In This Issue
Imagine on news stands!
Spreading our reach
UA tidbits
People in the news

Dean's Endowment

in Education

 

We enjoy strong support from the university and ambitious and effective leadership in Dean Ronald W. Marx. To retain his leadership and to secure successors who will continue to cultivate the college's success, we are establishing a $1 million Dean's Endowment in Education that will ensure leadership of the highest caliber. The good news is we are well on our way! We have received a cash gift of $300,000 plus a $350,000 matching challenge. The challenge criteria are that we raise the entire $350,000 so the endowment will be complete and that we raise it (via pledges) before December 31. Pledges can be paid out over three years. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

 

Please contact Director of Development Stacey M. Turner at 520-621-7143 or [email protected].

 

 

SOARing again


soaring

Project SOAR (Student Outreach for Access & Resiliency) received notification in June that it would be recognized as one of the 12 finalists for the 2011 Outreach Scholarship W.K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award. Although SOAR did not win the award competition, it received recognition as an exemplary project at the National Outreach Scholarship Conference annual meeting last month in East Lansing, Michigan.

 

Established in 2006 with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the awards program seeks to identify colleges and universities that have redesigned their learning, discovery, and engagement functions to become even more involved with their communities. 

 

Project SOAR is a service-learning experience that routinely places more than 75 UA undergraduate mentors in under-resourced, public middle schools in the Tucson area. More on SOAR.

 

Convocation

 

UA College of Education Convocation is around the corner!

 
Thursday, December 15

1:30 p.m.

Centennial Hall

(Centennial Hall is located at 1020 East University Boulevard on the UA Campus.)

For more information, contact Karen Sesler at 520-621-7865 or
[email protected]. 

 
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Education E-News
Thanksgiving 2011 

The Power of Gratitude

 

autumn

 

 

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."

   

 ~Melody Beattie
Author 

 

At the UA College of Education, we have enormous gratitude for our students, alumni, friends, faculty, and staff -- all of whom you'll read about below.

 

 

Taking education to new heights 

 

cover of ImagineDid you get your issue of the latest Imagine magazine? The College of Education magazine, which goes to 40,000, features in-depth profiles about our alumni and faculty, delves into our research, and covers issues we don't have room for in E-News. If you'd like a copy, please contact Director of Communications Ana Luisa Terrazas at [email protected]

 

Or you can just read it online here.

 

The Erasmus Circle Scholars
The Erasmus Circle scholarship program was developed by the Dean's Advisory Board to create new funding support for outstanding students in education and related fields. The scholarship is funded by generous gifts by Erasmus Circle Patrons and Erasmus Circle Boosters. 

  

Patrons Richard and Renee Clift with their scholars
Patrons Renee and Richard Clift (center) with their scholars, La Monica Everett-Haynes (left) and Elizabeth Anderson

Erasmus Circle Scholars are outstanding students who show promise in their area of study, many of whom have made contributions to their communities, the College of Education, and the University of Arizona. Each fall, Dean Marx hosts a reception to honor both graduate and undergraduate Erasmus Circle Scholars.

 

Fall 2011 Erasmus Circle Graduate Scholars

Curtis Acosta Patrons: Jeff & Rose Milem

Seth Aleshire Patrons: Reese & Nancy Woodling

Cathy Amanti Patrons: Jerry & Kathy Short

Erin Anderson Patron: Jinx Patterson

Erica DeFrain Patron: Barbara Cropper

La Monica Everett-Haynes Patrons: Richard & Ren�e Clift

Jingjing Fan Patron: Kris Bosworth

Elizabeth Freiberg Patrons: Ron & Anne Marx

Crystal Kalinec-Craig Patron: Tom Nolan

Angela Labistre Patrons: Wright & Virginia Cortner

Danielle Miner Patron: Emily Meschter

Joaquin Mu�oz Patrons: Vernon & Barbara Myers

Alexandra Robie Patron: Evelyn Carswell-Bing

Najah Swartz Patrons: Steven & Danielle Thu

 

Fall 2011 Erasmus Circle Undergraduate Scholars

Rene Acereto Patrons: Steven & Danielle Thu

Elizabeth Anderson Patrons: Richard & Ren�e Clift

Gina-Fay Bruno Patron: Tom Nolan

Morgan Cicinelli Patron: Jinx Patterson

Rebecca Gotz Patrons: Ron & Anne Marx

Chelsea Granillo Patron: Emily Meschter

Vito Peppitoni Patrons: Reese & Nancy Woodling

Laura Petersen Patrons: Vernon & Barbara Myers

Valerie Rand Patron: Barbara Cropper

Fatemma Rashwan-Soto Patrons: Jeff & Rose Milem

Allison Rooney Patrons: Wright & Virginia Cortner

Tiffany Short Patrons: Jerry & Kathy Short

Stacy Stout Patron: Evelyn Carswell-Bing

Melissa West Patron: Kris Bosworth 

 

Erasmus Scholars with Dean Marx 

 

  

A new way to help  

teachers and students

 

A new nonprofit, ClassWish.org, allows teachers to help with classroom resources without spending their own money. 

 

Sarah Brown Wessling, 2010 National Teacher of the Year, wrote of ClassWish.org, "This nonprofit is a swift and inventive way for communities to unite in support of the tools that make learning more accessible for all students."

 

Your help:

Provides children with better-equipped classrooms 


Reduces the financial burden on teachers, which is a major contributor to teacher attrition


Reduces the $2.2 billion a year that the Alliance for Excellent Education reports districts now spend in replacing public school teachers who have dropped out of the profession

 

Here's how it works:

Teachers create Wish Lists of the items they need to equip great classrooms 


Visitors to the site see exactly what is needed and make tax-deductible donations to help

 

Many companies match employees' donations, which can double their funding  


ClassWish has the items shipped
directly to the teachers at no cost

 

For more information, contact Jing Jia at [email protected] or visit ClassWish.org. 

 

Spreading our reach

 

chandler map

 

 

What state institution of higher education is working to combine education and industry in Chandler? Hint: It's not ASU.

 

The University of Arizona College of Education is expanding its MASTER-IP offices and classrooms into 125 E. Commonwealth Ave. in downtown Chandler. The master's program will begin in May, and the professional-development program is scheduled to start in 2013.

 

Read more here. 

 

Memories from Homecoming 2011 

 If you didn't attend, look at the fun you missed!

 

face painting

 

couple 

 

little girl 

 

pinata 

Honoring our honors students

  

Blaire family
Everyone in the family celebrates
Jessica Blaire's accomplishments

We celebrated our honors students with the 2011 Honors Reception in September. Certificates, kudos, and hors d'oeuvres were given to students with Highest Academic Distinction (those who have completed a minimum of 30 units of graded work during two semesters of the 2010-2011 academic year with a GPA of 4.00) and Academic Distinction (those who have completed a minimum of 30 units of graded work during two semesters of the 2010-2011 academic year with a GPA of 3.50 to 3.99). Almost 200 students and family members attended. 

 

 

UA tidbits to ponder

 

UA seal
Photo by Scott Kirkessner

The UA is the 21st largest university in the country as measured by overall enrollment.

 

More than 27,000 prospective freshman students applied to the UA for the 2011-12 academic year; more than 7,300 enrolled.

 

Students from Arizona, other states, and other countries are applying and enrolling at the UA at record levels. More than 38 percent of the freshman class consists of out-of-state and international students.

 

Among Arizona residents, more than 45 percent of this year's freshman class is from Maricopa County.

 

Members of the UA freshman class continue to perform well academically. The average GPA is 3.4 and the average SAT score is about 1100. For Honors College students, the average GPA is 3.8 and the average SAT score is 1281.

 

Four-year graduation rates at the University of Arizona have doubled in the past decade.

 

The UA is undergoing a dramatic shift in culture as it expands access to alternative pathways to an undergraduate degree. Through community college partnerships, growth in online programs, and leveraging of university facilities statewide, students in every county have direct access to a UA degree. 

 

People

 

Dean's Office

chavarria
Chavarria

Director of Education Outreach Sara Chavarria is part of a UA-led interdisciplinary team of researchers that will examine how humans in the Southwest have responded to changes in the surrounding forests over multiple centuries with the help of a four-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Here's more.

  

Disability & Psychoeducational Studies

fletcher
Fletcher

Associate Professor Todd Fletcher visited Universidad de Santo Tom�s in Santiago de Chile to discuss inclusive education teacher preparation. He was featured on television and in print

 

Alumnus Juan Carbajal, a resource teacher at Rivera Elementary School, is among four teachers to be recognized at the 13th Annual Esperanza Latino Teacher Awards. The Chicanos Por La Causa event was held in Phoenix. Carbajal is the first teacher in Pima County to receive the award, which honors teachers for inspiring students.

 

Doctoral student Jody M. Pirtle is a virtual trainee with the Association of University Centers on Disabilities. Virtual trainees are selected from applicants around the country. Here's more.

 

School Counseling student Taneya Walker received the Katheryne B. Willock Library Research Award, which recognizes UA students who have made extensive and innovative use of the UA Libraries' information resources and services in support of their coursework.

 

 

Teaching, Learning & Sociocultural Studies

asteroid

As part of a citizen-scientist activity, Carl Dickason, an earth science teacher, had students in his classes at Sabino High School participate in a project with the International Asteroid Search Collaboration group, looking for previously undiscovered asteroids. In September, Dickason received notification that an asteroid his students discovered had been upgraded from "preliminary" to "provisional" status along with two other groups, one from Bulgaria and the other from Brazil. Once the Astronomical Research Institute Observatory can confirm the asteroid's presence, which can take several months in order to characterize the asteroid's orbit, a randomly selected student from Dickason's class will get to name the asteroid, which is currently classified as 2011 QW55. 

 

Carl Dickason is a member of the soon-to-graduate Cohort 1 of our MASTER-IP Program. Here's more on the MASTER-IP (Math and Science Teacher Education/Retention Industry Partnerships).

 

Elementary Education student Roberto Jaramillo is the recipient of an Obama Teaching Award. Just 12 students across the U.S. received the honor. Here's more

 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

 

fall leaves

  

 

college logo

 


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