Although we will always have to work to redress historic, systemic inequities and prevent the development of new inequities, we will have reached a place in our society where we have the tools necessary to check our systems, institutions, policies, and curricula to ensure that they enable diversity, inclusion, justice, and equity. Our educators are equipped to empower all students and

Educational leadership and policy: We are working to assure that all children, youth, and adults have access to high quality schools, excellent and caring teachers, inclusive curriculum and pedagogy, restorative practices, and transformative learning opportunities. To achieve this, we must dismantle inequitable education practices, policies, systems, and access— particularly those rooted in racism and classism.

Preparing our graduates: Across every program and degree, we are committed to centering diversity, inclusion, justice, and equity so that every SOE graduate brings these values to their contributions in education. Together, we cultivate these values in our work as educators, administrators, and school leaders; as researchers, higher education professionals, and policy makers; and as leaders of nonprofits, businesses, and government agencies.

Learning in, with, and from communities: The CREATE (Community-based Research on Equity, Activism, & Transformative Education) Center draws together researchers, practitioners, and activists from within and outside of U-M to transform public education. Together, CREATE Center affiliates conduct research and use their findings to advance equitable and antiracist educational practice and policy.

What would it look like today, as we embark on this second century, if we each did everything in our power to build a future in which just and equitable education for all is more than just a promise?

I hope you will join us in finding out.

— Dean Elizabeth Moje

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the education experience in this country centers knowledge, voices, and perspectives that reflect the rich diversity of our nation.

How is the SOE working to create education systems that realize the promise of serving everyone?

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2121 is also a time when educators are wellrespected, well-supported, and well-compensated for their contributions to society.

Society acknowledges the professional preparation that teachers undertake and trust their expertise in learning, instructional practice, and the development of children and youth. We finally recognize the critical role teachers have in preparing every person for life, work, and citizenship. It is also understood that innovation and advancement are possible through education, so we commit to investing in education and teachers.

The teaching profession is supported and respected on par with other professions that require advanced training such as medicine or law. As a result, excellent teachers are plentiful and are as diverse as the nation’s students.

How is the SOE working to assure the teaching profession is thriving in the future?

TeachingWorks: Working collaboratively with practicing teachers and teacher educators, TeachingWorks supports teacher educators in learning how to help new teachers develop the skills needed to do the complex work of teaching. Their commitment to preparing excellent beginning teachers is inseparable from their approach to disrupting patterns of injustice in the classroom.

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The SOE is at the center of a thriving teaching renaissance

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TeachingWorks looks toward its 10th anniversary

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Practice Makes Progress

“Many organizations don’t get down to the level of the actual relational work between a child and a teacher, and I feel like that is really where the rubber meets the road.”

Deborah Loewenberg Ball

eachingWorks was founded on the idea that great teachers aren’t born, but made. In January 2022, this pioneering organization housed at the SOE will celebrate its 10th anniversary.

The concept itself, however, began years before.

“TeachingWorks grew out of what had been an unusually deep period of collective work in the SOE,” explains TeachingWorks founder, director, and former SOE dean Deborah Loewenberg Ball.

“Almost all the faculty in both elementary and secondary teacher education were working together in a variety of ways to change the program. We were driven by the fact that teacher candidates weren’t being sufficiently prepared to do the work that they would face as teachers—including their ability to understand the content well enough to connect with kids, and their ability to think about issues of what we would have referred to as ‘equity’ in those days. I think the way we would have named the problem at that point was that beginning teaching is often weak because teacher education in general doesn’t prepare people well to begin teaching—and that systemic problem disproportionately lands on Black and brown children, who are far more likely to be taught by beginners.”

To tackle this problem, faculty members at the SOE worked together for several years to identify a small set of instructional practices crucial for beginning and early career teachers to be able to do well. Called high-leverage practices, these instructional practices are those that teachers carry out constantly—such as building relationships, explaining and modeling content, and eliciting and interpreting students’ thinking—and are fundamental to helping students develop socially, emotionally, and academically.

“The idea of TeachingWorks developed out of this work,” Ball says, “because we saw that if we really wanted it to affect the quality of beginning teaching in this country, we would have to take the things we’d been learning here and begin to build a way to increase capacity in the broader field of teacher preparation and contribute to the field beyond our own programs and the teachers we prepare.”

“We had a whole committee that was looking at high-leverage practices and thinking really carefully about the work that teacher educators need to do to prepare beginning teachers,” says Nicole Garcia, TeachingWorks Associate Director. “We’ve tried to think really carefully about how we help others to see that this work on practices isn’t just a checklist of things that people need to do—that there are critical decisions teachers make that are really impacting the experiences children have in classrooms.”

Since its inception, TeachingWorks has partnered with teacher preparation programs and school districts across the country, bringing its unique approaches and resources to support the improvement of teachers’ professional education. Today, the work is centered in four primary strands: partnerships with teacher preparation providers, partnerships with K-12 schools and districts, special programs and events designed to build and connect networks of educators, and efforts to shape the public discourse around public education.

“Where we would like to see our work go,” Garcia says, “is a more systemic approach. So we’re able to work with the teacher preparation institutions that are serving the districts that we’re supporting, so we’ve got a broader set of impacts.

Right now, that work ends up being slightly separated—we have a lot of work in teacher prep that’s happening in these pockets where we don’t have the same set of K-12 work happening. Part of that has to do with how things get funded. We are increasingly focusing our partnerships in areas where we can be in either arena—in K-12 or in teacher prep—and where we know that the K-12 schools are serving children of color. So that we can expand that work, expand our reach, and get the greatest impact that we can.”

In supporting teacher educators, Teaching-

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or ‘these are leftist ideas’—they bring all these politics into it. We’re saying that students of color, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, students with disabilities, students who are English language learners, all these different groups of students who are often marginalized in our school system, they have the human right to have a good education. It is no longer the last bullet point on a PowerPoint. We start from there, that students deserve to have rights; that racism is real and exists. That’s our starting point.”

“I think one of the things that’s different about the work that we do,” Garcia explains, “is there are lots of people in organizations who talk about racial justice—who talk about antiracist teaching— in really general ways. And when we work on antiracist teaching practice it’s intertwined with teaching practice itself, with content knowledge for teaching. Because honestly, you can be as antiracist as you want, but if you don’t understand your content you’re not supporting your children in learning. And if you don’t have the skills to carry out practice, you can have all the commitments you want to antiracism and still not be supportive of the children in your classroom.”

“Underprepared teachers can cause harm of a variety of kinds,” Ball says. “We’re getting much more explicit about how we see whiteness and white supremacy, including the dominance of

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Works is designing and implementing practicebased teacher education that offers curriculum resources for teacher educators while providing in-person and virtual training programs. Through partnerships with K-12 schools and districts, TeachingWorks supports practicing teachers in developing their teaching and learning high-leverage practices. This work includes mentoring and helping teachers to develop their skills in building relationships with students, applying criticality around subject matter, and disrupting everyday practices that reproduce patterns of injustice.

The notion of disrupting injustice has always been a key focus of TeachingWorks. By using its platform to shape public discourse, the team at TeachingWorks is constantly scrutinizing the language used to describe peoples, communities, identities, and systemic patterns of oppression.

This work also takes the form of advancing teacher education and support that integrates teaching practice, content knowledge, and the imperative to acknowledge and disrupt patterns of injustice.

“If you hear words like equity and diversity and inclusion and you put 50 people in a room,” notes Amber Willis, Mathematics Research and Design Specialist, “they will all have different definitions and levels of understanding of what those things are. We still walk into spaces, and people still say ‘well, you are racist for talking about whiteness’

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TeachingWorks team members with teacher educators from throughout the California State University system during the 2019 CSU Content Methods Laboratory Classes in Fullerton, California

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TeachingWorks, continued

middle class white English permeating teacher education.”

After 10 years of growth, TeachingWorks has become well known for its significant contributions to the field, the impact it’s had on understanding and advancing practice-based teacher education, and for being a strong voice for equity in education. Alyssa Brandon, TeachingWorks’ Communications Coordinator contemplates the future: “I think 10 years from now, I want us to be an exemplar and model for what it means to be a nonprofit higher educationbased organization. I want to see us positioned in a way where we’re in community with other organizations who are tackling different points of this issue, creating a better possibility for public education for children in this country and that we’re working together collaboratively to take that up in a meaningful, genuine, authentic way.”

“I hope to see TeachingWorks become the very best provider of professional learning for teacher educators in the United States,” says TeachingWorks Deputy Director Francesca Forzani, “helping

to transform teacher preparation into a consistently effective intervention on teaching practice. Our ultimate goal is to help build a more just society, and ensuring strong and equitable classroom instruction in pursuit of that goal has never been more important.”

“What I would love to see,” adds Monique Cherry-McDaniel, Director of Secondary English Language Arts, “is that we are more widely known than we are now; that we’re able to cultivate and maintain these long partnerships, these deep partnerships, and truly see transformation at the programmatic level with the partners that we’re working with.”

“I could see in 10 years that TeachingWorks’ work will expand exponentially,” Willis says, “not only in the states that we’re currently working with, but across the country—and setting standards for teacher preparation and heavily influencing that work nationally.

I could see that we would not only continue to work with the big public and private universities, but also expand more into minority serving institutions, these smaller liberal arts colleges, where they’re producing high numbers of teachers of color, and impacting that work as well.”

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Charles Wilkes, II, a Mathematics Research Specialist, adds: “Another piece is being very explicit about how the work we’re doing connects to issues of race, of social justice, of disrupting whiteness and anti-blackness. I think just being more explicit and more unapologetic is the evolution that I see, and really naming it.”

“One of the things we bring that’s unique is how we work on practice,” Ball says. “Many organizations don’t get down to the level of the actual relational work between a child and a teacher, and I feel like that is really where the rubber meets the road. I hope that we will continue to be able to be very clear that larger structural and systemic changes can still be traced all the way down to the level of beginning teachers and what they actually do with children. I think our nuance and our sensitivity to practice is special and important, and I hope that we can continue to advance that.” ■

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Expanding on this idea, Garcia said, “I would like to see system-wide work happening, where we have partnerships with universities, where we have partnerships with the large school districts, who are serving children of color, who are hiring teachers from those universities and we have a support system in place, and mentor teachers who are serving that role. I know that that’s going to take an incredible amount of work and strategy to get there, so even though it sounds like kind of a low bar, I know that that’s difficult work because all of these systems are currently independent of one another.”

“It’s a space where we’ve got our arms around the different components of teaching,” Darrius Robinson, Research and Design Specialist who currently co-teaches the Elementary Math Lab with Ball says. “I think there’s a unique opportunity in that we’ve got our hands in that whole pipeline, from multiple different perspectives, to really start to build—to really connect—all those things together and think about how it works as a system. I think TeachingWorks is uniquely positioned to make some of those connections more visible and at the same time more nuanced.”

TeachingWorks team members with students inside Michigan Stadium during the 2017 Summer Mathematics Camp

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Fomenting Reciprocal Research Relationships CREATE Center launches a network for researchers

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t started, like so many projects, with a need for data. But professor Camille Wilson wasn’t the only one seeking information to support her work—so was 482Forward, the Detroitbased grassroots organization she eventually engaged with as a principal investigator and research partner. Wilson, whose interdisciplinary research explores school-family-community engagement and transformative leadership as they relate to urban education reform and policy, was hoping to study community-based education reform efforts. 482Forward, a group of education organizers, was leading an effort to halt the shuttering of dozens of Detroit public schools.

“They needed help,” recalls Wilson. “They were community organizers, and as they were lobbying, they wanted to make sure they had credible data to build out their campaigns.” As much as she needed research access to do her work, Wilson realized the organizers needed a university research partner to do theirs.

The reciprocal relationship that ensued allowed for what Wilson calls research-informed advocacy.

In 2020, Wilson launched the CREATE Center, a research center at the School of Education which fosters community-based research on equity, activism, and transformative education among universitybased researchers and community advocates.

In addition, it aims to assist with research-informed advocacy.

“What that means is being of assistance to community-based and grassroots groups who are fighting for educational justice—helping them with access to data and information that is research-informed,” says Wilson.

She envisioned a center that would encompass research initiatives as well as help foster networks and offer support to people in the community

who were advocating for educational justice.

“Let’s think about how we can do that in a way that takes university researchers to the community, but also provides opportunities to bring community members into the university in a way that’s acknowledging and privileging their expertise, too,” says Wilson.

Currently the center is involved with the Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline in Detroit (DSTOPP) initiative, a research-practice partnership with Focus: HOPE, a Detroit-based civil rights organization. Together, the partners contribute to Detroiters’ efforts to counter carceral and educational injustices. In collaboration with community members in Hope Village, where Focus: HOPE is located, the committee issued a call for research proposals, and awarded four teams mini-grants to investigate their respective topics. Each team comprises at least one university researcher, community researcher, and youth researcher.

“In addition to funding them, we are fostering a network for professional development research support. We’ve had an orientation, planning sessions, and we’re planning team-based retreats, and a symposium so folks can learn from each other,” says Wilson. At the same time CREATE Center is facilitating support and networks for the research teams, Wilson says it is also studying the nature of the research-practice partnership process. “What does it mean to have this collaborative research network that is striving to counter some of the traditions of academia— counter the hierarchy, counter the exclusion of community members and their expertise?”

CREATE Center’s staff includes students at different stages in their own careers as researchers.

“We [the School of Education] don’t have a lot in our formal curriculum yet, in terms of coursework explicitly linked to how to do community-engaged research,” says Wilson. “The center is providing learning and mentoring to students at different

we are fostering a network for professional development research support. We’ve had an orientation, planning sessions, and we’re planning team-based retreats, and a symposium so folks can learn from each other.”

Camille Wilson

levels. This year we’ll have undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral—the whole spectrum of students, plus a postdoc—involved in the work in different ways.”

In addition to research, CREATE Center functions as a network for academics and justice-oriented community groups to come together. In May 2021, the center hosted its inaugural Community-Engaged Speaker event, a symposium titled “Partners for Liberation: Researching and Organizing for Educational and Racial Justice.” A subsequent event will be convened in 2022, and CREATE Conversations, informal lunchtime gatherings devoted to thinking about complex aspects of conducting communitybased research, will take place this academic year.

“It’s not the norm for us to have—in our halls, in our forums, and Zoom rooms—community members on the same platform as leading, award-winning university researchers. This effort is to create opportunities for that,” says Wilson. She notes that academic conferences are mostly geared toward university researchers, and the cost to attend is

a barrier to entry for most people. “It’s also not always a welcoming or accessible space,” she adds.

“I would like, in the long-term, to have convenings that are community-friendly and accessible, where there’s structured support and networking space available close to home, and more broadly.”

Wilson is currently pursuing partnerships with researchers and organizers nationally, and looks ahead to the center’s future when she hopes its work will extend to the international community.

“There’s quite a need for grassroots groups, and many of them don’t know where to begin in finding a research partner, if they don’t have a university contact,” says Wilson. “We hope to continue helping community groups in the ways that they want to be helped. Our vision for the future is that they can come to us, say what their needs are, and we think, ‘Okay, given our resources and all of the folks that we know, is there a good fit for them?

Can we provide something that can be of help that’s research-informed?’” ■

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Trevor Angood (ABEd ’06, TeachCert ’06) graduated from California State University, Long Beach with his Master of Arts in Educational Technology and Media Leadership and obtained his California Teacher-Librarian Services Credential as he continues his work as a teacher-librarian at his alma mater, Eastlake High School (Chula Vista, CA).

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Martha Swenson Burbeck (BSEd ’77) taught middle school math in Ann Arbor for three years after graduation, before choosing to stay home with her two young sons as they grew. She is now a freelance graphic designer, producing newsletters and websites.

Four years ago, Burbeck and her husband, Tom, moved into a new home, which became the second residence in the world—and one of only about two dozen certified buildings of any type—to achieve full certification in the Living Building Challenge, considered the most stringent green building standard in the world. The house is net-positive energy and net-positive water, and every building component was carefully vetted to avoid any of 600 identified chemicals or compounds that are toxic to humans or to the environment during manufacturing, use, or disposal after use. They are now restoring 30 acres of former farmland using principles of permaculture/ regenerative agriculture.

Amy Jean Emmert (MS ’02), Director of Education, Belle Isle Conservancy, was selected as the 2021 Informal Science Educator of the Year by the Michigan Science Teacher Association.

The award recognizes unique and extraordinary accomplishments, active leadership, scholarly contributions, and direct and substantial contributions to the improvement of non-school-based science education.

Emmert says, “My time at SOE is what led me to my current job and laid the groundwork for my connections with Detroit Public School Community District and the teachers that have shaped my practice for over almost 20 years.”

Ander Erickson (PhD ’15), Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Washington, received an NSF Career award titled “CAREER: Improving Access to STEM by Supporting Students’ Effective Use of Online Resources in Gateway Mathematics Courses.” This project aims to improve student learning in introductory mathematics courses by researching how students use online resources to support their learning. A key focus area of the project is developing classroom interventions that support access in STEM by helping all students develop productive strategies for online study.

Novi High School teacher Rod Franchi (TeachCert ’95, AM ’09) has authored the book 19th Century American

History for Teens: Understanding the Themes, Ideologies, and Conflicts that Inform Our Present (Rockridge Press). The book, which is part of a three-volume history for teens series, offers a compelling look into the United States’ formative years and shows how they made the country what it is today.

Available at amzn.to/3bI9FHd.

Gloriana Gonzalez Rivera (PhD ’09), Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois, received a 2021 Campus Distinguished Promotion Award based on the scope, quality, and impact of her scholarship, teaching, service, and engagement efforts.

To submit class notes, update your contact information, communicate with the editors, or connect with the School of Education, please visit soe.umich.edu/magazine.

Noah Jenkins (AM ’17) and Qiu Fogarty (AM ’17), both CSHPE graduates, were married on July 24, 2021, in Brooklyn, New York. Jenkins and Fogarty are now living in Chicago, Illinois. Fogarty is an Assistant Director in the Office of Social Justice Education at Northwestern University and Jenkins was recently promoted to Associate Director of Admissions at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Leanne Kang (PhD ’15), Assistant Professor at Grand Valley State University, published her first book,

Dismantled: The Breakup of an Urban School System: Detroit, 1980–2016.

Dismantled is an accessible, critical look at the devolution of local power in the Detroit public school system. The text looks at such questions as: What happens when local actors no longer have a voice in what happens to their schools? What are the consequences when teachers and administrators cede control to private interests and cease to participate in decision-making?

What are some ways to redirect public schooling toward democracy in the aftermath of dismantling the Progressive Era system?

J. Barry Koops (PhD ’75) recently published an anthology of poetry, Final Exam: Poems About Teachers and Their Students. Final Exam includes 85 poems by 75 writers, some by the most celebrated poets writing in the English

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Lumas Helaire (MS ’04, PhD ’06) has taken a job as the inaugural Assistant Dean for Population Health Management and Health Equity Education at Harvard’s School of Public Health. His primary role will be to create certificate and degree programs that train individuals on the front line of public health management.

language, others by relative unknowns.

Koops notes that “In republishing these poems, I mean to lift a glass and raise a toast to the teachers and mentors I have respected, admired, and loved; and to colleagues, some of them heroes in the pantheon of great teacher-scholars. Many of them were classmates, professors, or mentors at Michigan.” Koops earned a PhD in English and Education at U-M. Thereafter he served as a professor, principal, superintendent, headmaster, navigation instructor, and consultant.

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Kendra Hearn (AB ’93, TeachCert ’93) was appointed to a five-year term as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education and Educator Preparation Programs at the SOE.

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Muhammad Qasim Shamim Ali Khan (AM ’18) currently resides in his hometown of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and is working for an education technology company, Noon Academy, as a teacher and career counselor.

Grace H. Shin (AB ’00, AM ’01, TeachCert ’01) was elected to her local board of education, the Community Consolidated School District 181 (outside Chicago) in April 2021.

Tracy Sinclair (AB ’02) completed a PhD in special education from the University of Oklahoma in May 2020 and took a position in the University of Connecticut’s educational psychology department.

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Terrence Tice, Professor Emeritus in the U-M School of Education, died on January 11, 2020 in Denver, Colorado. An interdisciplinary scholar who collaborated across the university, Tice published in a variety of areas including faculty collective bargaining, student rights, psychoanalysis, theology, values theory, and human development, as well as his appointed field of philosophy of education.

Tice joined the faculty of the SOE in 1969, retiring in 1997. He chaired about 80 dissertation committees and took great pride in his student colleagues, forming long-lasting and influential relationships with many of them. His earliest publications in the 1970s while at U-M included six volumes on faculty bargaining and student rights, some of the earliest in the field. His award-winning Research Guide to Philosophy (ALA) continues to be held by more than 800 libraries. Some of Tice’s most enduring work is as a translator and interpreter of the theology and philosophy of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768– 1834), the “father” of modern Christian theology.

He is survived by his daughter Dr. Karin Tice and son-in-law Dr. James Szocik, his son the Rev. Jonathan Tice, three grandchildren: Katherine Szocik, Michael Szocik, and Jonathan Tice, Jr., as well as by Dr. Doreen Poupard, and the Rev. Dr. Catherine Kelsey, his wife.

Elizabeth Ann (Ralston) Rivers, a longtime instructor in the Michigan Alternate Route to Certification (M-ARC) program, passed away unexpectedly on June 8, 2021.

After retiring from her career as an elementary educator, Rivers chose to continue her service in education as both a field instructor and seminar facilitator for M-ARC. Since joining our staff in 2014, Rivers has mentored about 70 novice elementary teachers in Detroit, making a positive difference in the lives of these educators and, in turn, their students. Rivers was not only a highly experienced and knowledgeable teacher and teacher educator, she was also a genuinely delightful person who cared deeply about the people around her. The M-ARC community will be forever grateful for the joy she brought into our lives and the impact she had on teaching and learning.

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Rivers graduated from Lane College in Tennessee.

She leaves behind two lovely children, Roy Barnett Rivers and Angela Beth Rivers, and one precious grandchild, Fallon Bree Elise Rochon.

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Centennial conversations “If you’re a lower-income student or a first gen student, one of the main things you do outside of school is work. And yet, there are a lot of universities that don’t... have any way to interpret that and make decisions on how that would be an added value to a college campus.”

Michael Bastedo “Can you get here from there? What factors help ensure access to higher education for those who seek it?”

“I think that if we can change the

As part of the 100th anniversary celebrations, the SOE is hosting a series of virtual events that are open to everyone and cover critical topics that will inform the future of education. These Centennial Conversations highlight areas of faculty expertise while engaging participants in thoughtful discussions.

“Students from historically marginalized communities are more likely to go to high schools that offer fewer advanced course opportunities. These are structural issues with really deep historical roots in disperate educational funding.... And just because your school offers one or several of these rigorous courses, it doesn’t mean that students who have traditionally been marginalized actually get access to them.”

Awilda Rodriguez “Can you get here from there? What factors help ensure access to higher education for those who seek it?”

“Not all students feel safe in a face-to-face classroom environment. And I think we’ve learned that especially Black and Brown students have expressed that face-to-face wasn’t always safe and comfortable for them. And that online for some has actually been a more positive experience. So there’s a lot to learn from that. But there are equity issues, also.”

Liz Kolb “The pandemic permanently changed education: how can we seize the moment?”

way we think about what it means to be a teacher where we’re saying that being a teacher means constantly stretching ourselves and being challenged, that it is this immensely important and challenging and difficult intellectual work, I think we’ll have a much easier time recruiting people into teaching. I think we’ll change the way people talk about teaching.”

Simona Goldin “Seeing children for their truths: racially just systemic teaching”

“The idea of globalization benefits the people who may have control of the means of production, of knowledge or resources, or the people who can decide what is global or not global.” Vilma Mesa “Education in the global context”

“What this place has in terms of possibility is kind of unparalleled.... People dream big here and really think that we can do things to actually change the world, change situations, change social conditions. And that is really appealing.”

Rosemary Perez “Returning home: alumnae who returned to the SOE as faculty members discuss what brought them back and where their research questions are taking them”

University of Michigan Regents Jordan B. Acker, Huntington Woods Michael J. Behm, Grand Blanc Mark J. Bernstein, Ann Arbor Paul W. Brown, Ann Arbor Sarah Hubbard, Okemos Denise Ilitch, Bingham Farms Ronald Weiser, Ann Arbor Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor Mark S. Schlissel (ex officio)

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The University of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University of Michigan is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may be addressed to the Senior Director for Institutional Equity, and Title IX/ Section 504/ADA Coordinator, Office of Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432, 734-763-0235, TTY 734-647-1388. For other University of Michigan information call 734-764-1817.

Welcome to our second century