Alumni Spotlight

Ann Parker

Children’s books. As long as they’re educational, well written, and enjoyable, does it really matter where they’re published? Turns out, it does.

Just ask the College of Education’s very own Ann Parker, director of Admissions, Advising, and Student Services. Parker — who has a bachelor’s degree in English from Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., a master’s degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and a second master’s in American Indian Studies from the UA — realized that her degrees blended quite nicely in the college’s Department of Language, Reading, and Culture. That’s where she received her doctorate last May.

Initially interested in pursuing a major in educational technology, Parker realized that her true interest was children’s books. For her dissertation, Parker identified five small publishing companies in the greater Southwest that published children’s books and conducted interviews with the editors and other staff people to determine the role that small publishing companies play in the field of children’s literature.

Her research demonstrated that small presses play a vital role in the production of children’s books. For example:

• Small publishing companies are aggressive in seeking new talent in authors and illustrations.
• They can focus on publishing bilingual books, which is considered a small niche market.
• They work closely with educators and school librarians to provide books for children.
• They promote multicultural children’s books within their communities as well as on a national scale.

Parker did her research in her “spare time,” as she has been the director of the College of Education Admissions, Advising, and Student Services since fall 2004. The office, which includes four academic advisors and an administrative associate, provides advising, admissions, programs, and resources for the college’s undergraduate students. That’s enough to keep anyone busy, let alone someone conducting research for a dissertation!

Score One for the College of Education!

Studying near Old Main

Any college is proud of its National Merit Scholars. We’re no exception, but with so much competition from business, science, and math (let’s face it — these are the career paths that offer the biggest salaries), education often finds itself with a small pool of candidates.

Recently, though, we’ve almost tripled our National Merit Scholars, thanks in part to the fact that the College of Education has the biggest scholarship endowment on campus for National Merit Scholars.

The Thelma Hadlock Scholarship has the highest award amount of any UA college-based scholarship given to National Merit Scholars. (Thelma Hadlock, by the way, was a MASH nurse in Korea, but her family was densely populated with educators, hence her generous donation.)

Dean Ronald W. Marx notes, “Teaching, like all knowledge-based professions, requires sophisticated understanding of many factors. We recruit among the very best students in Arizona to our college, and we are proud that the Hadlock Scholarship can help us attract National Merit Scholars to careers as teachers.”

To find out more about this and other scholarships, contact our new scholarships guru, Rose Santellano-Milem.

WREN Office Suite to be Dedicated in Honor of Civil Rights and Educational Visionary

Smith's vision helped bring the center to the College of Education

Ernestine “Ernie” H. Smith, a College of Education graduate whose vision and energy brought a prestigious federal educational center to our college, will be honored posthumously in November when a suite of offices is dedicated in her honor. Smith died last December.

“Ernestine Smith is in large part the reason that the College of Education was awarded the federal contract for the Equity Assistance Center for this past fall,” said Dean Marx. “It was her initiative that brought the competition to our attention, and it was her national reputation as a person highly skilled and dedicated to work in equity assistance to schools that made our application so compelling for the evaluators. We take special pride in the fact that she was an alumna of our college, having received her doctoral degree in the Department of Teaching and Teacher Education in 1995. ”

Details
Ernestine “Ernie” H. Smith Suite Dedication Ceremony
Friday, November 10
5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
College of Education
Reception (5:30 p.m.): South Entrance Plaza
Dedication (immediately following reception): Main Lobby, followed by a tour of the third-floor suite
Open to: Friends and alumni of the college

For an invitation, contact Rose Santellano-Milem or call 520-621-2345.

Be on the Lookout

We have created a new and exciting approach to communicating with our alumni and friends. In the past, we published two magazines — one to focus on alumni and friends and one to present some of our vital research.

With the inaugural issue of Imagine, we have combined our two magazines into one. When you flip Imagine over, you’ll start reading Imagine Research to learn about our significant research at the UA College of Education. After all, why shouldn’t everyone know about our groundbreaking research?

Our new magazine should make its appearance in a mailbox near you by the beginning of October. For more information, contact Director of Communications Ana Luisa Terrazas.

Percolating Along!

Teacher preparation is a university-wide endeavor

No doubt about it: Teacher education is no longer the purview of a single college, but rather a university-wide endeavor directly connected to work with pre-K-12 schools.

The Professional Preparation Board, formed in 1999, critically assesses the University of Arizona’s existing programs of teacher preparation, identifies school- and community-based needs, and charts new directions to enhance recruitment, retention, and accountability in professional preparation. Composed of representatives from UA colleges associated with teacher preparation and of community and school personnel, the PPB initiates wide-ranging dialogue and study of critical issues in education. The PPB zeroes in on three activities: teacher education programs, professional development, and collaborative research.

The “collaborative research” is where PERC comes in. The Pima Education Research Collaborative is designed to apply research expertise in the College of Education to address problems in Pima County school districts.

Three projects are underway in three different school districts (Sunnyside, Flowing Wells, and Tucson). The projects include studying sheltered English immersion classrooms and the effectiveness of high-stakes AIMS exit exam interventions and the development of science unit assessments aligned to school curriculum and the Arizona science standards.

On the basis of seed funding from Raytheon, the College of Education was able to garner support from numerous other sources. The Erasmus Circle contributed to PERC last year and committed additional funds this year. Arizona K-12 Center also committed funds, as did Sunnyside, Flowing Wells, and Tucson Unified School Districts. Additional districts are interested in developing research projects for their schools. PERC holds the potential to continue mounting support and increase its ability to provide much-needed research data to local school districts.

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