Learning Connections

As Dean Diana Hess begins her fourth year as dean of the School of Education, she notes that she is consistently inspired by the range of impactful efforts taking place across the arts, health, and education.

Letter from the Dean:

Dear Friends:

Although I started my fourth year as dean of the School of Education this fall, I’m still consistently inspired by the range of impactful efforts taking place across our unique School and its programs spanning the arts, health and education.

The theme for this issue of Learning Connections is impact. In many of these articles you will learn how our faculty, staff, students and alumni are involved in initiatives that are making a difference and changing our community, state and world in innovative and exciting ways.

Read how the School hosted a conference ahead of November’s midterm elections that gave educators the strategies, tools and confidence necessary to talk about politics and controversial issues in the classroom. Check out how Faisal Abdu’Allah, a rising star with our Art Department, helps lead a program that connects area artists and court-involved Dane County teens to foster community engagement, self-expression and skill development. And learn how the Trans Research Lab, founded by Associate Professor Stephanie Budge, is engaged in both community outreach and important research that’s focused on health outcomes for transgender people.

No single issue of Learning Connections can spotlight all, or even a good percentage, of the impactful work taking place across every unit and all 10 of our departments. But we hope these stories give you a sense of the depth and breadth of our efforts, which wouldn’t be possible without a world-class faculty and quality leadership across our School.

Over the course of the current year, we’re hiring 18 faculty members — including 13 of whom joined us this fall. This infusion of talent is one of the largest jumps in faculty since the School’s founding in 1930 and means we’ll continue, and even improve upon, our impactful work in the years to come.

In addition, this summer and fall I added several invaluable people to my leadership team, including: Kimber Wilkerson, who in July was named faculty director of our new Teacher Education Center; Rich Halverson, who on Aug. 1 started his role as associate dean for innovation, outreach and partnerships; and alumna Christina Klawitter, who took over in September as our associate dean for student academic affairs after spending the past seven years at Beloit College as dean of students.

Finally, we have many alumni and friends who have contributed in significant ways to all of what we do in the School of Education. Thank you, and please know how much we value your support.

— Diana Hess

Check out highlights from across the School of Education over the past six months:

Video game encourages students to discover, experience history

After collaborating with educators and students from across the state, Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) Education and the Field Day Lab released a new online video game, “Jo Wilder and the Capitol Case,” that encourages students to experience history as they discover it for themselves.

“Jo Wilder and the Capitol Case,” set in and around the Wisconsin State Capitol, assists educators in teaching history while engaging students as “history detectives” to immerse them in the action. It is a tool for students to engage in critical thinking and historical inquiry.

The game, which is free, was launched in October with the help of a cohort of teachers and students from around the state. The Field Day Lab is an educational game developer within UW–Madison’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research, which is housed within the School of Education.

To address Wisconsin Academic Standards for grades three through five in social studies, English language arts and information and technology literacy, players use detective skills to solve mysteries about real artifacts from Wisconsin’s history and use evidence to prove their discoveries. As the plot unfolds, players discover primary source materials. Then, like real historians, players engage in investigation, identification, corroboration and contextualization of evidence with their primary sources. To win each challenge, players must summarize the evidence and argue their case.

Teachers involved in the game’s creation have praised the ways that both the design process and the finished product have inspired their students.

“The experience of having a window into the game production process has been incredible for my students,” says Mike Scoville, a K–12 library media specialist with Door County’s Gibraltar Area School District. “As we play-tested each version, we saw how WPT and Field Day incorporated students’ suggestions into the game.”

To learn more or to play the game, visit this Field Day Lab website: fielddaylab.wisc.edu

Hoyt, Larson guest coaches for Badgers’ game at Camp Randall

School of Education faculty members William Hoyt and Elizabeth Larson served as guest coaches during the Badger football team’s game against Brigham Young University at Camp Randall Stadium on Sept. 15.

Hoyt is a professor with the Department of Counseling Psychology and is the School’s associate dean for health areas, while Larson is an associate professor with the Department of Kinesiology’s occupational therapy program.

Both were given this opportunity due to their efforts to support student-athletes on campus.

Hoyt and Larson toured the Fetzer Center for student-athletes, watched the football team practice Sept. 14 and met with UW football coach Paul Chryst after practice.

On game day Sept. 15, they were invited to a brunch with recruits, got to watch warmups on the field, followed the team back out onto the field prior to kickoff and watched the first quarter on the sidelines before heading into the stands.

Joining Hoyt as a guest was Nick Frost, a new faculty member with the Department of Counseling Psychology.

After 75 years, OT program building on tradition of excellence

UW–Madison’s occupational therapy (OT) program — which is housed within the School of Education’s Department of Kinesiology and is recognized as one of the best in the nation — celebrated its 75th anniversary with a series of events Sept. 13-15 on campus.

There was a welcome party at the Memorial Union’s Tripp Commons on Thursday night, Sept. 13, followed by a research symposium, the 39th annual Caroline Thompson Lecture and an alumni banquet on Friday, Sept. 14. The festivities wrapped up with a brunch and

trip to Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 15, to watch the Badger football team play BYU.

“We are not simply celebrating a program’s longevity,” said School of Education Dean Diana Hess. “The exceptional research, scholarship and instruction that have kept our university’s OT program at the forefront of its field for decades are both impressive and worthy of this wonderful occasion.”

In all, nearly 300 alumni, students, faculty, staff, and friends of the OT program took part in the various events.

“This program enjoyed a great deal of success in its first 75 years — and we are excited to build from that strong foundation to bolster the university’s tradition of excellence and educate occupational therapists who will promote the health and well-being of our state, our nation and the global community for years to come,” says UW–Madison’s Ruth Benedict, a professor and director of the OT program.

Center for Research on Early Childhood Education launches

Early childhood education is a well-studied field.

However, Beth Graue, the Sorenson Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and a former kindergarten teacher, realized something was missing. She decided a new type of research initiative was needed — one that grounds its work in the practical wisdom of classroom teaching.

On Oct. 24, the Center for Research on Early Childhood Education, also known by the acronym CRECE (Spanish for “it grows” and pronounced “cray-say”), launched as the latest research project at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) within the School of Education.

“The new center will increase equal educational opportunities for young children, their families and their teachers through high-quality research-to-practice in very particular ways,” explains Graue, CRECE’s director. “We want to speak with practice, rather than over practice.”

Specifically, the new center will support cross-disciplinary research, critical policy analyses, high-impact teacher education, professional development for current and next-generation early childhood education researchers, and outreach to the early childhood community.

Amy Claessens, a newly hired associate professor with the Department of Educational Policy Studies and the Gulbrandsen Distinguished Chair in Early Childhood Education, is partnering with Graue to lead the new center. Claessens brings a rich skillset in advocacy and lobbying for early childhood education policy, and has extensive experience as a researcher working directly with teachers, families and home-based childcare providers.

“It is a great opportunity for me to be part of building something in early childhood education from the ground up that will be really important on campus, in the community and in the state,” says Claessens, who worked previously at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.

These two high-profile researchers envision CRECE as a national center that will attract researchers, faculty, students, educators, policymakers and the community surrounding early childhood education to WCER.

Jackson, Hillman receive major honors form ASHE

The Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) in October announced its annual award winners leading up to the organization’s 2018 conference, and two faculty members with the School of Education received significant recognition.

Jerlando Jackson was awarded the CEP Mildred García Award for Exemplary Scholarship (Senior), while Nicholas Hillman was recognized with the CPPHE Excellence in Public Policy in Higher Education (Individual) Award.

The 43rd annual ASHE Conference was held in Tampa, Florida, with the awards ceremony taking place on Friday evening, Nov. 16.

Jackson is the Vilas Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and is chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. He also is director and chief research scientist of Wisconsin’s Equity and Inclusion Laboratory (Wei LAB). Jackson’s central research interest is organizational science in higher education, with a special interest in hiring practices, career mobility, workforce diversity and workplace discrimination. He also has a portfolio of research focused on interventions designed to broaden participation for underrepresented groups in the scientific workforce.

Hillman is an associate professor with the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. Much of Hillman’s research centers on the topic of educational equity and looking at ways to give more people a fair shot at both accessing, and succeeding in, college. Hillman inspects these issues through a financial lens, examining how states distribute their funds, including where they decide to locate colleges and universities. On the federal side, he also studies the funding of higher education, mainly as it relates to student loan and grant programs.

Around the School . . .

The School of Education is hiring 18 talented new faculty members during the 2018-19 academic year, with 13 arriving on campus for the fall semester. The 18 new faculty hires marks one of the largest jumps in faculty since the School’s founding in 1930. ​Here (pictured at left) are 12 new faculty members who were able to attend the School’s annual welcome back event on Aug. 31. They are (left-to-right): Yeohyun Ahn, assistant professor, Art Department; Tomiko Jones, assistant professor, Art Department; Katie Eklund, assistant professor, Department of Educational Psychology; Amy Claessens, associate professor and Gulbrandsen Chair, Department of Educational Policy Studies; Malachy Bishop, professor and Norman L. and Barbara M. Berven Chair, Department of Re- habilitation Psychology and Special Education; Colleen Conroy, assistant professor, Department of Theatre and Drama; Nickolas Frost, assistant professor, Department of Counseling Psychology; Sarah Short, assistant professor, Department of Educational Psychology; Simon Goldberg, assistant professor, Department of Coun- seling Psychology; Susan Andreae, assistant professor, Department of Kinesiology; Stephen Kilgus, associate professor, Department of Educational Psychology; and Zhe (Gigi) An, assistant professor, Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education.

• The National Science Foundation (NSF) in July selected Robert Mathieu, the director of the School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research, as an inaugural member of the STEM Education Advisory Panel. Mathieu, who also is the Albert E. Whitford Professor of Astronomy at UW–Madison and the associate dean for research in the School of Education, started his first term on the national panel immediately and could serve up to three years.
• David Kaplan will be spending two weeks in January as a visiting researcher at the Luxembourg Institute for Social and Economic Research (LISER). Kaplan is the Patricia Busk Professor of Quantitative Methods with the School’s No. 1-ranked Department of Educational Psychology. During his time at LISER, Kaplan will be presenting his recent work on Bayesian approaches to estimating country-level trajectories in educational outcomes and collaborating on multiple LISER-based projects.
• Tom Popkewitz delivered a keynote speech at the European Educational Research Association’s annual conference in Bolzano, Italy, in September. Popkewitz is a professor with the No. 1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction. His research focuses on the systems of reason that govern curriculum reforms, the sciences of education and teacher education. His keynote was titled, “The Paradox of Research: The Good Intentions of Inclusion that Excludes and Abjects.”
• Craig Albers was named in September by the Society for the Study of School Psychology as the 11th editor of the Journal of School Psychology (JSP). Albers is an associate professor with the Department of Educational Psychology, where he is director of the school psychology program. Albers will begin his term as editor-elect in January of 2019 and he will serve as editor from January 2020 through the end of 2024.
• Rich Halverson was named the School of Education’s new associate dean for innovation, outreach and partnerships, a position he started Aug. 1. Halverson is a professor with the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, and the director of the Wisconsin Collaborative Education Research Network (The Network) within the School of Education. In his new role, Halverson is leading plans to expand the School’s current office of Education Outreach and Partnerships into a larger, more comprehensive unit.
• The School of Education filled two key leadership positions for its new Teacher Education Center, which is set to launch later in the 2018-19 academic year. Kimber Wilkerson, a professor with the Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education, was named the faculty director of the center and started her new position on July 1. Samantha Baruah is filling the role of associate director, a post she started on Aug. 6 after arriving from Michigan State University. The new Teacher Education Center will support research, policy work and innovation in teacher education, as well as in the School’s mission-driven PK–12 educator preparation programs.
• Christina Klawitter started in September as the School’s new associate dean for student academic affairs. She is an alumnus of the School of Education and had served the past seven years as dean of students at Beloit College.
• In late October, a “Women Take the Polls” art project (see photos below), which was designed to encourage people to vote, covered light poles on and around Bascom Hill with colorful “yarn bomb cozies.” This non-partisan act of “craftivism” was the idea of artists Kelly Parks Snider and Chele Isaac, who earned her master of fine arts degree from the School of Education’s Art Department in 2008. The project’s sponsors included the Art Department, the Arts + Literature Laboratory, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, Arts in Action, and BLINK! Madison Arts Commission.

Learn about several projects that were recently funded by federal agencies, major foundations, and more:

Wilkerson, Leko secure $2.5 million grant to launch special education teacher residency program

UW–Madison’s Kimber Wilkerson and Melinda Leko were awarded a $2.5 million U.S. Department of Education Teacher Quality Partnership Grant to fund 40 graduate students who will work with students with disabilities in high-need and small, rural school districts across Wisconsin.

Wilkerson is a professor with the School of Education’s Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education (RPSE), and the faculty director of the School’s new Teacher Education Center. Leko is an associate professor and the department chair of RPSE.

“Special educators are sorely needed across Wisconsin — with the need particularly acute in small, rural districts and in schools that serve a high number of families and children who are economically disadvantaged,” says Wilkerson. “We are excited to work with new school district partners in this much-needed effort and look forward to preparing and supporting special educators in this innovative residency model.”

The project is designed to promote improved academic achievement and engagement of Wisconsin students with disabilities by recruiting and preparing 40 special education teacher residents through a 14-month master’s degree program. The project will prepare teachers in four different cohorts over the next four years.

Each graduate student will take part in a 10-month teaching residency in a high-need partner school, gaining knowledge and skills to meet the needs of students with disabilities in these districts. Upon completion, participants will be eligible for a master’s degree in special education and Wisconsin licensure as a special education teacher (cross-categorical, K–12).

In addition, the initiative will provide two years of ongoing support and professional development opportunities to enhance the special education teacher residents’ ability to positively impact outcomes. All residents are eligible for a one-year living stipend. In return, they commit to teach three consecutive years in a high-need school in a partner district.

In addition to connections across the UW–Madison campus, this project will also partner with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, and the Wisconsin school districts of Beloit, Cambria- Friesland, Juda, Wonewoc-Union Center, Royall, Seneca Area, Adams-Friendship Area, and Wauzeka-Steuben. Teachers will work in 24 high-need schools within these districts.

Two other RPSE faculty members, Andrea Ruppar and Bonnie Doren, in September were awarded a grant from the Spencer Foundation to examine ways to help rural school districts better support special education teachers. Leko and Wilkerson are co-investigators on this project, which will identify emergency certified rural special educators’ professional development and support needs, and help researchers learn how teacher educators can support their development as teachers.

UW–Madison to co-lead $10 million NSF grant to cultivate more diverse, inclusive STEM faculty

To broaden participation in STEM programs and fields, the National Science Foundation (NSF) in September announced the award of a five-year, $10 million NSF INCLUDES Alliance grant to be co-led by UW–Madison’s Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

CIRTL is a collaborative network of 39 research universities based in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) within UW–Madison’s School of Education. Funding for this new alliance builds on an earlier NSF INCLUDES pilot project awarded to CIRTL in 2016.

Joining the lead institutions in the National Alliance for Inclusive and Diverse STEM Faculty are: Iowa State University; the University of California, Los Angeles; University of Georgia; and University of Texas at El Paso. These universities will partner with dozens of other universities, two-year colleges and organizations across the country to scale practices aimed at diversifying the nation’s STEM college educators and grounding them in inclusive teaching practices.

The new alliance seeks to attract and retain more underrepresented students — women, members of minority racial and ethnic groups, persons with disabilities and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds — in STEM college programs, and prepare them to succeed in a modern STEM workforce.

“Despite the importance of a more diverse faculty and the use of more inclusive practices by all faculty to advance learning and student success, improvement efforts have not been as successful as needed, particularly in STEM subjects,” says Robert Matheiu, who co-directs the new alliance and who is the School of Education’s associate dean for research, and director of WCER.

The project’s overarching strategy is to bring about national systemic change for STEM faculty by aligning and reinforcing professional development and hiring practices simultaneously at institutional, regional and national levels. To foster institutional change, the alliance will assist institutions to self-assess and improve their underrepresented group hiring and retention practices, and the inclusive teaching practices of their entire faculty.

More research from around the School …

• Haley Vlach and Percival Matthews in September each received an Understanding Human Cognition Scholar Award from the James S. McDonnell Foundation (JSMF). These awards, of which only 10 were given out this year, each provide $600,000 of funding to be used over the next six years.

Vlach is an associate professor with the No. 1-ranked Department of Educational Psychology and is the director of the Learning, Cognition, and Development Lab. Her project that’s receiving funding via JSMF is titled, “The Development of Higher-Order Cognition: Words, Categories, and Concepts.” Matthews is an assistant professor with the Department of Educational Psychology and he heads the Mathematics Education Learning and Development Lab. Matthews’ project being funded by JSMF is called, “Theoretical and Pedagogical Implications of the Nonsymbolic Ratio Processing System.”

Matthews also is the principal investigator on a new National Science Foundation (NSF) grant awarded in September that’s designed to examine ways to promote equal sign knowledge among school children. The NSF award, for more than $670,000 over the next three years, is for a project titled, “Cultivating Knowledge of Mathematical Equivalence.” This project will examine whether spacing instruction over time can lead to more substantial and long-term gains in equal sign knowledge, and whether such knowledge, in turn, fosters algebraic reasoning.

• Susan Miller Smedema was awarded a pilot grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for a project that examines ways to help people with the disease bolster their quality of life. Smedema is an associate professor with the Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education, and is the director of the rehabilitation counseling master’s degree program. Her research project will investigate if individuals with MS who have specific strengths of character — such as creativity, perseverance, gratitude or hope — may be protected against negative effects of MS.
• Brittany Travers this fall secured a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for a research project titled, “Brainstem Contributions to Sensorimotor and Core Symptoms in Children with ASD.” Travers is an assistant professor with the School of Education and the Department of Kinesiology’s occupational therapy program. Earlier this year she was appointed as the Carla and Michael Austin Occupational Therapy Faculty Fellow. She heads the Motor and Brain Development Lab within the university’s Waisman Center, where she is involved with more than a half-dozen research initiatives exploring various aspects of motor and brain development in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

By tapping into its talents and expertise, the School of Education is involved in a range of efforts designed to positively impact our community — and our world. Following are a few examples of how faculty, staff, students, and alumni are working together and with valuable partners to push boundaries and deliver innovative programs that are making a difference in real and relevant ways.

Conference delivers strategies, tools to help teachers engage students in discussions of controversial political issues

With anticipation for November’s high-stakes midterm elections heating up earlier this fall, educators had a golden opportunity to teach students about the American political system, and how to become insightful and engaged citizens.

But the nation’s partisan divide can make it difficult to hold respectful and thoughtful discussions on any range of topics.

“It’s important to find ways to prepare kids to participate in a highly partisan, polarized world — and yet we need to do this in a nonpartisan way,” says UW–Madison School of Education Dean Diana Hess. “I call this challenge the paradox of political education.”

In an effort to give educators the strategies, tools and confidence necessary to talk about politics in the classroom, the UW–Madison School of Education hosted a conference on Sept. 22 titled, “Teaching About the 2018 Elections: Preparing Students for Political Engagement.” The day-long event was attended by nearly 200 people, including pre-service teachers from the School of Education, K-12 teachers and administrators from across Wisconsin, and civics education experts from around the country.

“The conference was an outstanding opportunity for educators to collaborate and learn from people like Diana Hess and other experts in this field about what research says is the most effective way to talk about controversial issues and to get students civically engaged,” says Mary Ellen Daneels, who serves as the lead teacher mentor for the McCormick Foundation, heading professional development opportunities related to social studies standards and a new high school civics requirement in the state of Illinois.

Daneels, who presented at the conference, said she still gets pushback from people wondering why politics and civics education deserve a space in the classroom.

“I ask, ‘How many of you believe students would be ready to get a driver’s license simply by passing the rules of the road test,’” says Daneels, who taught at West Chicago Community High School for 27 years. “No one ever thinks that’s a good idea. Kids need practical experience behind the wheel that’s supported by expert practitioners to build those skills and dispositions to drive a car. Why do we think that we are adequately preparing kids to participate in our democratic republic simply by having them pass a citizenship or constitution test? We need to engage students in ways that give them not only the knowledge, which is important, but the skills and disposition to become civically engaged.”

The Teaching about the Elections conference featured two keynote panel discussions, with one on pedagogy and another on journalism.

Participants also were able to attend three different breakout sessions during the course of the day, from a list of 15 options. Each session was designed to be interactive and focused on teaching about issues related to the 2018 November elections. The breakouts fell into four categories: pedagogical strategies; issue forums; featured curricula; and administrator sessions.

“The conference was a great opportunity to hear from experts who know about the best ways to talk about controversial issues,” says Jessie Marshall, a conference presenter and former teacher who spent the past two years as director of social science and civic engagement with the Chicago Public Schools.

Marshall, who just started a Ph.D. program in the learning sciences at Northwestern University, says she read an award-winning book co-authored by Hess and Paula McAvoy — “The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education” — when she was a classroom teacher trying to figure out how to do a better job of talking about controversial issues with students.

“Teachers are often afraid and they’re scared because they don’t know how to talk about these issues,” says Marshall. “Conferences like the one in Madison are great because they allow educators to network and share ideas and learn how to access a whole range of outstanding resources.”

This can be especially true for educators who teach in rural areas and don’t have easy access to centralized resources of a large school district or a nearby university.

Pam Smith notes that she is a one-person social studies department for the just more than 100 students attending Florence High School in far northern Wisconsin.

“Out here in rural Wisconsin it’s easy to get out of the loop when it comes to finding resources to help students,” says Smith. “So having a university-sponsored event was a great opportunity for me to come and hear what experts and what other teachers are saying and thinking. The best part about the conference was all the great teaching materials and resources the presenters made available. As a teacher, we don’t have a lot of time to create new PowerPoints or handouts, so having everything provided to us online or via email, and having follow-up conversations with people I met, was really great.”

“Being given access to very specific lesson plans and online resources was very helpful,” adds Priyanka Subramanian, who is enrolled in UW–Madison’s secondary education master’s program, and who is currently student teaching in Madison.

Presenters at the conference from the School of Education included: Bianca Baldridge, an assistant professor with the Department of Educational Policy Studies; Li-Ching Ho, an associate professor with the Department of Curriculum and Instruction; Jeremy Stoddard, an associate professor with the Department of Curriculum and Instruction; graduate students Lauren Bagwell and Sean Corrigan; and Merri Lindgren and Madeline Tyner, who both are librarians with the School’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center. The event also included political science and journalism professors from UW–Madison, working journalists and civics education experts from across the country.

This conference was funded by the Gibb Democracy Education Fund and the Claudia Grams Pogreba Fund. Mary Hopkins Gibb is a 1955 School of Education alumna. Her husband, Bill, was a 1953 Wisconsin School of Business alumnus. Claudia Grams Pogreba is a 1970 School of Education alumna.

“This conference is but one example of how supporting the School of Education allows us to offer valuable programs for teachers and others that otherwise wouldn’t be possible,” says Hess, who holds the Karen A. Falk Distinguished Chair of Education.

By tapping into its talents and expertise, the School of Education is involved in a range of efforts designed to positively impact our community — and our world. Following are a few examples of how faculty, staff, students, and alumni are working together and with valuable partners to push boundaries and deliver innovative programs that are making a difference in real and relevant ways.

FauHaus offers court-involved youth a ‘space of imagination and infinite possibilities’

Whether presenting a new collection of artwork in his hometown of London, speaking with UW–Madison students or working with court-involved teens in Dane County, Wisconsin, Faisal Abdu’Allah isn’t afraid to draw attention to — or ask probing questions about — history, race, and intolerance.

“Everywhere I travel, the rubric is the same,” says Abdu’Allah, an associate professor with the School of Education’s Art Department. “I’ll meet a group of students less fortunate than myself and think, ‘If it weren’t for my strong family structure growing up, that could have been me.’”

Abdu’Allah is an internationally acclaimed artist who creates iconographic imagery of power, race, masculinity, violence and faith to challenge the values and ideologies attached to those images. He came to UW–Madison in 2013 as the Arts Institute’s Interdisciplinary Artist in Residence, and he returned in the fall of 2014 to join the Art Department as a faculty member.

During this period, the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families released the “Race to Equity” report that put the spotlight on the Madison area’s profound racial disparities in education, child welfare and the criminal justice system, among other realms. Three- quarters of Dane County’s African-American children live in poverty, compared to 5 percent of white children, the 2013 report explained. Half of all black high school students don’t graduate on time. And black juveniles, the report noted, were six times more likely to be arrested than white juveniles.

While such inequities are deep-rooted, Abdu’Allah has a unique ability to infuse people with confidence that the future doesn’t have to look like the past.

“Anyone with support will fly,” he says this fall while hanging out with six Madison-area teens at The Bubbler, a hub within Madison’s Central Public Library that connects artists to the community via a range of free, hands-on making, exhibitions, and events. “Instead of watching young people become a representation of what some members of society expect, it’s important to help people become the very best of themselves.”

Abdu’Allah’s efforts center on utilizing the arts to connect with young people, nurture their creativity and confidence, and help give them a voice. Each semester for 15 weeks he runs the FauHaus Project, which he launched while visiting campus in 2013 and that he retooled and restarted in 2015. This project connects court-involved and at-risk youth with area artists, resources at The Bubbler, and a unit within the Dane County Department of Human Services.

“When we offer this program to the court-involved youth, an arts program is often the last thing they want to do,” says Alan Chancellor, a program leader with the Neighborhood Intervention Program, which is part of Dane Country Human Services’ Youth Justice Offices. “But we have this hook to get the students involved because it’s often a part of a deferred prosecution agreement, where if they take part in our program for six months and take care of some other business, the charges can go away. So it’s a critical time for them.”

When asked why he agreed to take part in FauHaus, one 15-year-old replied quietly, “I was in a bad place before, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

One October evening, the students met with visiting artist Carlos Gacharná, an alumnus who first helped bring arts to underserved youth as an undergraduate taking a service learning course through Art Department Professor Gail Simpson. Over the years, Gacharná has taught a range of classes at The Bubbler and has partnered with Abdu’Allah and others on restorative justice projects. During this visit to The Bubbler, Gacharná led a pattern design session that included a history lesson on how patterns spread across the globe through the African diaspora.

“We can connect with students in ways that aren’t always possible in schools,” says Gacharná, who lives in Long Beach, Calif. “It’s personalized and a way to disrupt ways in which some students keep getting pushed to the margins.”

Rob Franklin, also known as Rob Dz and the media projects bubblerarian at The Bubbler, adds that by the time some of the youth become involved with the FauHaus project, they are already being written off as “unworthy” or “problematic.”

“That’s frustrating, because these are just kids!” says Franklin, a Kennedy Center certified teaching artist for the Making Justice program who focuses on hip hop, personal branding and spoken word as a positive form of self-expression. “We’ve all made mistakes. These guys are only 14, 15 or 16 years old. Sure, some are at a bit of a crossroads. But programs like this allow us to make connections and help students view themselves and the world in a different way.”

The students have gotten involved in art-related activities like painting, printmaking, spoken word, performance and photography, while contributing to discussions pertaining to identity and representation in visual culture. The art produced stems from the participants’ stories and experiences.

“I’ve learned that I really enjoy art,” says one 15-year-old.

FauHaus is linked to the Madison Library’s Making Justice Program, which was initially developed as a Wisconsin Idea initiative in partnership with Nancy Buenger and UW–Madison’s iSchool. Making Justice was seeded, in part, by grants from both UW–Madison’s Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment and the Morgridge Center for Public Service, along with a National Leadership Grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

“What’s unique about the program and what makes it work are the individuals involved,” says Chancellor, who highlights the efforts of Abdu’Allah, Franklin and Bubbler teen services librarian Jesse Vieau. “There are many programs that try and deliver something — but it doesn’t mean it’s received well by the target audience or it has any value to the wider community.”

When asked if FauHaus has value in the eyes of the Neighborhood Intervention Program and the Dane County Human Services’ Youth Justice Offices, Chancellor says: “It’s extremely valuable. I only wish more kids could take advantage of it.”

FauHaus is also part of the new UW Com- munity Arts Collaboratory, which was made possible via the School of Education’s inaugural Grand Challenges Engage grant competition. Grand Challenges was launched in February 2017 to back interdisciplinary teams to address critical problems that span the arts, health and education. The Collaboratory, which is led by School of Education faculty members Erica Halverson (Department of Curriculum and Instruction), Kate Corby (Dance Department) and Abdu’Allah, provides artmaking opportunities for youth to cultivate wellness and advocate for social change.

“I think the real impact from FauHaus will be in the next five to 10 years,” says Abdu’Allah. “We have testimony from students talking about the impact this has made on their lives. I need to think of next steps on how I can collect more data over time and prove its worth.”

For now, Abdu’Allah says simply: “I’m confident that our work here, and our partnership with The Bubble, offers a space of imagination and infinite possibilities.”

Zemke gift supporting ‘sifting and winnowing’ via occupational science research

UW–Madison alumna Ruth Zemke didn’t grow up in Oconto Falls, Wisconsin, with dreams of becoming an occupational therapist.

In fact, she had never heard of the profession before seeing a brochure explaining the field at her local library as a teenager.

“When I was young, everyone thought I was going to be a kindergarten teacher and that I’d go to the local teachers’ college,” says Zemke. “But I had my heart set on going to Madison and that brochure changed my life.”

After earning her bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy at UW–Madison in 1965 and working as an OT for several years, Zemke went on to earn her master’s and a doctorate at Iowa State en route to becoming one of the top scholars and leaders in the field. In 2017, during the centennial celebration of occupational therapy as a profession, Zemke was named one of OT’s “100 Influential People” by the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA).

Among her many accomplishments, Zemke is regarded as a pioneer in the development of occupational science, which is the study of human participation in the world. This discipline examines how engagement in occupation can address global health concerns by promoting health, well-being, and quality of life across the lifespan. The founding of this new field has not only led to significant breakthroughs but has helped open major funding streams for occupation-related research. Similarly, Zemke is recognized as a leading figure in establishing occupational science for occupational therapy in Japan. For these efforts and more, she received the prestigious 2018 AOTA Award of Merit. “One of the things that always stuck with me from my time at UW–Madison is this concept of what knowledge is all about,” says

Zemke, who spent the bulk of her career as an internationally recognized professor at the University of Southern California, where she headed the OT graduate program. “There’s the plaque on Bascom Hall that talks about ‘fearless sifting and winnowing.’ It’s this idea that once you learn something you don’t have the answer and know it all – but that we must continuously be searching for the truth.”

To help celebrate the 75th anniversary of UW–Madison’s OT program and to help bolster its research efforts, Ruth and Wayne Zemke have made a generous donation to the OT program to establish the Zemke Fund in Occupational Science Research. “Sifting and winnowing is at the core of what I did as a researcher and my hope is we can give a boost to people trying to get their research projects up and running,” says Ruth Zemke. Ruth and Wayne were college sweethearts and married while Ruth was pursuing her undergraduate degree in OT at UW–Madison.

Wayne holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering from UW–Madison. The Zemke Fund in Occupational Science Research is made possible, the couple explains, in part due to an inheritance left by Ruth’s father, Victor Bast. Bast spent his career as an educator and principal, and also is an alumnus of UW–Madison, having earned his master’s degree from the School of Education.

“We’re all Badgers and wanted to give back to this great university,” says Wayne Zemke, a native of West Allis who went on to become a highly regarded engineer and a mechanical engineering faculty member at Cal Poly Pomona. “We both grew up in Wisconsin and this place is special to us.”

For information about making a gift or other donations to the School of Education, please visit supportuw.org/giveto/education

Faculty and staff from across UW–Madison’s School of Education are routinely quoted or making their voices heard in newspapers, magazines and online news media outlets. Similarly, these experts are often interviewed and showcased on a range of local, regional and national radio and television news reports. Over the past year, there have been more than 100 School of Education-related media mentions. Following are a few examples from the past several months. 

Nathan speaks with Wall Street Journal about study-with-me videos

UW–Madison’s Mitchell Nathan is quoted in a June report from the Wall Street Journal that examined the explosion of so-called study-with-me videos.

The WSJ report is headlined, “Quiet! I’m Cramming for Finals — By Watching Someone Else Study,” and it explains that “as the school year ends, many students are watching videos of others hitting the books.”

The report notes: “In a tidy corner of the internet, a diligent class of students film themselves studying and post the videos online. They solve problem sets, revise worksheets, color-code notes and make flashcards — inviting viewers to study with them.”

The Wall Street Journal adds: “Some students may feel isolated when they’re up late studying. Having a video on in the background can feel like having a study buddy.”

“I think the people making these videos are tapping into a need where you want to be social without being disrupted from your study goals,” Nathan tells the Wall Street Journal for the report. “Think of it like parallel play. This is parallel studying: You’re ignoring each other, but that’s still much more preferable than doing it all by yourself.”

Nathan is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Learning Sciences with the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Educational Psychology.

Diverse Issues spotlights
UW-Madison’s Jackson

Jerlando Jackson is featured in a special September edition of Diverse Issues in Higher Education, with the magazine showcasing the accomplishments of distinguished professors of color.

Jackson is the Vilas Distinguished Professor of Higher Education, and chair of the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. He also is director and chief research scientist of Wisconsin’s Equity and Inclusion Laboratory (Wei LAB).

Diverse Issues notes that Jackson was the first African American to be selected by UW–Madison as a Vilas Distinguished Professor in 2012.

“I was very pleased that my department, School of Education and university felt that my body of work, including my contributions on campus, warranted the distinction,” Jackson tells Diverse Issues. “I quickly also learned that these distinctions come with responsibilities to take on important university service obligations.”

In other reports…

• School of Education Dean Diana Hess appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Morning Show” in September to talk about the importance of civics education. Hess has spent much of her career researching the impact of school-based civic education programs and how students experience and learn from discussions of highly controversial political issues. Such discourse is at the heart of a democratic education, Hess tells WPR, and these discussions help students understand diverse points of view and become more politically engaged adults.
• Wisconsin Life in September produced an in-depth look at the remarkable work of Helen Lee, who is a master glassblower. Lee is a faculty member with the School of Education’s Art Department, where she heads the university’s highly regarded Glass Lab. “Glass has this really alien behavior,” says Lee. “How do you interact with something that’s changing its behavior as you work with it? It’s just really captivating to me.” The report explains how Lee’s glass artwork has been exhibited across the globe and how growing up bilingual, much of her work explores language. Wisconsin Life is co-produced by Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television.
• The Chronicle of Higher Education in July posted a report examining “education deserts,” with the newspaper making note of the expertise of Nicholas Hillman, who has conducted significant research on this topic. Hillman is an associate professor with the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. The article explores the breadth and impact of the pockets of the country in which it’s difficult for place-bound students to get to college, otherwise known as education deserts. “What would it take to make sure that distance doesn’t prevent students from obtaining a college degree? Making geography a bigger part of the conversation about college fit would be a start, according to Nicholas Hillman,” the article explains.
• A July article from Men’s Health about the dangers of football for young players’ brains quotes Julie Stamm and her research. Stamm, who leads UW–Madison’s anatomy courses, is an associate lecturer with the School of Education’s Department of Kinesiology. Men’s Heath notes that a 2017 study co-authored by Stamm in the journal Translational Psychiatry found that “people who started playing tackle football before age 12 doubled their risk of having behavioral problems and cognitive impairment, and tripled their risk of suffering from depression later in life. The increased risks did not change based on how many years they had played, the number of concussions they had, or whether they played through high school, college, or the pros,” the article explained.
• The work of Gear Learning, a game development studio that is led by Michael Beall and housed within the School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research, was highlighted in the June issue of In Business magazine. Gear Learning has a focus on the collaboration between subject matter experts and game designers, and its location in Madison gives the studio an advantage. Beall told In Business that Madison is the most potent hub of game development in the Midwest, and the Madison area is full of innovation and creativity. “Thanks to the foresight of Diana Hess, dean of the School of Education, and Bob Mathieu, director of WCER, Gear Learning is positioned to have tremendous impact in the field of games for learning,” Beall tells In Business. “As part of the UW–Madison campus, I am in regular meetings with some of the world’s foremost experts in areas like astronomy, pharmaceuticals, women’s health, astro-botany, and others. Through games, we bring together amazing people, all of whom seek to leverage the power of games to engage and educate.”
• UW–Madison’s Bianca Baldridge is the author of an op-ed published in September by the Black Youth Project that explains how afterschool youth work can be both beneficial and harmful, as it perpetuates deficit-based narratives that frame black and Latinx youth as culturally deprived, academically unmotivated, and in need of saving. Baldridge is an assistant professor with the Department of Educational Policy Studies. She is a sociologist of education and youth worker, and the author of the forthcoming book, “Reclaiming Community: Race and the Uncertain Future of Youth Work.”

GPS and other technology helping athletes find fitness faster

By Käri Knutson, University Communications

Sure, Rachel Dawson knew that GPS could tell athletes how far they had gone.

But she had no idea that it could also show how fast an athlete accelerates or decelerates, or how far or high they jump.

“I knew nothing,” the senior kinesiology major said.

That’s just a sampling of what she learned in “Sports Science & Athlete Monitoring,” a new three-week Summer Term course taught by David Bell, an associate professor with the School of Education’s Department of Kinesiology and the director of the Wisconsin Injury in Sport Laboratory.

The upper-level class focused on the most popular technologies in the field of human performance in an effort to teach UW–Madison students how to collect data, interpret the information and use it in a meaningful way. It’s believed to be the only class that combines technology use and athletics that is aimed at undergraduates.

Throughout the class, students used GPS trackers during activities including basketball, flag football, Ultimate Frisbee and Capture the Flag.

“In and of themselves, they don’t look that impressive,” Bell said of the small trackers. “But when you turn them on, they talk to satellites and they can give you very detailed information.”

How detailed?

The data shows during one activity that one student ran 53 meters at more than 12 mph. And another speedy student ran 12 meters at more than 17 mph.

Students take the data to create graphs and charts that they can use to determine what needs to be worked on. While high-speed running is important, too much can lead to injury. Too little can lead to lackluster performance on the field.

“There’s a sweet spot (in athletic performance),” Bell said, “and the data can help find it.”

Most of the students in the class plan on going into athletic training or physical therapy. Technology can aid both, says Dan Schaefer, a third-year doctoral student who serves as a teaching assistant for the class.

“When you’re a sports scientist or coach, you need to build drills to improve fitness,” Schaefer said. “This helps us make sure we’re doing the right amount of work and we build up throughout the season or off-season. It gives us a tangible number and lets us know if we are heading in the right direction.”

While it’s being used for college and professional athletes, technology is no stranger to amateur athletes. The beeping from a sea of runners’ watches at any race will tell you that.

Some of this technology is already being used by amateur athletes and more will likely come. That’s one of the reasons Bell wanted to teach this course.

As an athletic trainer, Bell has been trying to predict injuries for nearly two decades. Technology is a valuable tool — but it’s just a tool, not magic.

“Injury prediction in humans is really hard to do. If it was as simple as one thing, we would have figured it out a long time ago,” said Bell, who is currently conducting groundbreaking research on young athletes who specialize in one sport, and how this can lead to injuries and burnout. “Human bodies are a lot more complicated than that.”

And while technology can be a motivator, whether we’re tracking our steps or tracking our miles, it’s not going to sweat for you.

“You need to have these expectations of what technology can do for you and they need to be measured expectations,” says Bell, who is now offering the course during the fall, spring and summer sessions.

In Imaging Self, high school students explore the arts — and themselves — in a college setting

One by one, high school students stepped forward to show an audience who they really are.

Julien Johnson recited his poem, “Thinking … Not Living,” about transcending limitations.

Grace Greene sang her song, “Untitled,” about overcoming doubt and fear.

Rowan Suhre performed his movement piece, “Walking in Heels,” about struggling for personal growth.

The students spoke their truth in a July 27 showcase for Imaging Self (Integrated Art 330), a new summer program from UW–Madison’s School of Education. Elsewhere in the Education Building’s airy Morgridge Commons atrium, fellow classmates demonstrated printmaking techniques and displayed artwork they’d created during their transformative experience at UW–Madison.

Imaging Self is a three-week residential program in which high school students build their arts portfolios while earning college credit. They gain access to UW–Madison’s world-class facilities, working with faculty and practicing artists. The goal is to learn more about themselves through personal expression in visual art, dance and theater, as well as making connections among various art forms.

Johnson came to the program with experience in writing and music, and was surprised by how much he liked visual art. He also appreciated the chance to focus intensely on self-expression for three weeks.

“I enjoyed the fact that I got to dive deep into conversations about who I want to be, which is something I don’t usually get to talk about,” says Johnson, a student at Milwaukee County’s Brown Deer High School. “The focus was on our own image of ourselves, and not how others want us to be.”

Greene is interested in theater but discovered a new way of expressing herself at UW–Madison’s internationally famous Glass Lab. She also made friends while learning that she could handle herself at a Big Ten university.

“I was looking for an experience beyond what I was getting in high school,” says Greene, from Fox Point, Wisconsin. “I came out of it with a newfound understanding of what it’s like to live in a dorm and to be an arts student on a college campus.”

Thinking creatively

Imaging Self immersed students in a wide range of experiences. Along with their classes in visual art, dance and theater, they engaged with visiting artists in creative writing, music, and other disciplines. They attended shows at the Overture Center for the Arts, the Chazen Museum of Art, University Theatre and American Players Theatre, getting a behind-the-scenes peek at each venue. They also learned the secrets of composing a college application essay at the UW–Madison Writing Center. In the evenings, they enjoyed free time and activities planned by their resident advisers.

“There was so much going on, and it was so exciting for both the students and the instructors,” says John Hitchcock, associate dean for the arts at the School of Education. “Imaging Self got students to think creatively outside their normal routine and to work collaboratively.”

The Summer 2019 edition of Imaging Self (Integrated Art 330) will take place July 7–21, 2019.

For more details visit: summer.wisc.edu/imaging-self/ 

TV series highlights Stovall’s struggle for equity at Chicago-area school

By Nick Heynen, Division of Diversity, Equity and educational Achievement

For a self-described shy person, Jessica Stovall is making some big waves these days.

The 34-year old “Badger fanatic” and graduate of the UW–Madison School of Education spent the past 11 years teaching at the Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRF) in the suburbs of Chicago.

She’s been showered with accolades, including Illinois’ Golden Apple Teacher of Distinction and the Fulbright Distinguished Teacher Award, which allowed her to spend several months in New Zealand researching the country’s efforts to address the achievement gap between Maori and non-Maori students.

This past summer, she made the leap to the small screen as a subject in the documentary series “America to Me” by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Steve James (“Hoop Dreams” and “Life Itself”). The 10-espisode series, which premiered Aug. 26 on STARZ and ran through Oct. 21, followed students, teachers and administrators over the course of a year as they grapple with racial and educational inequities.

Stovall made time to chat prior to the launch of the series, and just before she packed her belongings into her 2009 Pontiac to drive across the country in August with her mother to Stanford University, where she started working toward her Ph.D. this fall.

Q: How did you get involved with this documentary?

A: I had been working at OPRF since I graduated from UW– Madison in 2007 (in secondary education). When the school board approved the documentary, Steve James and the rest of the filmmakers started interviewing faculty, students, community members and parents, and I started to explore getting involved. They initially said it was just going to be for a week or two and that with a few teachers they may stay longer. Then they ended up staying for the full year. So I didn’t know what exactly I was signing up for. What it wound up being is a year in the life of one American public high school, but I think that people will find that it really is a microcosm for what is going on in schools across the U.S.

Q: What did you take away from the experience?

A: It’s a special experience to be vulnerable on screen. When you’re a woman of color on predominantly white campuses like UW–Madison or Northwestern or at OPRF, which has a predominantly white teaching staff, you can feel like you are alone; like your experiences are unique to you. Being in the documentary helped me see how my experiences are not unique. Hearing from people who watched it who say they saw themselves in me has been really powerful and energizing. It’s been a good touchstone for me as I think about my future research into supporting teachers of color in classrooms at predominantly white institutions.

Q: What do you think are some steps we can take as a society to help close the racial achievement gap in the U.S.?

A: We need to start having real conversations about race and how race has impacted our lived experiences and outcomes. When all those studies came out showing that young girls were not going into STEM fields, institutions put a lot of energy and attention into the problem and have made amazing gains since then. Now imagine if we did that for issues of race.

Kids connect with robot reading partners

By Chris Barncard, University Communications

Kids learn better with a friend. They’re more enthusiastic and understand more if they dig into a subject with a companion, previous research has shown.

But what if that companion is artificial?

Researchers at UW–Madison built a robot named Minnie to serve as a reading buddy to middle school kids. And a study showed that Minnie’s new friends grew more excited about books and more attached to the robot over two weeks of reading together.

“After one interaction, the kids were generally telling us that, sure, it was nice to have someone to read with,” says Joseph Michaelis, a graduate student with the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Educational Psychology. “But by the end of two weeks, they’re talking about how the robot was funny and silly and afraid, and how they’d come home looking forward to seeing it again.”

In August, Michaelis and computer sciences professor Bilge Mutlu published their work with Minnie in the journal Science Robotics.

“Most interesting to me is that we know social learning strengthens interest and motivation,” says Michaelis, who taught high school science before returning to graduate school. “A lot of kids who don’t like reading, in particular, point out that it’s an isolated activity, and people just sort of accept that isolation. But it can be demotivating and harder to learn and understand in that situation.”

The researchers designed a two-week reading program, including 25 books representing a range of reading skill and story complexity. They programmed Minnie to be an interested listener. The children in the study read aloud to the robot, which could track their progress in the book and react to the story — every few pages or so, especially during important moments in the plot — with one of hundreds of preprogrammed comments.

Michaelis and Mutlu, whose work is supported by the National Science Foundation, see Minnie helping to spur otherwise reluctant students on in all sorts of academic tasks, and have already begun testing a version of the robot that shares in science studies.

“This idea is in its infancy. But now we know if you carefully design this, it can actually sustain interaction and heighten kids’ emotional experience with reading,” Mutlu says. “That’s a huge achievement.”

Several media outlets, including CNN and Popular Science, reported on the study.

Doctoral student Wicker knows university experience from the inside

By Doug Erickson, University Communications

For years, Paris Wicker’s job was to help students succeed at college. Now she’s taking her own advice.

Wicker, who started as a doctoral student with the School of Education this fall, worked the last decade in admissions and student affairs at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. When she left Lawrence in August, she was serving as associate dean of students for student transition, support and persistence.

“Now I’m the one in transition,” says Wicker, a Chicago native. “I need to keep reminding myself of all those things I told students time after time.”

Wicker is a Ph.D. fellow in a new program for doctoral students across three departments: sociology, educational policy studies, and educational leadership and policy analysis. The program is for students interested in drawing from sociological perspectives to research and teach about issues of race and inequality in education.

In her work experience, Wicker says she saw many students struggle with mental health concerns. She plans to research trauma and mental health-informed practices within higher education, especially in regards to retaining students of color.

When asked why she chose UW–Madison for her doctoral work, Wicker says: “It has such a strong research component, and the School of Education is always among the highest ranked in the country.”

Two from School receive Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Awards

Seven students from across UW–Madison — including two from the School of Education — were selected in October as recipients of the highly competitive Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Awards.

UW–Madison boasts the highest number of DDRA awardees of any university in the nation for 2018. Fulbright-Hays DDRA Awards provide funds to doctoral students to conduct research outside the United States in foreign languages and area studies for up to 12 months. The awards are funded through the U.S. Department of Education’s International and Foreign Language Education office.

The two students from the School of Education who received these awards are:

Diana Famakinwa, advised by Lesley Bartlett, Educational Policy Studies. Famakinwa will spend eight months examining the engagement of the African diaspora in the development and internationalization of higher education in Nigeria and its implications for Nigeria’s place in the “global knowledge economy.”

Choua Xiong, advised by Stacey Lee, Educational Policy Studies. Xiong’s dissertation examines how HMoob (Hmong) youth navigate exclusionary educational practices of citizenship and belonging in Phetchabun Province, Thailand. Xiong will spend 12 months observing and participating in youth activities inside and outside of school spaces focusing on how students, teachers, and the HMoob community talk about culture, national belonging, and citizenship rights and responsibilities.

Around the School …

• Ellie Bruecker, a doctoral student with the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, is becoming known as an expert on issues related to the federal government’s free application for financial aid, or FAFSA, form. In October, she spoke with two media outlets covering FAFSA-related topics. She was interviewed by Inside Higher Ed for a report highlighting a new “myStudentAid” mobile app that’s designed to help more applicants finish the application. And that same month she spoke with the USA Today Network-Wisconsin chain of newspapers about how large numbers of high school seniors across Wisconsin are missing a chance for college aid by not filling out the FAFSA form.
• Gabbie Taschwer (left) and two fellow members of the 2018 USA Water Ski Show Team became the first female trio ever to perform a triple helicopter spin in competition. The record-setting feat occurred Sept. 8 at the Show Ski World Championships in Ontario, Canada. The three sailed off a ski jump, spun 360 degrees in the air, and stuck the landing. “It was such a thrill and an honor to ski with people I’ve looked up to all my life,” says Taschwer, who is set to graduate this winter with a bachelor’s degree from the School of Education’s Department of Kinesiology.
• Rui Li in September was awarded a prestigious Doctoral Dissertation Grant from The International Research Foundation (TIRF) for English Language Education. Li is a Ph.D. candidate with the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She is now one of 130 grantees from 26 different countries who have received this award since 2002. Her project that’s being funded is titled, “Multimodal Learning and Communication Through Transnational Digital Storytelling.”
• Brett Nachman was elected in August to the national board of directors for the honor society of Phi Kappa Phi. Nachman, a Ph.D. student with the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, will serve as the graduate student representative on the board for the next two years.