ed. magazine, fall 2011
DESCRIPTION
The alumni magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, fall 2011 edition. Stories include a look at how a one-room schoolhouse and a drafty old shanty let to the college presidency for David Wilson; why more educators are starting to accept Wikipedia; and how teachers are starting to use smartphones and other mobile gadgets to take classes.TRANSCRIPT
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Ed THE MAGAZINE OF THE HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCA
FALL
accepting Wikipedia | the book doctor | Larsen’s quirkiness
How a one-room schoolhouseand a drafty old shanty ledto the college presidency.
David Wilson’s Path
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the appian way
Dean Kathleen McCartney may not be Zdeno Chara,
and the Sunken Garden may not have been the TD
Garden, but a cup nonetheless was raised to help
the Ed School community celebrate the Boston
Bruins victory over the Vancouver Canucks a week
after the hometown team won the Stanley Cup —
their first since 1972. And while the Bruins only had
ice, the Ed School had ice cream.
June 21, 2011
the big picture
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The Road TakenMorgan State University President
David Wilson, Ed.M.’84, Ed.D.’87,
goes home — to the red dirt roads,the one-room schoolhouse, and
the next generation with the same
urgent desire to learn.
f e a t u
r e s
Truce Be Told Just a few years after banning Wikipedia,
some educators are starting to make peace
with the popular online encyclopedia that
anyone can write and edit.
Ed. received bragging
rights and a gold circle
CASE award — the only
one given for cover
design — as the best
alumni magazine
cover for our fall
2010 issue!
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4 Pushback
6 The Appian Way
30 Alumni News and Notes
40 Recess
41 Investing
www.gse.harvard.edu
events www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/eventstwitter www.twitter.com/hgse
facebook www.facebook.com/harvardeducation
youtube www.youtube.com/harvardeducation
flickr www.ickr.com/photos/harvardeducation
issuu www.issuu.com/harvardeducation
foursquare www.foursquare.com/hgse
Called “poignant,”
“powerful,” and “one
of the best,” the Ed
School’s contribution tthe It Gets Better Proje
was a four-minute vide
that debuted in July. Th
video features students
staff, and faculty who share their stories of being
bullied, of coming out, or of feeling alone while
growing up — stories that, as Dean Kathleen
McCartney said, may move you to tears.
When Jim True-Frost
was preparing for his
character to switch ca-reers from cop to teach
on the HBO series, The
Wire, he didn’t immers
himself in every book o
movie about the profes
sion. He didn’t have to — the groundwork had
already been laid by years of conversations with h
wife, who had been a public school teacher. True-
Frost told the Harvard EdCast this past summer,
was vividly schooled by Cora.”
16
d e p a r t m e n t s
SENIOR WRITER/EDITOR
Lory [email protected]
PRODUCTION MANAGER/EDITOR
Marin Jorgensen
DESIGNER
Paula Telch Cooney
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
Michael Rodman
COMMUNICATIONS INTERN
Rachael Apfel
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Jill AndersonRachael Apfel
Chris Buttimer, Ed.M.’10
Mark Robertson, Ed.M.’08
Janet Sudnik
COPYEDITOR
Abigail Mieko Vargus
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Jill Anderson
Steve Barrett
Cheryl Gray
Tanit Sakakini
Martha Stewart
Robert Sutton
a click awaystories and links found only online
ILLUSTRATORS
Matt CooneyDavid Cutler
Daniel Vasconcellos
© 2011 by the President and
Fellows of Harvard College.
Ed. magazine is published
three times a year. Third-class
postage paid at Holliston, Mass.
and additional offices.
POSTMASTER:
Send address changes to:
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Office of Communications
44R Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
To read Ed. online, go
www.gse.harvard.edu
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Quiz KidsI enjoyed your article in the latest Ed.
My wife, Carol VanDeusen Lukas,
Ed.M.’71, Ed.D.’78, is a graduate. I
served as the state coordinator for the
Massachusetts Academic Decathlon for
25 years and actually began the contest
in the state back in 1984 at Cambridge
Rindge and Latin. The contest contin-
ues today with more than 35 schoolscompeting and sends a championship
team to the national contest each year.
One aspect of the contest that schools
like is that the nine-person team must
have students with B and C averages.
Thus, it is not just a contest for top
students to enter. This has proved very
successful. In addition, there is a special
curriculum prepared each year that
the students must study in order to do
well. It includes seven academic areas
plus preparing to write an essay, givea speech, and be interviewed. Often
the material in the study guides is not
something students would normally
study in the regular classes. One small
correction: Your spellchecker needs
checking. There is no second “a” in
Decathlon. This is a common mistake
and has even appeared in headlines
about our events.
— Henry Lukas
Hungry For ChangeI nd it odd that there is no mention
in this article (“Lunch Line,” summer
2011) of any initiatives or data from
the Boston Public Schools for whichthe author sits on the school commit-
tee. There are a few schools in Boston
working on this issue with programs
like Chefs in School or Farm to School
Thursdays. The real issue lies within
the more than 80 schools that are so-
called “satellite schools,” where the
district offers an RFP and gives the con-
tract to the lowest bidder, not necessar-
ily the best provider. We need to really
change the way we provide nutrition
and education about nutrition and
wellness as we are nearing a tragedy
concerning the health of our children
and young adults. We need to prepareour children for the future not only
academically, but holistically as well.
— Kenny Jervis
Caution: Speed Bumps AheadIn consideration of older readers with
less than 20-20 vision, would you
consider minimizing those artistic page
layouts where print is superimposed on
What an interesting article (“Quiz Kids,”
summer 2011). I just graduated from
Newton North High School, where I par
in a variety of academic competitions, al
of them science related. Our team had a
lot of success, and in relation to the res
of the state, we did far better than mo
athletic teams in the school. Neverthele
never felt as though we got nearly as m
attention as the athletic teams, wheth
from our peers or the school administra
which never helped fund the costs such
as transportation and study materials. I
nice to see that at some high schools, th
academic teams get more attention.
— Jazzkingrt
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a darkened or colored background?
I was interested in the piece about a
“green” Harvard building. Reading the text, which threaded its way
through rugs and chairs and people,
was like driving on a country road and
having to slow down for mud puddles.
In one zone there was yellow print on
light brown background. I suppose
some people like to read articles this
way; for me, it interrupts the ow of
my thinking.
— Christian Melgard
A Return to Her Roots
Ms. Mosca (“A to B: Why Erica Mosca
Cares,” summer 2011) was by far the
best teacher ever. She inspired us to
do better, helped us out with anything,
and encouraged us to set bigger goals
for our lives. I feel lucky to have had
her as my fth-grade teacher.
— Natalie P.
Ms. Mosca was the best teacher I ever
had in my life. From the day I started
school until now, I have never met abetter teacher than Ms. Mosca.
— Brandon P.
I love my teacher Ms. Mosca, she
inspires me to do more!
— Linda L.
Good luck, Erica. They are cutting
education in Nevada. Excellent teach-
ers are leaving in droves to go to other
states. The people here do not need
education. They only need people
as hotel maids, servers, valet parkers,and “paid entertainers.” Just be sure
to bring with you loads of patience,
tenacity, and smarts. It will be a long,
hard ght.
— Tula6249
Soldier OnEvery word
written here
(“Not the War
Umesh Sharma
Expected,”
summer 2011)
compels us to move out of our
grooves and be a ghter. Place
doesn’t matter, be it the battleeld,
corporate grounds, or the ght for
humanity.
— Gilbert_cool11
Umesh, you are a brave man in-
deed — and ambitious. There are
American soldiers who become intel-
lectuals after they leave the militarylife, but not the other way. I wish you
success in your chosen career. It is
wonderful to think that you can still
continue to use your laptop.
— Bhuban Baruah
Nice article! Umesh is a living ex-
ample that proves hard work will reap
results! He has gone through difcult
times in his life but his determination
to succeed kept him following his
dreams. I have known him for the pastfew years because he was my house-
mate in Washington, D.C. I wish him
the best in all his endeavors.
— Saji
L.A.’s Finest We’ll be lucky and happy to welcome
this gentleman (“Study Break: Ryan
Shepard, Ed.M.’11,” summer 2011)
into the ranks of policymaker and
education advocate for our kids!
Congrats Ryan, and greatstory, HGSE team.
— Anthony Jewett, Ed.L.D.
candidate
I really like your response
for what motivates you.
I can truly relate to the
internal clock that indi-
cates our progression, and
I feel that in order to reach
your purpose, you must
be intimately in sync with
that clock. Good luck with
the Los Angeles move;
I know you will make a
signicant impact in the
community.
— Misgana
Parenting ProgressI attended HGSE from 1975–79. I
exited with a dossier two and half
inches thick asking for exceptions.
At the time, I had three childrenand served in the New Hampshire
legislature. Because I knew no excep-
tions would be granted for childcare, I
made all my requests for leniency rest
on professional obligations. It’s good
to see (“A Room With A View,” sum-
mer 2011) that the Ed School is nally
realizing that good parenting is part of
good education.
— Ruth Nemzoff, C.A.S.’76, Ed.D.’79
Corrections A couple of details about Jen Holleran
were incorrect in the last issue of Ed.
Holleran graduated in 1995, not 2005.
She also served as executive director
of Bay Area for New Leaders, not
CEO. In the same issue, we also iden-
tied Natasha Kumar Warikoo as an
associate professor at the Ed School.
She is currently an assistant professor.
pushback
D
A N I E L V A S C O N C E L L O S
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B R I G E T G A N S K E
E L E N A G O R M L E Y
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the appian way All of us a
professio
schools
are in the
‘knowled
and actio
business
What are the limits of the dream?
I identify four: that science cannot
settle questions of value, that experts
cannot settle questions of democracy,
that social science is epistemologi-
cally limited, and that social policy is
just one input on people’s lives. One
contention in the book is that we at
professional schools now know at some
level the original dream is awed,
and tell our students as much, but we
continue to act as if the old equation
is true because we don’t have much to
replace it with.
Can this be changed?
A goal for the latter part of the book
is to try to reconstruct a thicker view
of how to connect knowledge to public
action, one that recognizes the impor-
tance of values, welcomes democratic
decisionmaking, is aware of the limits
of different forms of knowledge, and
is not utopian in its aims but is still
hopeful about how we can make public
progress on a range of social problems.
What do you mean by connecting knowledge and action?
All of us at professional schools are
in the “knowledge and action” busi-
ness — we hope to develop knowledge
or teach students things that will help
people act for better in the world. The
question I’m interested in is what sorts
of knowledge actually enable people
to act more effectively. Sometimes in
the academy we act as if the only sort
of knowledge is scientic knowledge.
Effective practitioners possess what
Aristotle called phronesis, or practical
wisdom drawn from experience.
How did you get interested in all of this?
I grew up in Baltimore, which is a city
that is as divided as any I know by race
and class. Where in Baltimore you grew
up very likely determined what kind of
opportunities you were going to have in
life. That seemed very unfair to me as akid, and it seems just as unfair now. My
work is motivated by trying to remedy
that injustice.
And you think schools are an important
part of the equation?
I started by getting a Ph.D. in sociology
and social policy, and continue to be
interested in the range of social policies
and institutions that can be used to
remedy inequality, but have come to see
schools as potentially the most trans-formative lever for breaking cycles of
intergenerational poverty.
What about your own school
experience?
A big inuence on my work has been
my parents, who were both educators,
and my school, the Park School, which
prided itself on promoting critical
thinking and student inquiry. I believe
strongly that educational environ-
ments should be lively, interesting, and
challenging places. Schools are not
only places that help people get jobs,
they are also places that can potentially
transform who people are, what they
value, and how they think.
You joke about thinking too much in
your own life.
I love to think about things — you can
ask my wife, I’m terribly impractical —
and I think there is beauty and honor
in really thinking hard, which is partof what makes schools potentially such
special places. In that sense, all of the
projects I’m involved with are moti-
vated by the question of how we could
give the kind of education I had to all
of our fellow citizens.
You had a son, Alex, this year. Has
that changed your perspective on any
of this?
It reminds me that we don’t just want
our kids to be educated. We alsowant them to be happy. In theory, it
matters if he makes his developmenta
milestones; in practice, all I want
is to make him smile and hear him
laugh. He also has been very popular
with the students — they’ve already
recruited him for the “I’m Always Fo
Better” campaign.
— Lory Hough
tul Gawande’s book, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, became a favorite among
Jal Mehta’s students at the Ed School — they even made related t-shirts — because it
embodies an attitude Mehta has long admired: Make do with what you have, and try
to leave everything a bit better than you found it.
This is exactly what Mehta is trying to do for education reform through his various research projects, including The
Chastened Dream, a book-in-progress that has him on leave for the next year to be a fellow at Harvard’s Charles Warren
Center for Studies in American History. The book explores the idea — the dream — that social science can inform social
policy to achieve social progress. Institutions like the Ed School were started with this dream in mind. Mehta believes
in the dream, too, but he’s also a pragmatist: He knows that reality, especially the reality of fixing schools, is much
more complicated. Still, he remains optimistic. In July, he spoke to Ed. about the limits of the dream, what motives him,
and why being impractical isn’t such a bad thing.
Assistant Professor Jal Mehtalecturehall“
A
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the appian way
I remember watching Michael Douglas’
Gordon Gekko proclaim, “Greed is good”
in the TV trailer for Wall Street when I was in
middle school. I don’t think I ever saw the movie
until much later in life, but I remember being
attracted to the lifestyle portrayed on the TV
screen — the limos, the women, the ashing
computer screens, and just the overall frenetic
and exciting lifestyle that everyone who worked
on Wall Street seemed to be living.
When I graduated from college at the height
of a market boom, I decided I’d try my hand
at becoming the next Gordon Gekko. I worked
as a Wall Street trader in Boston rst, and then
in New York. What I found was a workplace envi-
ronment and overall lifestyle that I loathed. My
coworkers routinely withheld information from
each other, fudged numbers, stabbed friends in
the back for bonuses, and used their connections
to get ahead, undeservedly so in many cases. After
ve years in nance, I decided I had had enough.
Coming back to my hometown of Boston, I
fell into an assistant teaching position at a summer school
program, which I had only planned on doing to make a few
dollars while I applied to graduate school to do something
— anything — other than work on Wall Street. After about a
week of working with the students and seeing how amazingly
smart, funny, kind, and caring they were, I knew that teach-ing was what I wanted to do.
For two years, I worked part-time as an assistant teacher
in the Cambridge Public Schools, while I got my master’s
degree in teaching at night. When I graduated, I took over
for the English teacher at the middle school who was retiring.
I spent my all of my time, energy, and money (the district’s
as well as my own) creating an engaging literary environ-
ment in my classroom where we read great books, discussed
big ideas, and wrote until our hands hurt. In doing so, I was
able to reach about 75 percent of my students effectively;
however, I simply didn’t have the skill set to instruct students
who were three or more grade levels behind their peers andwho struggled with decoding and uency — areas that are
typically, yet erroneously, seen as being the purview of K–5
teachers only.
I came to the Ed School to gain the knowledge required
to teach every one of my students effectively. I gained these
skills in the reading specialist program under Lecturer
Pamela Mason, M.A.T.’70, Ed.D.’75, and I now feel like I
have the tools to either reenter the classroom as an effective
practitioner or to work with teachers to build their capacity
in areas that I was lacking when I began my teaching career.
However, given the school’s expertise in the policy arena,
my coursework exposed me to trends in education reform
that I nd extremely troubling, which is one reason why I
came back to learn more through the Ed.D. Program. Many
of the current reformers at the policy and administrator
levels are embracing neoliberal market-based, corporate-stylreforms, which promote practices that I saw lead to such
greed and corruption on Wall Street. With the advent of
competitive reforms such as merit pay, test-based account-
ability, and market-based systems like vouchers and charters,
we are already seeing unintended consequences in the forms
of cheating, competition for scarce resources, and a system
of winners and losers. These reforms are creating new tiers
in an already stratied education system, thereby threatening
the institution of public education and our nation’s demo-
cratic ideals.
When my time at the Ed School is up, I have a tough deci
sion to make in determining whether to ght for equity forstudents and teachers in the classroom or to take that ght to
policymakers at the state and federal level. Neither of these
roles will give me Gordon Gekko’s lifestyle or salary, but I’m
ne with that because the work I’ll be doing advocating for
kids, families, and teachers will be far more rewarding.
— Chris Buttimer, Ed.M.’10, is currently an Ed.D. student in the
Culture, Communities, and Education Program. He has not seen the
Wall Street sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps , and
doesn’t plan to.
Chris Buttimer Found That Greed Isn’t Gooda tob
DANIEL VASCONCELLOS
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Part of Jewell-Sherman’s collection
Smartphones are used for everything
nowadays. To check our bank accounts
when standing in line at the coffee shop.
To search the web for a favorite recipe
or directions to a store when we’re lost. To lm our
kids playing soccer and to snag photos of celebrities
unexpectedly having dinner at the next table.
What about using one to take a course?
This is what three former students from the Ed School won-
dered. The alums, Heidi Larson, Ed.M.’04, Kirsten Peterson,
Ed.M.98, and Alex Dreier, Ed.M.’10, formed a mobile learn-
ing group at Education Development Center, Inc., where they
all worked in Newton, Mass. Along with their former professor,
Chris Dede, they started talking about the potential of mobile
technology, like the smartphone or a tablet, to teach a profes-
sional development course — something that, surprisingly,
hasn’t really been done before. They decided to send out
a pilot survey to school administrators in New England —
educators who were extremely busy, not often rooted at their
desks, and in need of information quickly. They asked them
if they used smartphones and if so, how.
“We received 92 responses and 70 percent had smart-
phones,” Larson says. However, most were still using them
like traditional cell phones to make calls and maybe send text
messages. “Only 33 percent were using them to keep up with
social networks. We wanted to explore the potential.”
They decided to pilot a small project: a professional devel-
opment course taught and taken using a mobile device andTwitter. (A blog was also set up, but mostly stored links and
discussions.) In March, 20 education administrators signed
on for a three-week course about using data to inform and
support instruction.
Larson, Peterson, Dreier, and Dede didn’t start the
project hoping to prove any point or vindicate any personal
beliefs — they simply wanted to see what the pros and
cons are of primarily using mobile devices to take a course.
(Participants were allowed, on occasion, to use a desktop
computer if necessary.)
“I’m very interested in learning about the limits of mobile
devices,” Dede says. “Too often, people get so excited abouta new technology but only focus on the strengths. It’s hard to
learn much from a project if you work around the limits.”
Using Twitter as their home base, for example, only al-
lowed students to weigh in on a topic using 140 characters.
And because the course was designed to be taken during
small bits of free time — waiting in line for coffee — the
group also wondered about learning in short bursts.
Dreier says, “I was interested in seeing, if participants only
have 10-minute chunks to participate and the conversations
are not overlapping, how deeply can they engage.”
This was a problem for Ellen
Peterson, now an assistant superinten-
dent for Manseld Public Schools in
Manseld, Mass., who was, at the time,
director of teaching, learning, and tech-
nology for Norwell (Mass.) Public Schools. “I like spending
longer chunks of time for professional development rather
than short, frequent contact because I think I can absorb and
reect more.”
She also found that because of Twitter’s character limit,
she didn’t pose as many comments as she might have, and
that she had to check in more often in order to keep up with
the quick pace of posts. Twitter did have one positive side
though: It forced people to be succinct.
“You had to put thought into your comment before post-
ing,” Ellen Peterson says. “It was also a timesaver to read
other posts that were short and to the point.”
Now that the pilot is over, the group is evaluating lessons
learned so that if future funding comes through, they can
run another course. Dreier says that given the variation in
Twitter knowledge, they would spend more time up front
getting everyone comfortable with the platform. Kirsten
Peterson says they would consider combining technology:
mobile devices for conversations and desktop computers for
reading longer pieces.
For future courses, they would also have to address accessissues: Some schools block certain sites, and certain phones
didn’t do well with the multimedia platform Flash or didn’t
have a lot of memory, limiting the ability to share video.
They’re also considering having different course levels, with
some geared toward beginning technology users and some
toward what they call the “super users.”
Ned Kirsch, superintendent of Franklin West Supervisory
Union in Vermont, is one of the super users from the pilot
course. He had already been active on Twitter before the
course started, even teaching his administrative team how to
use Twitter to create an online personal learning network.
After the course ended, Kirsch also developed a coursefor teachers in his district called Digital Personal Learning
Networks. Every teacher who signed on received a stipend fo
an iPad or smartphone. As far as he’s concerned, this is only
the beginning of using mobile learning in schools.
“I had a parent tell us at a board meeting last month, ‘I
love the newsletters I get from everyone at the school, but I
wish the information could come to us on Twitter. Say it in
140 characters. That is all I need.’”
— Lory Hough
Have Phone, Can Learn
ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/EXDEZ
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When the classnote came in from Brian Buckley, Ed.M.’98,
saying that he and his wife, Kate Hunter, had recently
opened an independent bookstore devoted exclusively to
poetry — only the third in the country — there was a col-
lective “wow” in the ofce. For years, it has been a David
and Goliath battle for survival for small, brick-and-mortarbookshops trying to compete against discount chain stores,
Amazon, and, more recently, e-readers.
Even Buckley had his worries, showing up two hours late
for the lease signing because of nerves.
“Starting an independent bookstore is exciting and
daunting,” he says from Boulder, Colo., where the Innisfree
Poetry Bookstore and Cafe is located. “On the one hand,
you’re adding to something that isn’t alive and well in some
places. But people also said, ‘Brian, there’s a reason there
are only two.’”
As it turns out, Buckley’s timing may be just right as
the tables show signs of turning, at least a little. Earlier this
year, one of the big chains, Borders, announced that it was
closing all of its stores. At the same time, the Association
of American Publishers reported that book sales across all
platforms increased by 3.6 percent from 2009 to 2010. Lastsummer, Google announced that it would allow independent
to sell e-books from their websites. And, says Laura Ayrey,
executive director of the Mountains & Plains Independent
Booksellers Association, “Independent stores have been chal-
lenging e-fairness state-by-state by forming coalitions with
other local businesses to amend sales tax legislation, and have
had success in a number of states.” This levels the playing
eld when it comes to the collection and remittance of sales
tax, allowing independent stores to compete with online
vendors like Amazon.
Bricks, Mortar, and a Lot of Yeats
the appian way
Brian, Norah,
Kate, and Clare
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For Buckley and his store, there’s one other critical factor:
the community. Although he and Hunter, who met in a poetry
class when they were both living in Boston, moved to Boulderfor the mountains and good schools for their two young
daughters, the city turned out to be fertile ground for a couple
thinking of starting a risky venture as their full-time paycheck.
“Boulder has a knack for supporting local businesses
and has a thriving art scene,” he says. “There’s even a Jack
Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics here.”
For this reason, and others, he and Hunter have worked
hard to make Innisfree, which is named after the W. B. Yeats
poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” egalitarian. Books by the
classic names in poetry mingle on the shelves with the lesser-
knowns. Twice-weekly in-store readings include beginning
writers as well as established ones. And Innisfree’s selection
isn’t just for academics or adults, unlike the other two poetry
stores (including Grolier’s in Cambridge, Mass., where
Buckley worked when he was an Ed School student). The
store devotes about 20 percent of shelf space to books geared
toward young children and adolescents.
Even poetry disbelievers are welcome.
“People will say to me, ‘I didn’t get poetry at all in high
school. It was too hard,’” Buckley says. “We want that wall
to go away.” Besides luring them in with the wide selection
of books, the shop also offers locally roasted coffee, baked
goods, and sandwiches. For those who don’t have time to
browse the store, ordering online is always an option, as is a
unique feature — a walk-up window that allows people tobuy coffee and books from the sidewalk. Buckley jokes that
it’s their “window into poetry.”
And then there’s the giant table in the middle of the
store. Measuring 10 feet long, it encourages interactions and
sometimes introduces people to new things.
“Someone will see someone else at the table reading
a book and a conversation will start,” Buckley says. “The
community table has brought many people together. Groups
reserve it and when not reserved, spontaneity rules the day.
[There’s] much talk of poets and poetry when readers pull
out their books. One day a poet, Jared Smith, was at the
table and he suddenly started reading a poem out loud atthe behest of the Colorado University students he met at the
table. Others end up conversing and then a poem is suddenly
being read aloud. We love it.”
Buckley was lucky: There was never a wall for him to
tackle when it came to understanding or appreciating poetry.
During junior high, his teacher, Ken Conn, introduced him
to major American writers like Whitman and Dickinson.
And long before that, his Boston community and his family,
particularly his father, an electrician for the MBTA subway
system, surrounded him with verse.
“For me, growing up in West Roxbury, in an Irish Catholi
neighborhood, the Irish pride of the area came out,” Buckle
says. “My father would recite Yeats and Heaney frommemory. The teachers would point with pride at what some
of the Irish poets had accomplished.”
Years later, when he was studying at the Ed School, he
realized poetry could, in fact, be a way to educate people.
“I took a class with Professor Donald Oliver,” he says,
referring to the professor who took a sabbatical from the Ed
School in 1978 to study at a beauty school in Lowell, Mass.,
because he strongly believed that real learning took place in
the real world. “He challenged us to think about education
outside school. That voice always stayed in my head. I feel
strongly that this store is going to be an education center.”
Today, as he is feeling good about the early success of the
store — “People are coming!” — he reminds the naysayers
of all the ways that poetry is used every day to mark mo-
ments in our lives.
“I tell them about the people who come in and say, ‘My
wife just passed away.’ They ask if there’s anything on the
shelves that they can read. Or someone comes in and doesn’t
say anything but has a need for poetry to guide them through
something,” he says. “I think there’s a reason poems are read
at weddings and funerals, at the president’s inauguration.
It hushes the moment. A poem comes with a posture or an
attitude that something special is about to happen.”
— Lory Hough
Innisfree’s top sellers in five categories
Poetry Speaks to Children
edited by Elise Paschen
Inferno of Dante
translated by Robert Pinksy
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz The Great Sufi Master
translated by Daniel Ladinsky
My Life
by Lyn Hejinian
Ludlow
by David Mason
HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATIO
Chin’
Casica
Fign
Cntempay
Clado wir
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the appian way
Vanessa Beary, Ed.M.’11, Ed.D. student, has an unconven-
tional approach to her career: She’s never had a trajectory
in mind, and so, when interesting opportunities come along,
she goes after them, even if they don’t necessarily connect in an
obvious way. “I’m open to thinking about all opportunities. I don’t
want to close myself off,” she says. “I know I’m prepping myself
for something.”
That prepping has taken her all over the world: working
as a research assistant for an author in Venice, Italy;
getting a master’s degree in philosophy at the University
of Cambridge in England; helping on an archeological
dig of Ancient Tiberias in Israel, where she unearthed
a stack of ninth-century vases; working in Iraq as a
public diplomacy officer and conducting research
for generals; raising money for schools in Afghani-
stan for Congresswoman Jean Schmidt (R-OH);
traveling to China to learn about how children
of migrant workers access education;learning Arabic. Eventually, she’ll be
in Eastern Africa with her husband, a
foreign service officer.
But for now? Thanks in part to
a Fulbright fellowship, Beary has
grabbed another opportunity. This
past summer, she returned to the
mountainous country of Tajikistan to
study advanced Persian and Tajik in
the capital city, Dushanbe. In the fall,
she will move to Khorog, located onthe Afghan border. There, Beary will
start her dissertation research: look-
ing at the effect of entrepreneurship
education — a creative way of ap-
proaching learning — on students at
the University of Central Asia.
P r og r am: C ulture, C ommunand E ducationT ool f or C hang e: E ntrepreneeducationHomet ow n: C incinnati, Ohio
Vanessa Bearystudybreak
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Your favorite Persian word and why.
Danesh-ju : University student. The word literallymeans knowledge-seeker. As a student of thisworld, it is my responsibility to always and unre-lentingly be in pursuit of knowledge.
Things from home you had to take to Tajikistan:
• My yoga mat• The two new mathematics books that my husbandpurchased for me to indulge my side-obsession withthe ordered beauty that underlies our seeminglychaotic world: one on the golden ratio and one onimaginary numbers
Country that you visited that has made the biggest
impact on your life:
r Israel
r China
r Tajikistan
r Iraq
Iraq was challenging because . . .
I was forced to deal with things I had not dealtwith in my life. The baseI lived at was gettingshelled; sirens weregoing off all the time.In the beginning, I slept
in my body armor.
Most nerve-wracking moment of your life.
Climbing down a60-foot temple inthe middle of a
jungle, an hour anda half drive outside
of Siem Reap,Cambodia. I am nota fan of heights.
What inspires you?
Really incredible leadership.
You’ll know you’ve settled down when . . .
My husband and I are living in the same country,
and our books are on shelves, not in boxes.3
I S T O C K P H O T O . C
O M
Koh Ker temple
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the appian way
I
t is no coincidence that
librarian John Collins refers
to the back area behind
the circulation desk in GutmanLibrary as the “book hospital.”
It is where library assistant
Simon Demosthene has been
fixing broken spines, ripped
pages, and faded text for the
past dozen years. “It’s like a
patient,” Demosthene says of
his conservation work repairing
books and other printed pieces
for the library. “Once you consult
with it, you open it and decide,what can I do for this book?”
Demosthene, a native of
Haiti, learned his craft
at the North Bennet Street
School in Boston — the only
full-time program in North
America. He says he not only
loves conserving books, but
also looking through them
as he works, often learning
new things. “It’s a great
honor for me,” he says.
It looks like a drafting table, but it’s
actually an antique paper cutter used to
cut heavy materials, like thick cardboard, tha
Demosthene uses to construct new covers fo
books that are hardback — or casebound, as
they’re known in the book world.
Rare and fragile old books and publicatio
can be tricky. Demosthene has to decide
whether attempting a repair would further
damage the piece. If so, he opts instead to
“let it rest,” as he says. Recently, he chose
not to fix a crumbling newspaper from 1945
with the giant headline: “Nazis ordered to
strike on land, sea, in air.” Instead, the pape
was permanently stored in a phase box — a
corrugated, acid-free container that he makeon site. The boxes are kept in the special
collections room.
homeroom Mending Services
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Tricks of the trade: bolts of
ribbon, runny paste, Cellugel,
pliers, tweezers, linen, casing
press, acid-free tape, Japanese
paper, gutters, cutters, book
plates, brushes, binder’s thread.
If the title of a hardback book
is fading, Demosthene uses
heat, razor thin sheets of gold foil,
and his AAmstamp Monogramming
Machine to recreate it. In an effort
to be authentic, he tries hard
to match the original font using
individual metal die pieces.
The wall of books waiting
for repair doesn’t daunt
Demosthene. He loves what
he does and wants to make
sure that physical books
are preserved, especially
in light of the recent shift
toward e-readers. “Books are
treasures,” he says. “Think of
all that would be lost forever if
we just had electronic books.”
Watch a video
about the art of
saving books.
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the appian way
We asked our Facebook fans to tell us what one question they would
ask an Ed School faculty member if given the opportunity. The ques-
tion we chose for this issue was from Samantha Warburton, Ed.M.’10, a
research associate at Public Policy Associates in Washington, D.C.
Samantha Warburton As federal, state, and district
policies increasingly move toward performance-based
teacher assessment tied to student achievement, what
role can and should schools of education play in preparing
and supporting teachers for these evaluation models?
Want to see your question answered in a future issue of the magazine?
Visit the Ed School on Facebook and join the conversation:
www.facebook.com/HarvardEducation.
lesson plan
Senior Lecturer Katherine Boles The good news
is that education policymakers are finally recognizing
that teacher assessment should be performance-
based. The bad news is that teacher performance-
based assessment too often rests on limited student
achievement data. What can schools of education do?
• We must attack this problem head on, arming our students with a
deep understanding of what is currently transpiring in the evaluation
policy world that directly affects their work.
• We must introduce our students to new models of teaching based
on meaningful collaboration that can dramatically reform the current
isolated culture of teaching in which teachers rarely (if ever) observe
each other teach, discuss each other’s teaching, or learn about
best practices from one another.• We must combine our students’ academic coursework with fieldwork
in well-functioning teacher teams that demonstrate how “real”
teams can collaborate, analyze, and improve instruction and student
learning using a wide range of professional development tools.
• We must train our students to be savvy consumers of data — under-
standing how to analyze standardized test scores and use the
scores to improve instruction. At the same time, we must encourage
our students to personally advocate for an emphasis on measuring
achievement beyond the easy “evaluation by test score.”
• We must teach our students to use new assessment tools that docu-
ment records of practice — tangible artifacts such as teachers’ jour-
nals, student work, videotapes, and well-crafted collaboratively-assessed lesson plans.
• We must convince our students that when they enter the world of
practice, they must observe their teaching colleagues’ expertise
using well-developed observation tools, and make use of supportive
mentors, coaches, and professional development providers.
brieflyKatherine BolesThree new
assistant
professors
joined the
staff this semester: David Deming, a former
assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon
University; Gigi Luk, a former postdoctoral
fellow at the Rotman Research Institute at
Baycrest in Toronto; and Felipe Barrera-
Osorio, a former economist at the World Bank.
In May, Professor Kurt Fischer,
director of the Ed School’s
Mind, Brain, and Education
Program, and Ed.D. student
Christina Hinton, Ed.M.’06
spoke to the Swedish
Parliament about connecting
brain science with education.
Meira Levinson was promoted to associate
professor of education. She joined the faculty
in 2007 as an assistant professor. Jon Star
was promoted to associate professor in human
development and education. Star also joined
the school as an assistant professor in 2007.
Professor Catherine Snow
was given the Distinguished
Contributions to Research
in Education Award from
the American Educational
Research Association
this past spring. Snow also received a 2010
National Awards for Education Reporting first
prize from the Education Writers Association
for her Science journal piece, “Academic
Language and the Challenge of Reading for
Learning about Science.”
Professor Howard
Gardner is headed to
Spain in October to
receive the 2011 Prince of
Asturias Award for Social
Sciences. The foundation,
headed by Spain’s Crown
Prince Felipe, gives eight
Asturias Awards annually.
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Assistant Professor Jenny Thomso
Currently reading: The Fiddler in the Subway by
Gene Weingarten, an anthology of Weingarten’s
feature writing for The Washington Post.
The thing that drew you to it: My nonacademic
reading time is so precious that I have come to
rely on recommendations from two good friends
— one reads largely nonction and the other will
only read prize-winning ction. So this recom-
mendation came from my nonction friend.
First impressions: Very, very thought-provoking,
in the truest sense of the word. I’m not sure how Ed. magazine feels about product placement, but
I would denitely recommend this book!
Last great read: Talking Heads by Alan Bennett.
Being British, I need my regular dose of dark,
satirical humor.
Book you’ve read over and over: For me, it’s
largely poetry that gets the repeated-reading
treatment: Wislawa Szymborska, Elizabeth
Jennings, Simon Armitage, Rumi. I love the
density of poetry and how much can be saidwith just a handful of words.
Favorite spot to curl up with a good book: A bus,
train, or plane. The escapism experience has to
be complete for both mind and body.
How you find the time: It is tricky. I note that all
my recommendations consist of self-contained
chapters, or are poems. This is perhaps not a
coincidence.
Next up: Confession of a Buddhist Atheist by
Stephen Batchelor.
onmybookshelf
J I L L A N D E R S O N
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the appian way
I
t is a deceivingly simple task — to define the concepts of
truth, beauty, and goodness — yet one which humans have
struggled to accomplish. In his latest book, Truth, Beauty,
and Goodness Reframed, Professor Howard Gardner explores
the meaning of these three timeless virtues and describes the
challenge of making sense of them.
Although uncertainties about the nature of these virtues have
been raised since classical times, Gardner reveals that in an
age defined by vast technological advancement and relativistic
attitudes toward human nature, current trends are largely a
product of postmodern thought and digital media. Thus, the
book — which grew out of a series of three lectures — draws
on a range of contemporary science and knowledge as Gardner
reframes both the teaching and practice of old virtues within the
constraints of a modern society.
Gardner encourages readers to think clearly about their own
conceptions of truth, beauty, and morality, as well as the current
status of these virtues in society. In three consecutive chapters
he sets forth his own definition of each and then, in light of this
reframing, offers suggestions on how to strengthen these core
ideas through formal education and nurture them going forward.
For example, Gardner presents beauty as a virtue that is person-
alized and fragmented, molded by individual experiences, and
subject to constant reevaluation. In the realm of formal school-
ing, he suggests that instead of focusing on preferences — ask-
ing students to declare that one piece of work is superior, more
valuable, or more beautiful than another — teachers should first
emphasize and cultivate a student’s ability to distinguish andarticulate differences that matter.
Tackling some of mankind’s most perplexing and enduring
questions, Gardner highlights the foundations of ethics and
virtue in the modern age. While he acknowledges that the
concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness are changing faster
than ever, he emphasizes that they are — and will remain — the
cornerstones of our society. In a thoughtful and enthusiastic
view of human possibilities, Gardner encourages readers to
embrace the dynamism of these virtues rather than giving up on
them altogether.
Truth, Beauty, and
Goodness Reframed By Howard Gardner
E
xperience: While it may be one of the most relentless
and unforgiving teachers, it provides what may be the
most effective and enduring lessons. In an effort to
exemplify this, I Used to Think … And Now I Think …, a volume
of reflective essays compiled by Professor Richard Elmore,
C.A.S.’72, Ed.D.’76, presents a variety of testaments from
several top educators as they look back upon their profes-
sional experiences.
The book shares its name with an exercise Elmore uses to
conclude courses and teacher professional development ses-
sions, in which participants are asked to reflect on what they
learned and how their thinking changed over a certain period
of time. The notion of utilizing the exercise as the foundation
for an entire book came a little more than a year ago when
Elmore wrote a short piece for the Harvard Education Letter
using the guidance of this very protocol. The essay, which is
now featured as a chapter in the book, not only reveals how
his own thinking changed over the course of his 40-year
career as a teacher and researcher, but ultimately encouraged
Elmore to seek similar reflections from others.
The resulting volume consists of 20 chapters that represent
the individual reflections and musings of 20 different educa-
tional professionals. By compiling these varying perspectives
into a single book, Elmore hopes to both “make learning vis-
ible” and provide a testimonial to the broader value and power
of reflection. “My fellow contributors and I hope to model, in a
small way, what professional discourse might look like if pro-
fessionals were expected to learn over the course of a career,”Elmore writes. “It strikes me as ironic that in a field nominally
devoted to the development of capacities to learn, there is
so little visible evidence of what those who do the work have
actually learned in their careers.”
Through this compilation, Elmore presents current educa-
tors with the opportunity to change the way they think about
improving school reform without making the same mistakes
as their predecessors and without spending years of their
careers learning the crucial lessons highlighted by the fea-
tured contributors.
I Used to Think …
And Now I Think …
By Richard Elmore
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A Cord of Three Strands: A New Approach to ParentEngagement in Schools
Soo Hong, Ed.D.’09; 2011
Humanizing Education: Critical Alternatives to ReformKristy Cooper, Ed.M.’07, Ed.D.’11, and Ed.D. CandidatesGretchen Brion-Meisels; Sherry Deckman, Ed.M.’07; ChristinDobbs, Ed.M.’06; Chantal Francois, Ed.M.’08; ThomasNikundiwe, Ed.M.’07; and Carla Shalaby, Ed.M.’09; 2010
Key Elements of Observing Practice: A Data Wise DVD andFacilitator’s GuideLecturer Kathryn Parker Boudett; Lecturer Elizabeth City,Ed.M.’04, Ed.D.’07; and Ed.D. Candidate Marcia Russell,Ed.M.’09; 2010
Strategic Priorities for School Improvement
Caroline Chauncey, editor in chief, HEPG; 2010
The Differentiated Instruction Book of ListsJenifer Fox, Ed.M.’95, and Whitney Hoffman; 2011
Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youthto Engage
Veronica Boix Mansilla, Ed.M.’92, Ed.D.’01, and AnthonyJackson; 2011
Introduction to Renewable Energy Vaughn Nelson, Ed.M.’62; 2011
The Promised Cookie — No Longer Angry StudentsDavid Sortino, Ed.M.’81; 2011
The Same Thing Over and Over: How School Reformers GetStuck in Yesterday’s IdeasFrederick Hess, Ed.M.’90; 2010
Teaching Children to Write: Constructing Meaning andMastering MechanicsDaniel Meier, Ed.M.’84; 2011
HARVARD EDUCATION PRESS
OTHER BOOKS
Sacred Trust: A Children’s
Education Bill of Rights
By Peter Cookson Jr.
A
lthough the United States is considered one of the richest
countries in the world, it ranks first in the percentage of children
living in poverty. Of the 20 percent of American children that live
in poverty, more than 1 million go hungry every day and more than 1.3
million children are homeless on any given night. According to Peter Cook-
son Jr., C.A.S.’91, it is such poverty and inequality that are the sources
of unequal education. In his latest book, Sacred Trust, he proposes an
education bill of rights for American children that, he argues, will address
these issues and ensure greater integrity and improved opportunity for all.
While Cookson occasionally sprinkles in many of his own proposals
and propositions, the book is organized with the reader in mind. It is
overflowing with ideas, inspiration, and stimulating questions intended
to engage the reader and act as a sounding board for education policies.
By including a wide range of illustrative examples, quotes, stories, and
statistics, Cookson helps readers grasp the living conditions of children
today, allowing them to become informed and involved in the national
dialogue surrounding the future of public education.
Cookson concludes each chapter with relevant study questions, pos-
sible action steps, and suggested further reading in an effort to ignite
conversation and invite readers of all capacities — parents, early child-
hood educators, legislators, librarians, foundations officers, and commu-
nity members — to participate, whether they agree or disagree.
In the book, Cookson also outlines 10 fundamental rights to which he
thinks all students are entitled. For example, Cookson asserts that every
American youth has the right to a distinguished and committed teacher;
a relevant and engaged curriculum; and fair, honorable evaluations.
While Cookson acknowledges that these suggestions are “basic,” he
stresses that they are intended to act as a foundation for future progres-sion, not as established laws or administrative solutions.
“The mission of this book is to awaken our generous spirit of fairness
and to provide teachers, support staff, guidance counselors, and ad-
ministrators at every level with ideas to spark conversation and to offer
some suggested action steps,” Cookson writes. “When enacted, this
Children’s Education Bill of Rights will be the legislative and administra-
tive framework for a socially healthier and more economically productive
United States.”
—Briefs written by Rachael Apfel
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Taken Working okra and cotton felds three days a week in
his tiny town o McKinley, Ala., David Wilson didn’t
attend school ull time until he was in the seventh
grade. But he grew up with an urgent desire to learn.
Now president o Morgan State University in Baltimore,
Wilson travels home to pay tribute to the places and
the people who helped make him who he is.
The Road BY JANET SUDNIK
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROBERT SUTTON
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t is a hot spring
day in Marengo
County, one of the
most rural and poor
Black Belt counties in
Alabama. David Wilson,
Ed.M.’84, Ed.D.’87,
pulls over and steps out, his
14-year-old son, Nyere, in tow. The
esteemed academic, currently serving
as president of Morgan State University in Baltimore, is
ooded with memories of hot summer days walking the
long miles between the school and his home (often barefoot
to save his shoes), of early classroom lessons taught by a
strict but caring teacher, of his beloved family members
who reside here in great number. David Wilson is home.
Earlier that morning, Wilson was a guest of honor at the
University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, a few hours north. He
was the keynote speaker at a gathering of the university’s
Center for Community-Based Partnerships, a cause that is
close to his heart.
“I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface of what this
speaker will do before he is done,” said Samory Pruitt, vice
president of community affairs, as he introduced Wilson.
For the next 45 minutes, Wilson captivated the audience
with his passion for education and collaboration between
institutions of higher learning and their environments. He
told stories of his own humble upbringing, his determina-tion to receive the best education possible, and his ght to
give students with similar struggles access to the same. As
he recounted a memory of his father handing him a $5 bill
on the morning he departed for Tuskegee University — all
he had saved for several years — the audience at the Hotel
Capstone ballroom was more than a little choked up.
Wilson’s impressive academic resume boasts both a bach-
elor’s and master’s degree from Tuskegee and master’s and
doctoral degrees from the Ed School. His career path has led
him to several distinguished positions, including as chancellor
of the University of Wisconsin Colleges and the University
of Wisconsin-Extension, associate provost and vice presi-
dent at Auburn University, and associate provost at Rutgers
University. He has been at his current post as president of
Morgan State University since 2010 and was appointed by
President Barack Obama to an 11-member board of advisors
on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
His speech this day was to encourage relationships be-
tween colleges and the cities and towns they inhabit, and for
the students who benet from their education to nd ways
to give back and offer others like them the same educational
opportunities. But his visit also offers him the chance to pay
a visit to his beginnings, to connect with his spirit.
Home for Wilson is a few hours down a two-lane road,
to the small community of McKinley, Ala. Growing up, th
town was home to scarcely more than 30 residents. Along
the way, he makes several stops that are cornerstones in
his upbringing. His elementary school, a modest well-kept
brick building where he spent rst and second grades, is
rst. Immediately noticeable on the front sign is a largegap between the words: “Uniontown” and “Elementary
School.” Chiseled off is the word “Negro,” an omission tha
Wilson says isn’t all bad, as long as it makes children ques-
tion why, and if they learn from it.
“Five people in my family didn’t even nish elementary
school because it was just so hard, it was just so difcult to
have that kind of access to school,” he says, as he glances up
at the building, where his youngest sister, Minnie Wilson
Early, currently teaches.
“I have mixed feelings [being here] because on the one
hand, I’m very proud of what the school is trying to do
to make education possible for so many students in this
community who come from similar backgrounds as I camefrom,” he says. “I’m very proud of the fact that my sister is
so committed to quality of education. She has dedicated he
life to being a phenomenal teacher.
“I do, however, come away from a physical standpoint,
from a capital standpoint, that the buildings are not what you
want to see in a high-performing school. I have to come back
here constantly to make sure that I’m grounded and that I un
derstand that this is where the huge jump started, from here
all the way to Harvard initially, and other points from there.”
The journey continues on, and after a while he pulls the
rental car over to a wide, well-kept lawn upon which a smal
church building rests, anked by a few rows of headstones to
one side. Hebron Baptist Church is what much of his family
still considers their home church, and its cemetery where
many of their descendants are buried.
Wilson makes a path toward one of the most elegant
headstones, his mother’s.
“She was really the educator in the family,” he says. “She
had an eighth-grade education. At the time, that was pretty de
cent for blacks. My mom could read and she could write. My
dad was illiterate; he couldn’t read the headstone right now.”
I
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His parents, Minnie and Henry Wilson, receive much of
the credit for instilling in Wilson an urgent desire for learning.
“My dad was the most intelligent man I have ever
known and my mom was the most loving, caring, and
nurturing woman I have ever known,” he says. His father’s
headstone is engraved with a birth year of 1915, though it’s
a guess, as he never knew his true birthday. As he pushes away pine straw and dead leaves from
their plots, he recalls how they were the glue that held their
large family of seven sons and three daughters together.
“They raised the 10 of us in a way that created this incred-
ible bond,” he says. They were loving, but strict, forbid-
ding curse words, teaching respect for the elderly and one
another, and regularly attending church services at Hebron,
which often were hours long.
He happily remembers all-night barbecues, celebrations,
religious skits performed, and hymns poorly sung by him and
his siblings. It was this church community, he says, that helped
solidify the family’s foundation, offering structure, support, and
guidance. Wilson and many of his far-ung relatives are still onthe books as members and regularly keep up with donations to
ensure that the building and grounds are kept.
Many of Wilson’s kin are buried here, including his
grandfather, Deacon Henry Spencer. Wilson pauses at
his grave, remembering when the crate transporting his
headstone arrived when Wilson was just a young child. It
was a nice, well-made box, and the family kept it for Wilson
to use as a stool.
Though Wilson was too young to have memories of
his grandfather, Spencer’s legacy was proudly narrated to
the family, who learned that the patriarch grew up in the
1800s amid unfathomable adversity. In the face of poverty
and strained race relations, he maintained an unshakable
entrepreneurial spirit and refused to remain in a subservi-
ent sharecropping situation. To that end, he grew his own
produce to feed his family and sell at market. He diversied
into other industries, such as coal mining, to become a self-
made man. He also pushed the importance of family and
togetherness, concepts Wilson believes he would be proud
to see carried on.
In 1991, the family began a reunion tradition, held
every other year in a different location. Anywhere from 150
to 200 family members regularly attend. “It’s our way of
saying to my son and to our grandnieces and -nephews tha
you do have a legacy and you need to know that, you need
to be proud of that. No matter what the challenges, don’t le
those things break your spirit.”
His grandfather, he says, “would be proud of the fact that
our family has maintained a deep sense of what it means to
love each other and what it means to support each other, and
that we really understand what it means to be a family.”
As he continues walking, a single crow caws in the
background as the sun begins to set through the trees. The
cemetery is silent, peaceful and serene.
“I have to come here to get centered as well,” Wilson
says, his voice catching. “I come here when I feel that some
thing is not going right to be recentered and realize what a
good life lived is al l about.
“I think I’ve been able to achieve the things that I have
achieved because I have never, ever forgotten the humblebeginnings, and I will never, ever forget that. Some people
kind of run away from the fact that they didn’t grow up
with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouths, but for me
if I ran away from that, I think I would be like a feather
oating in the air with no sense of purpose, no sense of
groundedness, with a whole lot of emptiness.”
The road continues on, and after a few turns, the now-
vacant site of the one-room schoolhouse with the potbel-
lied stove appears, the walls inside which Wilson received
his rst formal education now just a memory. It was not
required that black children go to school at the time, so the Wilson children went in shifts, working the okra and cotton
elds three days and attending school two, and reversing it
the next week. “I was literally in the seventh grade before I
attended school ve consecutive days,” he says, as he shake
his head and turns around, marveling that an open eld is
all that remains of such an important place.
Wilson’s impressive academic credentials are all the
more extraordinary considering the seemingly insurmount
able barriers he overcame. A good education was not easy
to achieve growing up in a sharecropping family, facing
extreme poverty, racial inequality in the rural South, and
living in a home with 12 mouths to feed.
Twenty to 30 children representing six grades would
pack into the building, with benches borrowed from the
church and work done in their laps. Here, children were
taught the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, with
different blocks of time set aside for each grade. Wilson can
remember struggling to keep up because of the many missed
lessons when he was working the elds to help his family.
At home, the imsy, holey walls were patched with a
homemade plaster of boiled water and our spread on
pages of back issues of Look and Life magazines, brought
to the house by the landowners, and which Wilson would
David and Nyere visit the cemetery. Deacon Henry’s headstone.
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read. “That shanty was [our] elementary school on those
days that I wasn’t there [at school],” Wilson says. “It was
the library that was nonexistent at McKinley.”
For the most part, he and others were not aware they
were receiving anything less than white students were in
other areas; they simply were not exposed to it. It wasn’t
until high school that he had to pass a white school to get to
his own, and saw how it was furnished. “It was so shocking
to go past this campus that was well-manicured — new
buildings, new gymnasium,” he says. “The message that I
got from that was that someone didn’t think I was equal to
the investment. That was very disturbing.”
A similar awakening took place when his high school
shop teacher drove a group of students to Tuskegee
University for an agricultural conference. On the way,
the teacher purposely drove them through afuent areas,
exposing them to a new world of possibility. “My chin wason my chest,” he says. “I could not believe that black people
in these United States lived that way. I had never seen that
kind of middle class existence, all professors and lawyers
and doctors, wonderful homes and well-manicured lawns.
It just made me feel so proud.
“So when I came back … , I came back ying. I knew I
wanted to go to Tuskegee because I wanted to experience the
whole sense of black intellectual superiority and black success
at a level that was almost unmatched in this country.”
As the hot breeze begins to blow and the sun begins to
melt away, Wilson talks about how he left the area with a
few scars. “I was angry because I was not special — that
there were so many other people in this community whocould have been the surgeons, who could have been the
senators, who could have been the leading educators,
who could have been the leading authors — but they
were never, ever given that chance.
“And that was really what angered me, that through
this insidious system we had in place, we have lost so many
minds. And that’s why I’m hell bent on working with young
people when I come here now, so we don’t continue to loseour best talent.”
Arriving at the family homestead, a party is brewing. Gravel driveways leading to a row of houses each owned by
a Wilson family member are lling up with cars. Children
of all ages spill out of trucks and SUVs, arms laden with
preparations for the night’s catsh fry. Nearly 50 brothers,
sisters, nephews, nieces, and spouses are suddenly every-
where, lling what they jokingly call the family compound
with bear hugs, laughter, and chatter. Wilson shares a hug
with all of them, showing off how much Nyere has grown.
Every niece and nephew he greets is questioned abouttheir schooling — how are their grades, will they attend
college, what are their future plans. They expect it from
Uncle David, and the answers are impressive, from degrees
already or nearly earned at college to middle-schoolers
declaring they will attend Harvard, just like him.
His own son also answers without hesitation when asked
that he, too, will attend the Cambridge institution. “I often
say to my son, ‘You have your pick of the l itter. You can go
to school any place you want to in the entire world. That
choice is clearly up to you — but you have a choice.’”
It is the choice, he says, that is most signicant. A family
once struggling to survive is now full of college scholars,
professionals, and students, each with dreams they knowthey will achieve. Niece Kiara Nicole Wilson is preparing
to receive a degree from the University of Alabama.
Nephew Kalen Early is a ninth-grader in the gifted
program at Robert C. Hatch High School. Nephew
J o h n h e n
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E
Jamaal Hunter, who is the mayor of nearby Uniontown,
says, “Without education, I could not be in the position I’m
in today. Education can serve as the great equalizer.” He
remembers watching Wilson excel academically and drew
upon him as an example. “I looked up to him; if Uncle
David can do it, I can do it.” Wilson picks up a tiny family member, infant Jeremiah,
perhaps the newest addition in attendance, and says, “This
is the future, here.”
Inside, the family is busy laying out a feast of fresh fruit,
coleslaw, baked beans, corn on the cob, and potato salad.
Tray after tray of golden fried catsh is carried in, and the
family joins in prayer before digging in. The main house
is a urry of activity, as plates are lled and relled, older
children chase smaller ones as they happily shriek and
thread through the tables.
Lapolean Peterson, the principal of Marengo County
Training School for 34 years, where Wilson attended high
school, and a friend of the family, shows up to the party. Heand Wilson reminisce about former teachers and students
as if it were yesterday. Wilson was a recent commencement
speaker at the school, and Peterson says he is referenced
often as an example to students today. “He would always
come back, and we’ve always been just like brothers,”
Peterson says. “[Students see that] they can do the same
thing — he was one guy that was totally determined.” The
school has other success stories, too, in the many profes-
sionals, teachers, doctors, lawyers, and others who passed
through. “It’s a good feeling to know you touched a life in
some positive way. It’s my biggest reward.”
Wilson’s youngest sister, Minnie Wilson Early, seconds
the emphasis on education. As a teacher at Uniontown
Elementary, she often steps beyond her role as teacher,
getting to know the parents of her pupils and ensuring that
they understand learning is a partnership. “We all buy into
their education,” she says. “I follow up on my students.” It
warms her heart when they come back years later and
thank her, and a good many do. But most impor-
tant, she says, is that after the students move out of
their environment, better themselves, and become
whatever it is they choose to be, that they bring
back what they have learned for the next generation.
This is precisely how Wilson has dedicated his career —
to stressing the importance of education, making sure stu-
dents have access and opportunity and following through t
their success. He says he got into the system to ght the red
tape and clear the way for students and educators.
“I certainly see as a part of my success removing thatwhich is unnecessary, that will stand in the way of progress
in the way of a good-quality education, and that will stand
in the way of innovation and creativity,” he says. “And
that’s personal.”
He vividly remembers the day Martin Luther King Jr.
was assassinated, and the realization of what he stood for.
It was 1968. He was 14 and in the eighth grade. There
was sudden confusion and sadness. His family went across
the street to his uncle’s place, where they watched King’s
funeral on television. “I think that was a huge awakening
for me,” he says. “A social awakening.
“It really, really brought into focus why he was out there
marching and advocating and ghting for equality. Becaus
I looked around and I realized all of a sudden, I’m not
equal, in terms of the way we are living, in terms of the way
we are being schooled.”
He continues to further his mission, putting out the call
to arms one college at a time. “I see my work as purposeful
It’s about transforming lives, it’s about putting students in
a position where they realize potential that sometimes they
don’t think they have, and coming back here is a good con-
nection to try to make that happen.
“I can’t forget about these communities, because these
communities are so much a part of me,” he says. “How can
you forget that? It’s so special.”
— Janet Sudnik is the editor of Tuscaloosa Magazine in
Tuscaloosa, Ala., a few hours north of David Wilson’s hometown.
The name says it all: The Five Dollar Scholarship
Fund. David Wilson started the fund to support
students at Morgan who have potential but few
resources. It is dedicated to his parents. For more
information, go to www.givetomorgan.net/fivedolla
Standing with his nephew, Richard Van Wilson, David holds baby Jeremiah. Later, he talks to his
sister-in-law, Ruby Wilson. His oldest brother, John Henry, and various cousins are in the background.
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n July 31, 2006, Stephen Colbert did a seg-
ment on his show, The Colbert Report , mocking
the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. The site
was ve years old at the time and starting to
become hugely popular. But it was also greatlydebated. Bloggers referred to it as “wicked-pe-
dia” and “irresponsible scholarship.” Headlines
called for a “stand against Wikipedia” and pro-
claimed, “Wikipedia: more dangerous than crack.”
A year after the Colbert episode, Senator Ted Stevens
(R-AL) even introduced legislation that would have
banned Wikipedia from public schools. By far, the
biggest criticism — and the biggest jokes — revolved
around trustworthiness. What makes the site unique
is also what makes it potentially problematic: Anyone
can anonymously create entries about anything and,with some exceptions, can also anonymously edit en-
tries created by other “wikipedians,” as they’re called.
There is no hierarchy of expertise. As a 2006 New
Yorker article pointed out, it is “a system that does not
favor the Ph.D. over the well-read 15-year-old.”
Colbert, with his laptop in front of him, jumped
on this.
“Who is Britannica to tell me George Washington
had slaves?” he said, referring to another encyclope-
dia, the oldest in the English language still in print
and one that is often pitted against Wikipedia. After
logging on to the Wikipedia site, Colbert continued,
“If I want to say he didn’t, that’s my right. And now
thanks to Wikipedia,” (he clicks the keyboard) “it’salso a fact.”
At the time, this kind of random contribution —
by a regular Joe who was having fun, or at least who
wasn’t backing up his claim with scholarly research
— was exactly what educators were worried about
when it came to students using the free site for
research. Teachers, librarians, and professors starte
discouraging Wikipedia. Others outright banned
students from using the site as a resource for projec
and papers.
But now, ve years after Colbert’s segment, thereare signs that attitudes about Wikipedia may be
slightly shifting. There are fewer heated debates
online about the site’s evils, and headlines are more
likely to focus on Wiki leaks than Wiki tweaks. As on
blogger noted last January, marking the site’s 10th
anniversary, “A reporter told me the other day that
mocking Wikipedia is so 2007.”
Even educators, it seems, are starting to throw ou
olive branches.
A look at why some educators are starting to accept the
online encyclopedia that anyone can write and edit.
BY LORY HOUGH ILLUSTRATION BY MATT COONEY
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ibrarian and media specialist Linda O’Connor is one
of them. In the fall of 2007, news spread fast and far
about her “Just Say No to Wikipedia” posters, which she
had hung above every computer in the library at
Great Meadows Middle School in New Jersey.The local newspaper ran a story about her actions, as did The
Inquirer in London and The New York Times. She appeared on
FOX & Friends morning show. Library listservs lit up.
“Kids just take it for gospel, they really do,” she said in
interviews about Wikipedia. “That’s my concern about it.”
A year later, though, new posters carried a slightly softer
message: “Wikipedia-Free Media Center.”
“It too led to many good discussions and I used it as a
teaching tool throughout the year,” O’Connor says, including
putting up a bulletin board with the sign, “Using Wikipedia
as a research tool.” On the board, she posted examples of
incorrect Wikipedia entries for students to read, and presum-
ably learn from, such as a piece about the death of Senator
Ted Kennedy (D-MA) during President Obama’s inaugu-
ration. (Kennedy actually collapsed at the inauguration
luncheon and was released from the hospital the next day.)
More recently, O’Connor went one step further: She took
down the anti-Wikipedia posters.
“Omitting my Wikipedia posters from the media center
bulletin board this year was an easy decision,” she says.
“Students are using answers from Wikipedia on other web-
sites without realizing it. I decided to concentrate on website
evaluation in general,” such as teaching eighth-graders how
to validate sources.
The same transition happened to Beth Holland, Ed.M.’02. When she started working at a small independent school in
Newport, R.I., in 2006, as director of technology, she also
told her students not to use Wikipedia.
“During my rst year, I really struggled with teaching on-
line research,” she says. In particular, she felt like Wikipedia
was tricky for her elementary-aged students to navigate, es-
pecially when it came to recognizing the difference between
opinion and fact-checked research. This became apparent
when the fth-graders had to do a project on a famous artist.
“One student used Wikipedia when looking up Andy
Warhol,” she says. At the time, the site had fewer safeguards
than it does now, such as not allowing unregistered users frommaking edits. “Essentially, this 11-year-old had information
about Warhol as a sex maniac and off-color lm producer.”
While that information may not have been totally cti-
tious, Holland says, it also wasn’t scholarly research, and
it wasn’t appropriate for someone that age. So she started
steering students away from Wikipedia.
And then she began using other research sites like
Answer.com, which gathers information from various
sources, including Wikipedia, and allows users to com-
pare sources. Over time, she realized that “sometimes,
[Wikipedia] is the best, and fastest, way to get information
in a manageable format.”
These days, what has Holland, now with EdTech Teacher
more concerned is another site: Google.
“I think that Google is more detrimental to the researchprocess than Wikipedia,” she says. “At least Wikipedia is an
actual source, with documentation and a means to cite in-
formation. On the other hand, students feel that Google is a
source. I can’t count the number of times that I have asked a
student where they found their information and the response
is ‘Google.’”
Google, they believe, is the only place to get information.
“Kids expect research to be a ll-in-the-blank answer
sheet rather than a process,” she says, “and frequently
want to switch topics because they claim that they ‘can’t
nd anything.’”
or many educators, what this has prompted in
recent years is less of a focus on just saying no to sites
like Wikipedia, and instead saying: Can we use this
as a teachable moment? Starting in 2010, for example,
dozens of college professors (including at Harvard) as-
signed students to write Wikipedia entries for credit
about public policy issues as part of a project launched by
Wikimedia. This past academic year, the students had
contributed almost 5,800 pages worth of fact-checked
information. Other educators, like O’Connor and Holland,
are training students how to do research effectively in the
digital age so that they make better decisions. As one bloggewrote about Wikipedia, “Educators shouldn’t allow students
to simply use the site at will, without ltering. Educators can
use the site to teach about online credibility, fact checking,
primary and secondary sources, crowd sourcing … rather
than simply banning it.”
This is exactly what is now happening in Burlington,
Mass. Librarians in the elementary schools begin the process
teaching basic research skills and Internet safety. By middle
school, teachers show students how to check sources. And
then in the ninth grade, says Amy Mellencamp, Ed.M.’81,
principal of the high school, there is a required, semester-
long course that looks more deeply at Internet safety, researcstrategies, and appropriate resources.
Unfortunately, says Megan Birdsong, Ed.M.’94, a teacher
librarian for the Santa Clara United School District, while
this kind of training in critical thinking is more needed than
ever for students, it’s not always a priority everywhere.
“The credentialed librarians in my school district have …
been pink-slipped,” she says. “Less than 25 percent of
California schools have credentialed librarians … and yet the
skills that we teach seem more important than ever as discus-
sions of new types and sources of information evolve.”
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Looking at the numbers, Wikipedia has more than
evolved. Today, it consistently ranks in the top 10 visited sites
on the Internet. As of August, there were more than 19 mil-
lion available articles written in 280 languages. In interviews
and during speeches, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Walesstresses that the site tries to be accurate, but also should only
be used as a stepping stone when doing research, especially
by students.
“For God’s sake, you’re in college,” he said, speaking to
students at the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. “Don’t
cite the encyclopedia.” A year later, answering a question
from a Time magazine reader who complained about a pro-
fessor who badmouthed Wikipedia as a legitimate research
source, Wales no doubt surprised the reader by answering, “I
would agree with your teachers that that isn’t the right way
to use Wikipedia. The site is a wonderful starting point for
research. But it’s only a starting point because there’s always
a chance that there’s something wrong, and you should check
your sources if you are writing a paper.”
Clint Calzini, Ed.M.’04, a former teacher and principal,
and current doctoral student at the College of William &
Mary, says he uses Wikipedia occasionally in his doctoral
research “to get a snapshot of something.” He advises his
undergraduate students to do the same.
“I have always told students that Wikipedia is ne to start
with to get an understanding of something, but due to its
open source, it should not be quoted directly and that they
need to verify information from a qualied source.”
He acknowledges that the site has gotten better over the
years, especially with footnotes.“A recent example is [the entry on] daylight savings time,”
he says. “It has a stunning level of detail and 121 footnotes!”
There’s evidence that students, at least at the post-second-
ary level, may actually get this. A 2010 report, How College
Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age, found that
while nearly 75 percent of students reported using Wikipedia
for school research, almost all of them said they turn rst
to course readings and consulted more with instructors and
scholarly research than with Wikipedia.
Of course, not all educators have entirely jumped on the
Wikipedia bandwagon. Matt Shapiro, Ed.M.’10, a secondary
science teacher who wrote two op-eds in 2010 in support of students using Wikipedia — one for Education Week , one for
Ed. — says he still sees some resistance from other teachers.
Often, the level of acceptance depends on the subject matter.
Anthony Parker, Ed.M.’93, principal of Weston High School,
just outside of Boston, says his school doesn’t have a uniform
policy regarding Wikipedia, but some teachers feel more
comfortable with the site’s information than others.
“One math teacher thinks it is very good in computer
science classes,” he says. “As you might imagine, English and
history teachers tend not to use it as much. In history, for
example, it might be a decent starting place for a research
project — with the caveat that you must check the Wikipedia
source — but it is not counted as a source when the research
project is turned in. As a former history teacher I am in the
‘Wikipedia is not a great source and should be treated withgreat skepticism’ camp.”
Chris Kyle, a history professor at Syracuse University
and an early critic of the site who has banned students from
citing Wikipedia in papers since 2003, agrees.
“History is about being able to evaluate a number of
sources, so it’s important to know who wrote the piece: wha
viewpoint they’ve come from, what their rel igion is, etc.,” h
says. “I still feel like Wikipedia is an anonymous departmen
store with no name, which is one-stop shopping. History, as
a discipline, is about being able to shop around to a variety
of specialists.”
Luckily, Kyle says, students at the college level tend to use
the site less as they move up in grade and get more sophisti-
cated in their critical thinking. This may be why the librar-
ians at the Ed School, who work primarily with master’s and
doctoral students, rarely use Wikipedia.
“All of us agree that Wikipedia never even comes up
when we are discussing research strategies,” says Gutman
librarian Kathleen Donovan. “Students don’t ask us
about it, and we do not include it in our research strategy
recommendations.”
s the 10-year anniversary of Wikipedia comes to
an end, where do educators go from here whenit comes to their students and the site? A recent
uproar on Wikipedia may provide one answer:
This past summer, former vice presidential
nominee Sarah Palin offered an alternative theory about
Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride. Many historians publicly
disagreed with her, and immediately, suspected Palin support
ers rushed to the Paul Revere Wikipedia page and changed
information to better t with Palin’s version of history.
And here’s where the answer, and lesson, come in: The
truth, in a sense, won out. Not only did Wikipedia editors in-
stantly swoop in to delete misinformation, but the entry also
ended up with more information and footnotes than beforePalin’s comments. It also got people talking, thinking, and,
perhaps best of all, laughing. As Stephen Colbert said of the
controversy, just before he donned a Paul Revere–type hat
on his show while ringing a bell, ring a musket, and riding
a coin-operated kiddie ride, “That doesn’t mean Palin wasn’t
raising awareness of history. Without her, no one would have
checked into what really happened. And more importantly, i
did happen.”
Note: Wikipedia was used in the writing of this article. Ed.
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W
hen the U.S. Department of Educationopened the competition in 2010 for the firstround of Promise Neighborhood Grants, it
didn’t take long for Irasema Salcido, Ed.M.’89, to decideto apply. She knew it might be a long shot, but the workthat was being done at the Cesar Chavez Public CharterSchools for Public Policy in Washington, D.C., whereshe serves as CEO, was already in line with the goalsof the initiative: creating educational opportunities forchildren in distressed communities by offering “cradle-to-college” services.
The long shot paid off when Chavez Parkside,the school’s campus in the Parkside-Kenilworthneighborhood of D.C., was announced as a recipient.
“I actually cried when we found out. I was so
overwhelmed with joy and a sense of accomplishment,”Salcido says. “It was an acknowledgement of the needsin this community and a beginning to sustainablesolutions to meet those needs.”
As CEO, Salcido oversees the three ChavezSchools — the original campus at Capitol
Hill, Chavez Prep, and Parkside — butit was only when Parkside’s principal
stepped down and she becameacting principal that she trulybegan to understand the depth of the school’s day-to-day issues.
“I got a firsthand look at thechallenges that the students,families, teachers, and staff faced,” she says, “and I
started to look for solutions.”
oneonone Irasema Salcido
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alumni news and notes
What are some of
the Chavez Schools’challenges?
Our major chal-lenges are the same
as those that face
many schools that
serve similar popu-
lations across the country: Helping our
students get to grade-level prociency
and to pass standardized tests. Parent
involvement and engagement has been
a challenge, as well as recruiting and re-
taining effective staff that can bring our
students and schools to where they need
to be. We have been successful in many
ways and have had strong results acrossour three campuses, but our staff still
struggles to overcome the challenges
that our students face academically as
well as socially.
Why did you choose Parkside-Kenilworthfor a Chavez School?
I saw that there was limited opportunity
for the children in Wards 7 and 8, and
I wanted to change that. The reaction
of the parents and residents was so
positive. Parents couldn’t believe that
someone wanted to start a school in
their community with a focus on getting
their children to college. They were
so excited to have Chavez come to the
Parkside-Kenilworth community, and
we were excited to be a part of the
community.
Were you working on a plan for Parksideprior to the Promise grants?
Yes. Two and a half years ago, a small
group of people and I convened and
spoke about what was happening atChavez Parkside. The low test scores
and the number of students who were
not prepared for high school urged us
to research and connect with the two
local elementary schools. We discovered
that they were facing similar challenges
as the students as young as three and
four years old were coming to school
without the basic knowledge needed to
begin school. At that point, we created
the foundation of an organization that
would target these problems.
We concluded that academic solu-
tions were only one part of the successof each child. Factors such as early
childhood development and commu-
nity safety were also important factors
to guarantee that each child would
reach [his/her] full potential. The
group — now called the DC Promise
Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI) —
evolved over the months prior to the
announcement of the federal Promise
Neighborhood Grant.
Your model is the
Harlem Children’sZone (HCZ). Why?
We felt that its
holistic approach
to improving the
education and
lives of children in
Harlem was something that could work
for the children in Parkside-Kenilworth.
Parkside-Kenilworth is an isolated com-
munity with some of the highest rates
of poverty, academic failure, crime,
and HIV/AIDS [in Washington, D.C.].
There is a high concentration of chil-dren, and 38 percent of [its] children
live below the poverty line. The HCZ
model provided a template for us to
target the more unique challenges.
How will DCPNI meet its goals? We will collaborate with community
members, charter and traditional public
schools, experts, service providers,
government ofcials, and funders to
ensure a continuum of services and
wrap-around supports will be madeavailable to the children and families of
the Parkside-Kenilworth community.
Our academic goals include chil-
dren entering kindergarten ready to
learn and students graduating from
high school and going on to obtain a
postsecondary degree or certication.
Students being healthy and feeling safe
at school are among our family and
community goals.
These goals will not be achieved
overnight. However, we have made a
commitment to this community for the
long term, and we will do whatever ittakes to achieve our goals.
How involved is the community now?
We cannot do this work without strong
support and trust from the community.
DCPNI hosts monthly community din-
ners … to inform residents about [our]
goals, hear directly from residents what
they feel are the most pressing needs in
the community, and encourage resi-
dents to become actively involved with
this initiative. To ensure the voice of th
community informs everything we do,one-third of DCPNI’s advisory board
members are residents. Additionally,
our 10 results-driven work groups . . .
which are tasked with recommending
solutions for achieving [each of our 10]
goals, have at least one resident cochair
as well as varying numbers of resident
members. We are fortunate to have
such strong support and involvement
from the community.
You were honored
by Oprah’s AngelNetwork in 2001.Being on the show
gave me added
motivation to con-
tinue my life’s work.
Receiving recogni-
tion and praise from
someone who is so
well-respected gave me an
even greater sense of pride and
determination to continue my mission.
It helped to strengthen the commitmenof our school’s teachers and staff and
lifted the aspirations and determina-
tion of our students. While I’ve always
believed in the importance of my life’s
work, to [be recognized by] someone
who has also dedicated herself to im-
proving the lives of others is humbling.
— Marin Jorgensen
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commencement2 0 1 1
Complete with flash mobs (above), Sesame
Street picture books, pomp and circum-
stance, and a funny lady named Amy
Poehler, 673 students from 23 countries and 41
states graduated on May 26. (They joined the 27who graduated in November and March.) One
member of the new class of 2011 even had a
double celebration: a graduation and a birthday.
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alumni news and notes
1952NaN SteveNS, Ed.M., writes,
“At 80, I’m glad to be uprightand ambulatory. Are there anyother members of the 1952
Ed.M. class stil l out there?”
1962vaughN NelSoN, Ed.M.,
returned as director of the
Alternative Energy Institute at West Texas A&M University
for one year starting in July2009. While there, he used pre-
vious courses in wind energyand solar energy to develop aprogram for renewable energy.
He used the material from hisonline course in renewable en-ergy to write the 2011 textbook,
Introduction to Renewable Energy.His previous book, Wind En-
ergy, was published in 2009.
1963Peter limaN, M.A.T., com-pleted a major art exhibition at
the Stable in Ridgewood, N.J.,titled “Oil and Water Do Mix.”He actively shows his oil land-
scapes in numerous galleries,hospitals, and colleges. His Big Hollow Art Studio is located in
Windham, N.Y.
DoN akeSoN, Ed.M., wrote
a trilogy on the history of Irisheducation, which has been
selected as one of the 300 booksin the new Routledge Educa-tion Classics reprint series.
1966eve SullivaN, M.A.T.,founder of the Parents Forum,
received credentials as a repre-sentative to the United Nations
for the International Federa-
tion for Parenting Education.She spoke at the April meeting
of the New York NGO Com-mittee on the Family.
1967elliot Seif, M.A.T.’65,
C.A.S., launched a new educa-tion website for administrators,teachers, parents, and “anyone
interested in creating an educa-tion that prepares students to
live in a rapidly changing, Era3, 21st-century world.” Visit thesite at www.era3learning.org .
1974 JaNe CoNDoN, Ed.M., wasthe 2011 commencement
speaker at Wellesley College onMay 27. This spring, she hadan extended run in New York
of her Off-Broadway show, Janie Condon: Raw & Unchained .
1978truDy hall, Ed.M., headof school at Emma WillardSchool in Troy, N.Y., was one
of four graduates honored bySt. Lawrence University withthe Alumni Citation, awarded
during reunion weekend.
larry Stybel, Ed.D, hasbeen elected to the board of governors for the Institute for
Career Coaching Internation-al. This is a global fellowshipof career coaches selected for
inclusion by professional peers.He is executive in residence at
the Sawyer Business School atSuffolk University and presi-dent of the global career man-
agement rm Stybel PeabodyLincolnshire.
1981riCharD SChwab, Ed.M., is
the neighborhood team leaderof Glendale Organizing For America Community Team in
Ohio. Formerly, he was associ-ate head of school and middleschool head of Cincinnati
Country Day School.
1982 Julie liNeberger, Ed.M.,
is owner of LineSync Archi-tecture in Wilmington, Vt. InMarch, the rm was awarded a
2010 Public Space Award for itdesign of Wilmington’s RiverBank Park. The park design
was also awarded the 2009Honor Award by AIA Vermon
and the 2009 Green Mountain Award for Most ImprovedPublic Space by the Vermont
Division of Historic Preserva-tion Downtown Program.
1987
bill
haDDaD
, Ed.M., con-tinues as assistant branch chiefat the Defense Intelligence
Agency, where he has servedsince 2009. He continues in hisrole at the Applicant Screening
Branch and also has assumednew responsibilities at the De-
fense Readiness Center preparing intelligence professionalsfor overseas assignments.
1989DaNiel ryaN, Ed.M., isfounder and head of The
Children’s School in Berwyn,Ill. He is planning a nationaleducation conference with the
Progressive Education Networin Chicago in November 2011.
C O U R T E S Y O F J U L I E L I N E B E R G E R
1982 Julie Lineberger’s firm,
LineSync Architecture,
designed River Bank Park
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O
ne thousand, six hundred eighty minutes .
That is the average amount of time that children
watch television each week according to Nielsen via
TV-Free America. Devon Tutak, Ed.M.’04, knows this is a lot. Still,
she thinks we need to stretch beyond the debate of how much,
and begin concentrating more on what.
“No one is going to convince enough children or their parents
to turn off the television and computer,” says Tutak. “But you can
provide them with quality content that provides a larger benefit
than just entertainment.”
Tutak was a public television devotee at a young age: “My earli-
est memories of children’s television are mash-ups of Muppets
and John Cleese [on Fawlty Towers],” she shares. She became
further convinced of its value when she worked first as a teacher,
then with the lobbying group, the Association of Public Television
Stations. “Those two experiences were very important because
they made [it] clear to me that a) we need to be doing more to
educate America’s children, and b) public television is uniquely
capable of supporting that issue.”
Now, as project manager at Ready To Learn, a five-year, U.S.
Department of Education initiative running through September
2015, Tutak works with partners such as PBS, local public televi-
sion stations, and the National Summer Learning Association to
use public media to combat the effects of poverty on children’s
math and literacy skills. Along with television programming, the
initiative works on multimedia classroom tools, augmented real-
ity games, and transmedia gaming suites.
But in the cluttered children’s entertainment landscape, it’s
difficult to catch — and keep — kids’ attention.
“Producers [must] step up to the challenge. Shows that have
a meaningful lesson, that connect with a child to give them the
‘Aha!’ moment when they learn something for the first time or
finally grasp a concept that seemed so fuzzy up until that mo-
ment, are the best ones,” Tutak says, naming Sesame Street
and The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! as examples of
programs that do this effectively.
Supporting the “best ones” is what Ready To Learn is about.
The financial support, Tutak says, allow producers of public tele-
vision to create “more robust” programming with demonstrated
educational benefits. It also allows for more extensive audience
testing, market research, and product development that help th
shows compete with commercial networks with larger budgets.
Having previously worked at PBS, marketing such popular
shows as Super WHY!, Dinosaur Train, and The Cat in the Hat,
Tutak is enjoying coming at the material with broader goals in
mind, thanks, in part, to her Ed School training.
“This new job is a lot closer to my educational roots,” she says
“I’m not just focused on getting kids to watch our shows or go
to our websites; I want to make sure that they’re learning and
increasing their chances for success by doing so.”
— Marin Jorgensen
Quality Control: Devon Tutak
1993ShelDoN bermaN, Ed.M.,Ed.D., has been named super-intendent of Eugene School
District 4J in Eugene, Ore.
SuzaNNe SCallioN, C.A.S.,was appointed superintendentof schools in Westeld, Mass.
1995 Julie aNNe mCNary,Ed.M., was given the Conway
Award for Excellence in Teach-
ing Writing from HarvardExtension School.
PhylliS gimbel SChNit-maN, Ed.M., is associate profes-sor of educational leadershipat Bridgewater State Univer-
sity (Mass.), where she is alsoassistant coordinator of the
Writing Across the Curriculumapproach. She recently won theDiNardo Alumni Award for
Excellence in Teaching.
1996moNa abo-zeNa, Ed.M.,
coauthored — with ChriStiNa tobiaS Nahi, Ed.M.’03 — thechapter “Testing the Courage of
their Convictions: Muslim Youth
Respond to Stereotyping, Hostil-ity, and Discrimination” in the
2009 book Muslim Voices in School: Narratives of Identity and Plural-
ism. The volume was the winner
of the National Association for
Multicultural Education 2010book award.
1997Nita Sturiale, Ed.M.,was recently promoted to full
professor at the MassachusettsCollege of Art and Design
where she teaches in the Studiofor Interrelated Media.
1999ChriStiNe “CeCe” Cama-Cho, Ed.M., is vice presidentof Sustainable Health Enter-
prises. The organization is a
nalist for the INDEX: Award2011, the world’s largest mon-etary prize for design.
PhilliP hayNeS, Ed.M.,recently opened Crimson
Academy in Rwanda, a
school serving about 180 chil-dren. (See prole page 37.)
lyNDa blair verNalia,Ed.M., has been cast in a
leading role of “Mother” for
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alumni news and notes
an August production of the
Boston-originated Monsters! the Musical . An actress, amateur
playwright, and published poet,Vernalia is also an acting coachat the Academy of Performing
Arts New England in Chelms-ford, Mass.
matt walker, Ed.M., joined Denver’s oldest law rm,
Sherman & Howard, as anassociate in the ERISA andEmployee Benets Practice.
2001 JoShua Starr, Ed.M.’98,Ed.D., has been named superin-
tendent of Montgomery CountyPublic Schools in Maryland. Hewas previously superintendent
in Stamford, Conn.
2002alexaNDer DiPPolD,Ed.M., and his wife, Jean, wel-
comed baby Edward EmmettDippold on July 14, 2011. He
says that Genevieve is adjusting to her new status as a big sister.
aNthoNy herNaNDez,Ed.M., is director of strate-
gic planning at Happy KidsPediatrics in Arizona. He wasquoted recently in The Arizona
Republic voicing his opposi-tion to Arizona Governor JanBrewer’s proposed budget cuts
for the poorest populations.
timothy kNowleS,Ed.M.’96, Ed.D., is a mem-
ber of Chicago Mayor RahmEmanuel’s education transitionteam and director of the UrbanEducation Institute at the Uni-
versity of Chicago. He was therecipient of the 2011 Alumni
Council Award at the EdSchool’s convocation in May.
DeNiSe tioSeCo, Ed.M.,and her husband, Christian,announce the birth of their son,
Westley Tioseco Roehl. He wa
born March 9, 2011, at 5:34p.m., weighing 7 lbs.11 oz., and
measuring 20 inches in length. Westley was named after theisland where Denise and Chris
tian got married, Key West.She says his initials, WTR, areperfect for a Pisces baby.
2003george alaN Smith,Ed.M.’98, Ed.D., was named
chief of staff of the U.S. De-partment of Education’s Ofceof Vocational and Adult Educa
tion. Previously, he worked forthe Ofce of the State Super-
intendent of Education withinthe Ofce of the Mayor for theDistrict of Columbia.
ChriStiNa tobiaS-Nahi,Ed.M., has joined the Joint
Council on International Chil-dren’s Services as their directo
of orphan nutrition. With
moNa abo-zeNa, Ed.M.’96she coauthored the chapter
“Testing the Courage of their
Convictions: Muslim YouthRespond to Stereotyping,
Hostility, and Discrimination”in the 2009 book Muslim Voices
in School: Narratives of Identity and Pluralism. The volume was thewinner of the National Associa
tion for Multicultural Educa-tion 2010 book award.
2005SuSaNa Claro, Ed.M.,cofounded Enseña Chile — the
Chilean version of Teach For America and the rst South American organization to bea part of the Teach For All
network — and worked as theadvisor of the ministry of edu-
cation. Although Claro recentlleft Chile with her husband, shremains a member of the board
of Enseña Chile and is thinkinof pursuing a Ph.D. at Stanfordin the fall.
2005Kate Barr y, Becca Schendel, Kelley Curtin, Susan Cohen Davidson, and
Michelle Hoover, all 2005 graduates of the Higher Education
Program, at Schendel’s wedding in Barre, Mass.
2002Denise Tioseco’s
son Westley
STUDIO ATTICUS PHOTOGRAPHY
2002Alexander Dippold’s
son Edward
C O U R T E S Y O F A L E X
A N D E R D I P P O L D
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Phillip Haynes, Ed.M.’99, had no direct connection to Africa.
But, in 2009, he was persuaded by Mark Maynard from
the How Far Foundation to go on a mission trip to Rwanda,
where, unexpectedly, he discovered the next step in his career.
“When I arrived I was very surprised,” he says. “[People were]
begging for education. [Seeing that,] I resolved within myself that
I could provide educational opportunities to Rwandans by build-
ing schools.”
Having successfully established two schools in the United
States — Crayon Academy and Crimson Academy, both in Geor-
gia — Haynes knew how to build a school from the ground up. He
completed a grant plan, schedule, and budget, but it soon became
evident that things could not be done in Rwanda as they are done
in the United States.
“I quickly realized that I could not ask the local Rwandans to
adapt to a modern project planning methodology, nor hold them
to comply [to one],” he says. “There is a phrase that comes to
mind, ‘This is Africa.’ I had to conform my temperament and ex-
pectations to the way they get things done. … Every agreement
is essentially verbal, and you have to build a solid relation-
ship with local leaders to get everything done.”
It is Haynes’ hope that, by providing stable education to th
children in Rwanda, he will be helping the country as a whole
“Within East Africa, there are minority groups within
the broader country population that are in dire need and
distress. The chance for upward mobility is nonexistent,” he
says. “The local governments understand the needs but lack
the resources to service these groups. My goal is to educate
children and give them greater opportunities to provide for
their families and lead the country.”
Unfortunately, there has been some resistance to Haynes’
plans, primarily from the older generations who question the
necessity of a formal education. The school is often competing
with families, he says, who feel children’s time is better devoted
to labor than to education.
Despite the challenges — including a six-month building sched
ule that turned into two years — Crimson Academy of Gihara,
Rwanda, opened in January 2011, welcoming 180 students. The
English-language instruction is led by a local faculty and staff,
with Haynes making frequent visits.
Since its opening, Haynes has noticed that a shift in mindset
among the community has begun, with more parents now choos-
ing education for their children. Even one of the local leaders —
who, when the school was initially being built, told Haynes that he
had never been to school and was fine — had a change of heart.
“When the school was completed and his child attended the
school for two weeks,” Haynes says, “the same local leader
returned and said, ‘I will sell every thing I have to make sure
he can attend the school. He is learning things I could never
dream about.’”
— Marin Jorgensen
Into Africa: Phillip Haynes
Haynes (baseball hat) demonstrates to teachers how to use
one of the new computer s at Crimson Academy in Rwanda
CamSie matiS mCaDamS,
Ed.M., was named directorof STEM initiatives for theDistrict of Columbia Public
Schools. She will be respon-sible for shaping the vision and
strategy around STEM educa-tion for the K–12 system. Shewrites, “I would welcome any
advice, reading suggestions,professional contacts, or words
of wisdom as I begin this excit-ing new position!”
louie roDriguez,Ed.M.’99, Ed.M.’01, Ed.D.,was selected as a faculty fellow
by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education
for 2011. He was one of sevenfaculty fellows selected this year
to participate in the associa-tion’s annual conference in San
Antonio last March.
rebeCCa SCheNDel, Ed.M.,married Andrew Koleros on
September 18, 2010, in Barre,Mass. Other 2005 Ed School
alums at the wedding were
kate barry, SuSaN CoheN
DaviDSoN, miChelle hoover, and kelley CurtiN. The couple has been
living and working in Kigali,Rwanda, since 2008, where she
was the director of programsat Generation Rwanda. The
couple now resides in London,where she is working towardher Ph.D.
2006 Jim larSoN, Ed.M., has beenappointed Indiana’s new direc-
tor of school turnaround andimprovement.
2007ethaN gray, Ed.M., wasnamed to Splashlife.com’s listof 30 Under 30: Innovative
Educators, due to his work withIndianapolis’ The Mind Trust
and its Cities for EducationEntrepreneurship Trust (CEE-Trust) initiative.
kriStiN miChaelSoN,Ed.M., recently launched
Advantage Development( advantagedevelopment.webs.com ),
an educational consulting rmspecializing in guiding parents
C O U R T E S Y O F P H I L L I P H A Y N E S
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alumni news and notes
W
hen Rena Upitis, Ed.D.’85, asks adults about their
passions, it is rare that they had developed these
passions at school. One reason, she believes: The
design of school buildings often lacks the physical spaces that
encourage that kind of learning.
Though Upitis’ areas of research have spanned computer
technology, math, music, and the arts, this former dean of
education, and current professor of arts education at Queen’s
University, Kingston, Ontario, is now focused on the power of
school architecture.
Author of the 2010 book, Raising a School: Foundations of
School Architecture, Upitis explores school architecture and how
the physical environment can either enable or constrain learning.
“I realized that a lot of teachers want to do more work in the
arts and recognize the importance of the arts, but don’t have the
physical capabilities, meaning the schools don’t encourage that
type of work in the spaces,” she says. A teacher might want to of-
fer dance, for example, but does not have the space to do so.
Intrigued by the notion of architecture and the role it plays in
education — a more active one than most would think — Upitis
earned a diploma in architecture technology five years ago. She
is a believer in the Reggio Emilia Approach, which suggests that
the physical surroundings in which students are taught are piv-
otal to their learning. It’s important, Upitis says, to pay attention
to the look and feel of a building because it sends messages to
its inhabitants.
“We go into some buildings and they tell us the world is wel-
coming, whereas others tell us it is stiff and constrained,” she
says. Historically, Upitis believes, schools haven’t been designed
to enhance education.
“If school architecture is a typical box classroom with few
windows and narrow hallways in soundproof walls [with] hideous
aesthetics, then we tell children that school is a container,” she
says. “Kids want comfortable furniture, light, air, and to hear a
bird outside the window.”
In a day when a lot of schools are both renovating and being
built, Upitis thinks it is an ideal time to reconsider the schools of
today and beyond.
“If we take seriously the notion that school buildings present
students with powerful messages about what society values,
then school architecture needs to be radically rethought,” shesays. “For a century and a half, we have built schools that lack
adequate light, good furniture, inviting entryways, and green
spaces. This is the time to do it.”
— Jill Anderson
If You Build It: Rena Upitis
David A. Greene, Ed.M.’91, Ed.M.’94, Ed.D.’02, Chair
Jiraorn Assarat, Ed.M.’04
Marilyn Barber, Ed.M.’83
Barbara Brown, Ed.D.’90
Tara Brown, Ed.M.’01, Ed.D.’05
Anthony Cipollone, Ed.D.’90
*John Jackson, Ed.M.’98, Ed.D.’01
*Mieko Kamii, Ed.M.’73, Ed.D.’82
Ellie Loughlin, Ed.M.’06, C.A.S.’07
Will Makris, Ed.M.’00
Rebecca Mannis, Ed.M.’85
Tanya Odom, Ed.M.’98
*Judith Pace, C.A.S.’90, Ed.M.’95, Ed.D.’98
Christine Pina, Ed.M.’99
*Karl Reid, Ed.D.’07
Sam Robinson, Ed.M.’88
*Samona Joe Tait, Ed.M.’96, Ed.D.’00
*Emiliana Vegas, Ed.M.’96, Ed.D.’01
Douglas Wood, Ed.M.’96, Ed.D.’00
* denotes a new council member
HGSE Alumni Council, 2011–2012
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James Goodwin, GSE’33
Ruth Frankel Smullin, GSE’37
Rose Depoyan, Ed.M.’38
William Stimson, M.A.T.’39
George Filion, M.A.T.’40
Gardner Williams, GSE’41
Anna Pavlatos Leontis, M.A.T.’44Philip Sweeney, GSE’46
William Hubbard, M.A.T.’47
Robert Reynolds Rathbone, M.A .T.’47
Trevor Robinson, M.A.T.’51
John Clougherty, M.A.T.’53
Harold Finegold, M.A.T.’53
W. Ray Rucker, Ed.D.’53
William Gardner Blount, C.A.S.’54
Bernard Stanley Cayne, Ed.M.’54
Edwin Lyle, C.A.S.’54
Marianne Ockerbloom, M.A.T.’57
Adele Alper, Ed.M.’58
Martin Reno, Ed.M.’58
Theodore Mayo Atkinson Jr., Ed.M.’59
John Moran, M.A.T.’59
William Stuart, M.A.T.’47, Ed.D.’59Boit Brannen, Ed.M.’44, Ed.D.’60
Francis Gilmour, Ed.M.’60
Marcia Harper, GSE’61
Paul Edward Kelly, Ed.D.’61
John Anthony Mierzwa, Ed.M.’58, Ed.D.’61
William Cone, Ed.D.’62
Rhoda Spangenberg Lederer, M.A.T.’62
Malcolm Marshall, Ed.M.’62
Hamish MacEwan, Ed.M.’63
Thavisakdi Srimuang, Ed.M.’65
Joseph Franklin McBrine, C.A.S.’67
Rodney Mansfield, C.A.S.’68
Herbert Ryan Adams, Ed.D.’72
Roberta Maras, M.A.T.’73
Margaret Logan, C.A.S.’77
Chandler Parker, C.A.S.’77Jackson Felsman, Ed.M.’75, Ed.D.’82
Gail Johnson, Ed.M.’82
Frances Ruff, Ed.M.’79, Ed.D.’89
Landon Tracy Archer Summers, Ed.M.’83
Ed.D.’91
Nelson Treece, Ed.D.’91
Kevin Charles Marshall, Ed.M.’09
Laura Rose Kavazanjian, Ed.M.’10
In Memory
through the rst ve
years of their children’slives, with a particular
focus on parenting consultations and schooladmissions guidance in
New York City.
2008matt breNNer,Ed.M., has written the
essay “The Four PillarsUpon Which the Failure
of Math EducationRests (and what to doabout it).” It can be read
at www.k12math.org/ doclib/4pillars.pdf.
SuSaN eNfielD,Ed.M.’02, Ed.D., was
named interim superin-tendent of Seattle publicschools. Previously, she
was the district’s chief academic ofcer.
2010rhoNDa baylor,
Ed.M., works in Wash-ington, D.C. as an edu-cation research analyst
for the U.S. Departmentof Education. In thefall, she will teach two
classes at the Communi-ty College of the Distr ictof Columbia.
mary Carroll,
Ed.M., is engaged toChristopher Cole. She iscurrently a second grade
teacher at the Mastery
Charter Program’sMann Elementary
School in West Philadel-phia, Pa.
martyNa SarNowSka,Ed.M., works at the
education center in theRoyal Baths Museumin Warsaw. She is the
editor of a museumeducation blog: www.
edukacjamuzealnaeng.blogspot.com.
Alumni event in Nashville, Tenn., hos ted by Daniel and Jessica Viner, Ed.M.’97,
and alumni council member Christine Pina, Ed.M.’99, Februar y 2011
Recent Alumni Circle at
Charles River Cleanup, Apr il 2011
HGSE Alumni Events
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No Dragons Behind the MoatIf you’re new to the Ed School, by now you’ve seen the
unusual brick tower at the end of Appian Way called Larsen
Hall and wondered what it’s supposed to be. (Even if you’re
not new, you’re still probably wondering.) Since the build-
ing rst opened in 1965, it’s been called everything from a
concrete bunker to a genial robot,
an IBM card in 3-D to a medieval
castle. It’s been likened to the
Ronchamp Chapel in France and to
the Whitney Museum in New York.
It’s clear from articles written
about the building and comments
from those involved in the planning
that the Houston-based archi-
tects, Caudill, Rowlett, and Scott,
weren’t necessarily trying to create
a type of building — a castle or a
card — but were trying to build
something interesting while alsobeing attentive to lots of needs: a
city council concerned with historic
preservation, faculty and programs
with varied requirements, and very
limited space. In a letter written to
Roy Larsen in 1964 after learning
that the building would be named
for Larsen, the lead architect, William Caudill, wrote, “You
might like to know that one of the main design premises of
the building was to make it as exible as a glass Manhattan
ofce building, still have the feeling of permanency that will
allow it to ‘dwell together in unity’ with other Harvard build-ings, yet retain its individuality. Now if it does these things
— and I think the building will — we must have anticipated
that it would be called Roy Larsen Hall. Like the man, the
building should be dynamic, should have a timeless quality,
and should be a distinctive and distinguished individual. If
not, re the architects — after the dedication.”
The architects weren’t red, and the building received
many accolades over the years, particularly for some of the
unusual features, such as a glass-lled sunken courtyard built
with one-way mirrors that allowed researchers to observe
fth- and sixth-graders from
Cambridge as they took classes.
“New and stimulating,” wrote one
architect in The Boston Globe. “Active,
ingenious,” wrote the authors of
Harvard: An
Architectural
History. In
1967, the building won an award from
the Texas Society of Architects.
But there was also criticism of the
building’s quirkiness. Windows were
few and far between, in part because
the architects wanted to draw the eye
to a small number of stunning views.
Which they did — at the expense of
natural light (very little) and window-
less ofces (very many). Interestingly,
more windows were added on thestreet side after the Harvard Cor-
poration threatened in 1963 to veto
the original design.
Interior space also became an
issue. One of the design intentions
was to make the space as exible as
possible by placing all of the im-
movable building parts — ventilation shafts and stairs, for
example — along the outer walls, leaving center areas open
and allowing inner walls to be moved as needs changed.
But, as James Ackerman, then-chair of Harvard’s Fine Arts
Department, wrote in 1965 in Connections, spaces were even-tually subdivided using xed materials. Part of the problem
he wrote, was the committee approach to building a build-
ing. “Without an autocrat,” Ackerman wrote, “everyone
gets more or less what he wants, and that makes chaos.”
It seems that Caudill had a sense of humor about the crit
cism, saying at the dedication ceremony in 1966, “The new
structure may have a strange form, but it will wear a familiar
Harvard tweed.” And nally, “What’s wrong with castles?”
— Lory Hough
recess
Phil and P
D A V I D H U N S B E R G E R
DAVID HUNSBERGER
HARVARD ARCHIVES
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What began last spring with a simple question over
lunch with Dean Kathleen McCartney became the
inspiration for a major fundraising effort by a group
of first-year Ed.D. students.
“We were speaking about all of the behind-the-scenes work that
goes into making this [Ed School] experience possible for doctoral
students and the challenges of fundraising for research-oriented
degree programs,” explains Ed.D. Candidate Beth Schueler. “So
we asked if there was anything we could do to help.”
McCartney told them that if every student and graduate of
the school contributed $25 each year, the school would meet
its annual fund goals. So, with that bit of information — and a
shared gratitude for their own doctoral funding — Schueler and
classmates Janine de Novais, Liz Hale Rozas, and Lisa Utzinger,
Ed.M.’10, began to brainstorm.
Although among the group only Utzinger had any prior fund-
raising experience, they decided to issue a “cohort challenge” to
their Ed.D. peers with the goal of convincing every member of the
first-year cohort — 32 in total — to contribute to the HGSE Fund,
which seeks to raise resources for many areas of the Ed School
including financial aid, Gutman Library, and faculty and student
support services. Immediately, their classmates were intrigued.
“The challenge to get 100 percent participation was met with
enthusiasm, largely because it was a homegrown idea and it would
be a cohort effort,” says de Novais. “A few people weren’t sure at
first, but we emphasized this as a chance to show appreciation for
what we were receiving and that got everyone on board.”
(Hale Rozas suspects that her promise to host a dinner party
for the cohort if everyone contributed probably also helped.)
Within a matter of weeks, all of the first-year Ed.D. students
had made gifts.
“I think it’s a testament to our cohort’s willingness to support
each other’s initiatives, whether it is the giving challenge, the
Student Research Conference, or our independent research
projects,” Utzinger says.
Having found success with their cohort challenge, the four
students decided to reach out to a much larger group — Ed.D.
alumni. Working with the Development & Alumni Relations
Office, they crafted a letter encouraging alumni to join them in
supporting the program now and into the future.
Going forward, the foursome aims to achieve 100 percent
participation during each year of their time at the Ed School and
hopes to inspire future Ed.D. cohorts to do the same.
“My hope is that future cohorts, by our example, will see giving
as a something they do as part of the HGSE community,” says Ut
zinger. “And something they do together rather than individually.”
— Mark Robertson, Ed.M.’08
investing
Giving 100 Percent
(L to R) Bet
Utzinger, Ja
and Liz Hal
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