2021 Faculty and Staff Award Winners

Kurt Brown

Wisconsin Center for Education Research

Kurt Brown goes above and beyond to make work better at WCER. As its senior editor, Kurt improves the grant proposals and publications principal investigators write, helps them hone their research questions, and becomes more of a collaborator than a copy editor. Researchers and staff are indebted to Kurt for his expertise and more funding is awarded because of his work. Kurt also maintains a grant notification service to alert researchers to new funding opportunities.

As a white male, Kurt has worked hard personally and professionally to learn and grow around diversity, equity, and inclusion. He participates in training, served on the DEI Chance committee, and participated in a year-long Learning Community for Institutional Change. He makes space for others to speak, and then often raises an issue that re-centers the team toward DEI.

“That Kurt has advanced the mission of WCER and the School of Education more broadly is beyond question, and I am delighted that we are so fortunate as to have such an exemplary employee, colleague, and friend on our staff,” wrote David Williamson Shaffer, one of his nominators.

We are delighted to honor Kurt Brown with the Ann Wallace Academic Staff Distinguished Achievement Award. Congratulations, Kurt!

Tim Gattenby

Department of Kinesiology

Tim Gattenby brings a unique approach to working with clients and students in the Adapted Fitness program that he has enhanced and improved since he joined the Department of Kinesiology in 1986. Tim’s approach to adapted fitness is to meet with each client and set goals. A question he asks is “What would you like to do that you aren’t able to do now?” This sets the tone that the client establishes the goals and Tim and the students in the program help meet them.

Tim has built relationships with local businesses, establishing adaptive boating, cross-country skiing, and biking events.

Students love the Adapted Fitness program, too. Many volunteer to work after their required one semester and have been part of an adapted fitness leadership group. A parent of a client said they often “can’t tell after a session who has benefited most from the session, the client or the student.”

In addition to his work with adapted fitness, Tim brings enthusiasm to fitness at all levels. ROTC cadets who could not pass their physical fitness tests found a trainer in Tim, who set up programs to let them work at their own pace, safely.

We are thrilled to celebrate Tim Gattenby with the Ann Wallace Academic Staff Distinguished Achievement Award. Congratulations, Tim!

Beth Graue

Curriculum and Instruction

Beth Graue is a rockstar in the field of early childhood education. Over the course of her career, she has challenged the idea that quantitative studies are the way to understand young children and their ways of learning. Instead, she has published numerous studies demonstrating that ethnographic, qualitative methods are a better, more accurate tool. This work centers on children and their experiences in early education.

Instead of keeping her rich research theoretical, Beth builds partnerships with practitioners at every level, from students and teachers, to statewide policymakers. She acknowledges the partnerships and makes her work meaningful to people in the field. Beth has done work to develop resources for teachers and to share them widely. One of these is the Play Video Library, which captures and demonstrates play as the way young children learn.

Beth continues to teach and mentor students. She conceived of, and now leads, the Center for Research on Early Childhood Education. As part of that Center, she formally mentors 11 faculty and graduate students. Her classes often fill with students from across campus who want to learn from her.

As Sharon Ryan, one of her nominators wrote, “her research and service for the field of early childhood education and the educational research community is far-reaching.”

We are pleased to celebrate Professor Beth Grau with a Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award. Congratulations, Beth!

Julie Mead

Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis

Julie Mead is an outstanding instructor, researcher, and collaborator. As a mentor, she works with students during their careers, and continues to provide support after they graduate. Several of her graduate students have gone on to garner awards for their dissertations, and to tenure-track positions at universities.

Her student evaluations demonstrate her ability to teach in a variety of formats, and to engage scholars where they are – with high expectations of where they are going in their scholarship. She remains connected to many of her former students and often gathers them at national conferences. These events have led to other collaborations between former graduate students.

In her research focus on special education law and publicly funded school choice programs, Julie has been published in many prestigious law and education journals. Her work highlights concerns about who benefits by, and who is excluded from school choice programs.

In addition to teaching, Julie has served as associate dean for education and as chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.

Julie’s former doctoral advisor, Julie Underwood, wrote that when Mead was her teaching assistant, Underwood learned so much “in terms of how to create a learning environment and how to vary instruction to meet the needs of all the students in the classroom. I will always be in her debt for helping me learn to teach.”

It is with honor we present a Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award to Professor Julie Mead. Congratulations, Julie!

Thomas (Tommy) Heidinger

Business Office

Tommy Heidinger has worked in the Education Building Business Office for the past two years. When the office went remote because of COVID-19, Tommy continued to work in the office, providing needed support for mail and packages, ensuring PPE and safety supplies were available, and rearranging rooms for physically distanced teaching.

He provided AV support to instructors and helped institute, install, and learn a new technology that allows the support to happen remotely. “This has been a huge upgrade for the team and has strengthened our safety measures,” wrote José Escobar, one of Tommy’s nominators. In addition to regular duties, Tommy helped deliver art, and theatre and drama kits to students, so they could continue to learn remotely.

Tommy was available to provide building access to people who needed it during remote work. As staff and faculty started to return to work, he tracked requests and handled all the data entry and proofing, allowing full-time staff to concentrate on other issues, said Lindsey Honeyager, a nominator.

“Throughout this entire process, he has been able to keep a positive attitude, adapted to changes, and been motivated to work on-site and remotely. The type of customer service and level of detail he gives to provide support for instruction has been exceptional,” Escobar continued.

For these reasons, we are proud to honor Tommy Heidinger with a School of Education Student Staff Achievement Award. Congratulations, Tommy!

Victoria (Vic) Soto

Morgridge Center for Public Service

Victoria (Vic) Soto has been an operations intern at the Morgridge Center for Public Service for three years, staffing the front desk, helping students interested in learning more about the Center’s programs, and working on the day-to-day operations of the Center.

Vic has provided leadership to the Morgridge Center, from taking the lead on projects, to co-leading the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. She models vulnerability in meetings, creating a culture of sharing authentically, which helps enhance relationship building, said Lisa Chambers, one of her nominators.

Vic initiated a monthly series of social activities to help build community, with a variety of opportunities from early morning coffee to late-night studying, to volleyball games. She launched and led a program to build relationships between interns and staff they don’t normally work with. This allows student workers to have another person to turn to if they have issues of bias, or want to grow their networks. This is now a core part of maintaining the team and culture at the Center.

“I value her willingness to take initiative, and to gently nudge others or share information that helps all of us learn in a way that is respectful and builds all of our capacity, knowing we are all at a different place in our journeys,” Chambers wrote.

It is with great pleasure that we award Victoria Soto with a School of Education Student Staff Achievement Award. Congratulations, Vic!

Shahanna McKinney-Baldon

Wisconsin Center for Education Research

Shahanna McKinney-Baldon plays several roles in WCER and she models the values of equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice.

In 2020, Ms. McKinney-Baldon facilitated a workshop on microaggressions for staff in WIDA. The conversations have continued and the effect of her work goes beyond the department and the campus because WIDA staff interact with people across the country and internationally.

As an expert in culturally responsive evaluation, her work with the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative has led to growth in its ability to embed equity-focused practices into evaluation partnerships. In addition, she has guided ongoing work on building diverse and inclusive teams focused on social justice.

She was instrumental in creating a set of values against which to evaluate WCER’s work toward building a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. She reviewed human resources processes with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens.

“Ms. McKinney-Baldon demonstrates the power of a single individual to transform the thinking of others and the environment and systems in which they work. This type of work, though urgent and necessary, is taxing and often thankless because it involves challenging established ways of doing, being, and thinking,” her nominators wrote.

We are proud to present Ms. Shahanna McKinney-Baldon with a School of Education Excellence in Diversity Award. Congratulations, Shahanna!

Mariana Pacheco

Curriculum and Instruction

Mariana Pacheco has a deep commitment to diversity inside the School of Education, within the university, and in the community.

Mariana’s campus involvement creates conditions for the university to realize its principles of equity, equality, and justice, writes Thomas Popkewitz, one of her nominators. “She has greatly strengthened and expanded opportunities for linguistic and cultural equity and diversity opportunities by linking her scholarship to program development, faculty and student recruitment, and mentoring,” he said.

When she collaborated with Mariana on a research project, Taucia González, another nominator, observed Mariana holding focus groups with Spanish-speaking parents of children with significant disabilities. “She truly works with communities to improve educational systems for historically marginalized youth and families,” González wrote.

She also mentored graduate students. “Mariana is a top-notch researcher dedicated to helping diverse scholars prosper in the academy,” wrote Laura Chávez-Moreno, a recent graduate student. “ (Mariana) prepares students to thrive personally and professionally in a world that is diverse, global, and interconnected.”

Although her work in diversity and inclusion began long before she joined the faculty, “since her arrival at UW–Madison, (Mariana) has sought to align her teaching, research, and service in pursuit of diversity and excellence,” wrote Jevon Hunter.

We are proud to honor Professor Mariana Pacheco with an Excellence in Diversity Award. Congratulations, Mariana!

Linn Posey-Maddox

Educational Policy Studies

Professor Linn Posey-Maddox’s teaching, research, and service reflect a deep commitment to promoting racial justice and diversity. Her work has garnered national attention and she has won teaching awards for her classes related to race and education.

She teaches a Freshman Interest Group course to students who may never have thought about racial inequities, and those students are able to reflect on their own lives and biases. Graduate students indicate that taking a course with Posey-Maddox has transformed the way they think about race and racial inequities in education.

As a mentor, Posey-Maddox engages in support of graduate students. In a letter of support, two of her advisees said she “humanizes and engages in holistic advising and mentorship that welcomes, creates space, and sustains minoritized and first-generation scholars in the School of Education; especially first-generation and graduate students of color.”

Posey-Maddox created a group of race scholars, who meet to write together and share, and discuss work. This group of scholars is from across the university who all study race in their disciplines. Rachelle Winkle-Wagner shares, “the importance of this group must be emphasized as one of the main reasons why many of the participants have stayed at UW–Madison even when other positions became available.”

For these and many more reasons, we celebrate Professor Linn Posey-Maddox with an Excellence in Diversity Award. Congratulations, Linn!