Diana Hess was reappointed as dean of UW–Madison’s School of Education in June.
Every five years of their tenure, deans of the university’s schools and colleges undergo a comprehensive review to assess their academic and administrative leadership and performance. The reviews include interviews with faculty, staff, and students, and with external stakeholders. The provost appoints the members of the review committee.
“It has been a privilege to serve as the dean of the School of Education, and it is an honor to continue in this role,” says Hess. “I am deeply grateful to have the opportunity to work with this remarkable community of extremely talented faculty, staff, students, and alumni — many of whom are working to address the considerable challenges that our communities are now facing. As we plan for this academic year and beyond, I remain fiercely committed to serving our students, our community, and our state.”
Hess became dean Aug. 1, 2015. She holds the Karen A. Falk Distinguished Chair of Education and was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2019.
Previously, she served as senior vice president of the Spencer Foundation in Chicago. Her connection to UW–Madison began in 1999, when she was hired as an assistant professor. Hess started her career in education as a high school social studies teacher.
Chancellor Rebecca Blank and Provost Karl Scholz expressed their appreciation to the chairs and members of the dean review teams and to all who contributed their input to the reviews.
“The Chancellor, the university community, external stakeholders and I are all excited to have the opportunity to continue to support the wonderful work of the School of Education under Dean Hess’ leadership,” Scholz said.
Bell named next director of Wisconsin Center for Education Research
Courtney Bell was named the next director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), UW–Madison School of Education Dean Diana Hess announced on Jan. 6.
Bell at the time was serving as a principal research scientist with the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the world’s largest private, nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization. She started her new position with WCER on July 1.
“I am thrilled that Dr. Bell will be joining the School of Education as director of WCER,” Hess said in January. “She is an extraordinary educational leader and researcher. Her background as a high school teacher, a faculty member, a leader of complex and innovative research teams and projects, and principal researcher with ETS uniquely prepares her to be an excellent leader of WCER. I look forward to working with her.”
Bell had worked at ETS since 2008, when she was hired as an associate research scientist within the Research and Development Division’s Teaching and Learning Research Group. Over the past decade, Bell had taken on increasing responsibilities within ETS, and since 2018 had served as a principal research scientist with the Research and Development Division’s Global Assessment Center. ETS houses a team of education experts, researchers, and assessment developers dedicated to advancing quality and equity in education across the world.
“Through research and innovation, WCER colleagues are working every day to improve our understanding of education for the next generation of citizens. I am honored to have the opportunity to work alongside such committed and gifted colleagues,” says Bell. “I am especially excited to continue the collaborative, interdisciplinary work I have always enjoyed with colleagues in the School of Education and the broader community.”
Bell received her PhD in curriculum, teaching, and educational policy from Michigan State University after previously earning a secondary chemistry teaching certification from East Carolina University and an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Dartmouth College. She started her education career as a high school science teacher in North Carolina in 1996 before holding several teaching and research positions at Columbia University, Michigan State, and the University of Connecticut over the next decade.
WCER is one of the oldest, largest, and most influential university-based education research centers in the United States. Housed within the School of Education and founded in 1964, WCER’s research and dissemination activities are diverse and international in scope, with funding from a variety of federal agencies, private foundations, and public service agencies.
“WCER has a long and distinguished history of research and innovation that improves educational outcomes for all young people,” says Bell. “It’s an exciting place for me to continue to learn and work to improve education.”
Reporting to the dean of the School of Education, Bell is being called upon to provide exceptional organizational leadership that encourages innovation, provides first-rate service to researchers in the center, and supports the growth of both the research and fee-for-service missions of the center. Bell is also being tasked with ensuring that WCER continues to provide undergraduate and graduate students with meaningful opportunities to hone their research skills.
Bell was selected to lead WCER following a national search that brought three finalists to campus in December 2019 to participate in public forums and meet with faculty, staff, and School of Education leadership. The finalists were selected by a 13-member search-and-screen committee co-chaired by WIDA Executive Director Tim Boals and Percival Matthews, an associate professor with the Department of Educational Psychology and a WCER researcher.
Baldridge authors, ‘Negotiating anti-black racism in “liberal” contexts’
Bianca Baldridge authored a paper that was published in April in the journal Race Ethnicity and Education that’s titled, “Negotiating anti-black racism in ‘liberal’ contexts: the experiences of black youth workers in community-based educational spaces.”
Baldridge explains in the paper’s abstract that her research “challenges liberal and progressive claims of social justice in education within predominantly white cities that reify anti-Black racism.”
Baldridge is a sociologist of education and an assistant professor with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Policy Studies. She has spent two decades engaged in community-based youth work as a curriculum developer and educator alongside minoritized youth working towards educational freedom and justice.
This paper came out of research made possible from a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Baldridge received in 2016.
Baldridge writes how her study “examines how Black community-based youth workers navigate anti-Black racism in their educational programming with black youth in a majority white college town widely recognized as ‘nice,’ ‘liberal,’ and ‘progressive,’ with stark racial disparities between its Black and white residents.”
The abstract adds: “With racial liberalism and BlackCrit as theoretical guides, this paper draws on in-depth interviews with Black youth workers and observations at city events addressing racial disparities facing Black youth to understand how anti-Black racism within the larger city informs community-based educational programming.”
Baldridge reports that findings from her research “indicate 1) a disregard of Black suffering; 2) a deliberate shutdown of critical race dialogue and programming; and 3) the exploitation of Black youth workers’ labor and the denial of advancement to positions of leadership within organizations to do white discomfort.”
Baldridge concludes her article by writing: “Predominantly white cities espousing a liberal ethos that claim to believe in social justice, yet continuously sustain structural racism that impedes the educational experiences of Black youth should be interrogated theoretically and empirically so that resistance and disruption can occur.”
“My hope is that people take seriously the experiences of Black youth workers as educators and mediators in the lives of Black youth,” says Baldridge, who authored the 2019 award-winning book, “Reclaiming Community: Race and the Uncertain Future of Youth Work.”
“Their work should be respected and they should be adequately compensated for their expertise,” she adds. “As a profession, youth work is rewarding and also quite precarious. I encourage those in Madison to support efforts in Dane County to pay all youth workers in community-based programs a living wage and to truly value the work they do with and alongside young people.”
Four from UW–Madison ranked among most influential education scholars
Education Week blogger Rick Hess in January published his annual rankings of the top 200 most influential education scholars in the United States — and four faculty members affiliated with the School of Education are on this year’s list.
UW–Madison’s Gloria Ladson-Billings is No. 8, while Adam Gamoran is No. 97, Stacey Lee is No. 176, and Jerlando Jackson is No. 177.
These annual public influence rankings appear each January in Education Week’s “Straight Up” blog, which is authored by Hess.
Ladson-Billings is a professor emerita with the School, while Gamoran is the John D. MacArthur Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Educational Policy Studies, and the former director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Lee is a professor with the Department of Educational Policy Studies, and Jackson is a Vilas Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.
Hess explains that the idea behind these rankings is to “spotlight the top 200 education scholars who move ideas from academic journals into the national conversation. Using nine metrics, Hess calculated how much university-based academics contributed to public discussions of education.”
Each scholar was scored in nine categories — Google Scholar Score, Book Points, Highest Amazon Ranking, Syllabus Points, Education Press Mentions, Web Mentions, Newspaper Mentions, Congressional Record Mentions, and Twitter Score.
More news and notes …
- UW-Madison’s Rachelle Winkle-Wagner and the University of Texas, Austin’s Bridget Goosby this spring were awarded a $50,000 Spencer Foundation grant for a project, “Health Profiles of African American Women on the Tenure Track and Beyond.” Winkle-Wagner is a professor with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.
- Noah Feinstein is the lead author on an article published in the journal Climate Policy that explains how education can play an important role in helping society adapt to a changing climate. Feinstein is an associate professor with the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction. The co-author on the report is K.J. Mach from the University of Miami. The paper’s abstract notes how “education, appropriately conceived, can be a powerful tool in enabling effective adaptation to climate change.”
- On Jan. 31, the School of Education’s Global Engagement Office hosted a Lunar New Year celebration, with the help of students Xinyu Lin, Naiwen Si, Dong Chen, and Yoriko Sato. Lin, who directed the planning for the event, is double majoring in Elementary Education and Special Education. In her address at the event, she expressed that she was excited to bring international students together and add to their sense of belonging. Si, a second-year student with the School’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (ELPA), led a table at the event that guided attendees in reflecting on the last year and identifying goals for the next. A recent graduate of the Global Higher Education program, Chen dedicated her station to learning how to craft a Chinese luck knot. These knots were once used as a form of communication, and are now widely used as decoration and adornment that implies the desire for prosperity.
- Mindi Thompson was part of a task force appointed by the American Psychological Association (APA) that wrote new “APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice for People with Low-Income and Economic Marginalization.” Thompson, an associate professor with the Department of Counseling Psychology and the clinical training director of the PhD program in health service psychology, was one seven members of this APA task force. The guidelines were approved by the APA Council of Representatives and are now considered APA policy.
- UW–Madison’s Stacey Lee and Lesley Bartlett early this year were named incoming editors for Anthropology and Education Quarterly (AEQ), a journal of the American Anthropological Association. Bartlett and Lee are both professors with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Policy Studies. Diana Rodriguez Gomez, an assistant professor with the Department, was named an associate editor of AEQ.
- Andrea Ruppar was earlier this year was named an inaugural co-editor of a new research-to-practice journal called Inclusive Practices. Ruppar is an associate professor of special education with the School of Education’s Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education. The journal is published by Sage, and is a publication of TASH, an international leader in disability advocacy.