In University World News, Research Professor Philip Altbach writes that the political currents of the past year will continue to have an impact on higher education in 2018 and beyond. In addition, the 2017 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange cited a decrease in the number of international students seeking to study at U.S. colleges and universities. Altbach predicted such a decline and comments on the report in Voice of America.
Associate Professor Karen Arnold’s research on college access was included in a Washington Post Education article on summer melt.
The National Science Foundation has awarded the Lynch School a three-year, $1.2 million grant to engage low-income high school students in a science and emerging agricultural technology project, designed to guide them in conducting scientific research and prepare them for post-secondary scientific study. Professor of Science Education G. Michael Barnett is the project’s principal investigator.
Boisi Professor Henry Braun will receive 2018 American Education Research Association’s (AERA) Division D 2018 Robert L. Linn Memorial Lecture Award. He will receive the award at the AERA Annual Meeting. In addition, in a first-of-its-kind interactive workshop Braun organized, scholars from a range of disciplines discussed strategies for measuring the impact of undergraduate education on students’ personal growth. View video »
Cawthorne Professor Marilyn Cochran-Smith will be named the recipient of the 2018 American Education Research Association’s (AERA) Division K Legacy Award, which recognizes scholars who have made significant and exemplary contributions through their research, teaching and professional service in the field of teaching, and teacher education. She will receive the award at AERA's national conference in New York City in April. Cochran-Smith was also named to the list of top scholars who help shape educational practice and policy.
AERA Open reported on a study of Norway’s child care system led by Professor Eric Dearing, which found that early, universal, high-quality child care improves language skills in young children.
Associate Professor Audrey Friedman will retire at the end of the 2017–18 academic year. Formerly the associate dean for Undergraduate Student Services, Friedman has dedicated her research to developing and nurturing reflective judgment in adolescents and adults in addition to alternative assessment in reading, writing, mathematics, and science in grades K–12. Her expertise spans educational leadership and policy; language learning and literacy; STEM teaching and learning; and teacher education.
Professor Lisa Goodman led a team to develop an online community-based participatory research toolkit for domestic violence researchers.
Brennan Professor Andrew Hargreaves, a renowned international expert on education reform and its impact, has retired after 15 years at Boston College. He was named number 16 on the list of top scholars who help shape educational practice and policy and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Education University of Hong Kong in November.
Associate Professors Deoksoon Kim and David Scanlon conducted a three-week digital storytelling project with sixth and seventh graders at the Saint Columbkille Partnership School. View video »
University President William P. Leahy, S.J., announced the promotions of Lynch School faculty Katherine McNeill in the Teacher Education, Special Education, and Curriculum and Instruction Department to professor and Rebecca Lowenhaupt in the Educational Leadership and Higher Education Department to associate professor with tenure.
Buehler Sesquicentennial Assistant Professor David Miele will receive a 2018 AERA Review of Research Award for the article “Students’ Thinking About Effort and Ability: The Role of Developmental, Contextual, and Individual Difference Factors” in the Review of Educational Research. He will be honored at the AERA Awards Luncheon in New York City in April.
The TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, directed by Ina V.S. Mullis and Michael O. Martin, released the results of PIRLS 2016, a large-scale assessment of fourth grade reading achievement in 50 countries and 11 benchmarking regions. The results were presented at UNESCO headquarters in Paris and reported in news outlets ranging from the BBC News and Washington Post to the South China Morning Post and Times of Israel.
The Lynch School’s Teaching Dual Language Learners certificate program is highlighted in a WGBH News report on the need for qualified teachers as Massachusetts re-adopts bilingual education. The piece includes comments from Associate Professor Patrick Proctor, one of the program’s developers.
Professor Diana C. Pullin will retire at the end of the 2017–18 academic year, concluding a remarkable career that adroitly merged her dual professional expertise in education and law. An esteemed lawyer, scholar, and former dean, Pullin has been a Lynch School faculty member for 31 years, and an affiliate professor at Boston College Law School since 1994.
Rutgers University Press recently published Technology and Engagement: Making Technology Work for First Generation College Students by Associate Professor Heather Rowan-Kenyon, Associate Dean Ana M. Martínez Alemán, and Mandy Savitz-Romer, Ph.D. ’04.
Psychologists have modernized their approach to better serve patients and have conducted more research that validates its success, according to an article in the APA magazine Monitor on Psychology, which highlights the work of Associate Professor Usha Tummala-Narra.
City Connects, the student intervention program overseen by Kearns Professor Mary Walsh, has been recognized by two national groups: by Results for America for its noteworthy, evidence-based education reform and by the Center for High Impact Philanthropy for its grant-worthy social impact in education. The National Catholic Reporter also reported on the success of City Connects, which now serves nearly 100 schools in 11 cities across five states.
Stanton E. F. Wortham was formally introduced as the first Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean of the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at a ceremony in October. Established in 2011 through a gift from Susan Martinelli Shea ’76, the Donovan Deanship is named in honor of the founding dean of Boston College’s School of Education. Wortham wrote about the impact of immigration reform measures on children and families in an op-ed for the Boston Herald.
Associate Professor Ted Youn will retire at the end of the 2017–18 academic year. He has focused his research on qualitative methods, the sociology of education, organizational theory in higher education, evolution of the academic profession, the politics of education, and social studies of the American elite.
The Omaha World-Herald reported that the Archdiocese of Omaha—in partnership with the Two-Way Immersion Network for Catholic Schools of the Lynch School’s Roche Center for Catholic Education—plans to launch its first dual-language education program next school year, teaching children as young as three years old in both Spanish and English.
The Sci-Ed Innovators Fellowship, a Lynch School initiative, is helping a group of science teachers from underserved Boston-area schools improve their craft and transform their students’ science education experience.