Faculty Accomplishments
William Jenson Receives Grant Award
The Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah has received a
five-year 1.2 million dollar personnel preparation grant award from the U.S. Department
of Education to prepare 40 graduate students in the School Psychology Program to address
the serious challenges that our schools face to meet the needs of children with Autism
Spectrum Disorders (ASD’s). The project will train graduate students how to deliver
state-of-the-art interventions that have been shown to improve behaviors and social
skills of children with ASD, including a new multi-media program, Superheroes, a social
skills program that utilizes fast-hands animated characters and an internet-based
parent training program developed by Rethink Autism. Congratulations to Professor
Jenson and his colleagues!
Dr. Yongmei Ni, faculty member in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy, has been awarded the 2012-2013 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.
The National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program supports
early career scholars working in critical areas of education research. This nonresidential
postdoctoral fellowship funds proposals that make significant scholarly contributions
to the field of education. The program also develops the careers of its recipients
through professional development activities involving National Academy of Education
members.
Dr. Kirsten Butcher has been appointed as the COE's Director of the Center for the Advancement of Technology in Education (CATE).
CATE explores the impact of technology-based interventions and tools in multiple environments,
including formal educational settings (e.g., school) and informal (e.g., community)
contexts. CATE's mission is to develop a deeper understanding of how people use and
learn with technology and how technology can be designed to facilitate meaningful
educational outcomes in a variety of disciplines, including science, engineering,
mathematics, education, health, psychology, and computer science.
Dr. Butcher brings significant research and development experience to this new position. Prior to her appointment to the faculty in Educational Psychology in 2008, she held Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at the Learning and Cognitive/Educational Technology Center at the University of Pittsburg and the Science Visualization and Digital Library Research University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). She is a nationally recognized scholar in the areas of visual representations, multimedia, and cyberlearning. In addition, she and her colleagues have successfully competed for a number of grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Utah State System of Higher Education.
Kathy Hill, a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Special Education, was recently awarded the Associated Students of the University of Utah's Student Choice Award in Teaching.
Kathy was nominated by her current cohort of student teachers for the quality of her
mentorship and her strong support for their individual success in the licensure program
in severe disabilities. Kathy is a long-term member of the Department of Special Education
and she has been a tireless advocate for students.
Dr. William Smith and the members of the Iota Iota Iota Chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity have been awarded the Pete Suazo Social Justice Award by the University of Utah College of Social Work.
This award was established in honor of Senator Pete Suazo who as a member of the Utah
State Legislature worked to bring about social change through his strong advocacy
for civil rights and social justice. The Omega Psi Phi Fraternity is predominantly
Black Greek-letter organization that has chapters throughout the United States. The
local Iota Iota Iota Chapter has graduate/professional members from Utah and Idaho
and last year completed over 4,000 hours of community service focused on a number
of important youth mentoring programs including the Saturday/Sunday Scholar Program,
Isuthu “Rites of Passage” Program, and the Omega summer Youth Leadership Conference
to name a few. Congratulations to Dr. Smith and his colleagues on this prestigious
award.
The College of Education is proud to announce that Dolores Delgado Bernal will be among this year's honorees for outstanding achievement in the field of education.
Dr. Delgado Bernal is Professor in the Department of Education, Culture and Society
and the Ethnic Studies Program at the University of Utah. She is the 2010 recipient
of the American Educational Research Association Distinguished Scholar Award. Her
research contributes to the fields of education and Chicana/Latina studies by examining
the socio-cultural context of the educational pipeline for students of color and investigating
alternative definitions of knowledge, teaching, and learning. She is co-editor of
Chicana/Latina Education in Everyday Life: Feminista Perspectives on Pedagogy and
Epistemology (2006), which received the American Educational Studies Critics Choice
Award. She is author of numerous chapters and articles, some of which appear in Harvard
Educational Review, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Urban Education, and Social
Justice. She is co-director of Adelante, a university-school-community partnership
at Jackson Elementary School, which is dedicated to creating educational opportunities
and expectations for college attendance through community engagement, research, and
reciprocity. An essential part of her identity as a scholar is teaching and mentoring
students of color.
Dr. Robert D. Hill has been named an ACE Fellow for academic year 2011-12.
Dr. Hill will spend an academic within the Rutgers University system in New Jersey
under the mentorship of Chancellor Steven Diner who has headed Rutgers University-Newark
since July 2002. Read More... Web link to full story not working.
Mary Burbank Selected as UNP 2011-2012 Community Scholar-in-Residence
Mary Burbank, Director of the Urban Institute for Teacher Education and Associate
Clinical Professor in the College of Education, has been selected by Interim University
President Lorris Betz to serve as the University Neighborhood Partners 2011-2012 Community
Scholar-in-Residence. Mary's appointment to this prestigious position is indicative
of her commitment to community-engaged scholarship and recognizes her important contributions
in this area over the past several years. Mary will be recognized at a University
event in the fall and her picture will be placed on the wall in the Olpin Union with
those of past University Community Scholars-in-Residence (including Dolores Delgado
Bernal, 2007-2008 UNP Scholar-in-Residence).
During the next year, Mary's scholarly activities will focus on deepening the work of the University, the College of Education, and the UITE to recruit and retain future educators from underrepresented backgrounds and to more fully understand how the culturally varied roles of teachers and families can be strengthened within the teacher education program. For the past year, Mary has been the driving force in Project FIRST which has developed successful pathways to teacher education for underrepresented students.