Faculty Notes

Raffaella Borasi, dean of the Warner School, and Judi Fonzi, director, Warner Center for Professional Development and Education Reform, coauthored a monograph, “Professional Development Practices That Support School Mathematics Reform,” that was published by the National Science Foundation and distributed to school districts throughout the United States.

Meg Callahan, assistant professor, teaching and curriculum, published the article “Intertextual Composition: The Power of the Digital Pen” in the October issue of English Education, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (www.ncte.org).

Randall Curren, associate professor, educational leadership, has been named coeditor of the new journal, Theory and Research in Education. Curren and Tyll van Geel, the Earl B. Taylor Professor and chair, educational leadership, will serve on the editorial board. Curren also published two papers, “Civic Engagement in the Liberal and Classical Traditions” and “Public Education and the Demands of Fidelity to Reason: A Response to Dwyer, Feinberg, Hourdakis, Pendlebury, Robertson, Strike, and White” in the fall issue of the School Field. Review essays of his book about Aristotle and public education appeared in the same issue. Curren’s book was also the topic of discussion at the September meeting of the Upstate New York Chapter of the Conference for the Study of Political Thought.

Dale Dannefer, professor, counseling and human development, was a keynote speaker and panelist at the conference “Technology, Well-Being, and the Life Course,” at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland in September. In November he was a panelist on the subject of grandparenthood in changing societies at the Norwegian Social Research Institute in Oslo, Norway, where he discussed his intergenerational project, The Breakfast Club, which has been funded by Rochester Area Community Foundation. Dannefer was also elected to the council of the Section on Aging and the Life Course, American Sociological Association, for a three-year term that began in August. He also co-organized a major international symposium on gerontology and social theory featuring an “all star” lineup of international sociologists of age and life course, and presented a paper there, “Toward a Global Geography of Life Course.” Also from the Warner School Kathryn Douthit, assistant professor, counseling and human development, and Paul Stein, doctoral student in counseling and human development, participated in the symposium panel.

Kathryn Douthit, assistant professor, counseling and human development, presented the paper “Understanding the Role of Genetics in the Etiology of Mental Disorder: What Every Counselor Educator Needs to Know,” at the Counselor Education and Supervision National Conference in Utah, October 17–20. Douthit discussed molecular research that has revealed a genetic component in many mental disorders like depression, schizophrenia, and panic disorder. She presented research that underscored the role of environmental variables in genetic regulation, and refuted the notion that genetic models of mental disorder equate to medical intervention strategies. Finally, Douthit stressed the importance of contextually sensitive intervention strategies. In November she delivered a paper, “The Psychiatric Construction of Later Life: Postmodernism and the DSM-IV,” to the Gerontological Society of America in Boston.

Judi Fonzi secured the largest grant ever made to the Warner School, $2.4 million, from the National Science Foundation, to develop a deeper understanding of mathematics among area teachers, parents, and community members, so that they can effectively support efforts to improve K–12 children’s understanding of math. The five-year project, Deepening Everyone’s Mathematics Content Knowledge: Mathematicians, Teachers, Parents, Students & the Community, is a collaboration that involves not only the Warner School, but the University of Rochester mathematics department, the Genesee Valley BOCES region, and the Greece, Penfield, and Rush-Henrietta school districts.

Lucia French, associate professor, teaching and curriculum, coauthored
the cover story “Science in the Preschool Classroom: Capitalizing on Children’s Fascination with the Everyday World to Foster Language and Literacy Development,” with Kathy Conezio, in the September 2002 issue of Young Children, the magazine of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (www.yaeyc.org/resources/ journal/ beyond.asp). Conezio is the project director of ScienceStart!®, a science-based preschool program created by French and a Warner School doctoral student. The program was also featured in the spring issue of Education Week in an article titled “The Little Scientists,” available in the publication’s archives at www.educationweek.org (May 1, 2002). French has been appointed as a consulting editor for the Early Childhood Research Quarterly, a publication of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Susan Hetherington, outreach coordinator for inclusion at the Warner Center, presented a program focusing on the post- graduate classroom, “Working with Our Partners: Advancing Policy and Practice,” at the 2002 national conference of the Association for University Centers on Disability. The conference was held in Bethesda, Md., in October 2002.

David Hursh, associate professor, teaching and curriculum, presented two papers at the conference, “Discourse/Power/Resistance in Post-Compulsory Education and Training,” held in Plymouth, England: “The Rise of Testing and Accountability and the Decline of Professionalism and Local Control: A Critical Analysis of the Changing Forms of Governmentality in New York” and “Resisting the Tyranny to Tests: The Battle for New York.” Hursh presented the latter with Warner School doctoral student Camille Martina.

Frederick Jefferson, former director of the Urban Schools Institute and Warner School faculty member, was appointed professor emeritus of education in the Warner School. The appointment, approved by the University’s Board of Trustees last spring, took effect July 1, 2002, and is in addition to Jefferson’s role as University intercessor.

Bruce Kimball, professor, educational leadership, published two articles in 2002. “Young Christopher Langdell: The Formation of the Educational Reformer 1826–1854” appeared in the Journal of Legal Education, 52, June 2002, and “The Idea of Liberal Education in Light of its Tradition,” was published by Westmont College, Santa Barbara, Calif., in 2002.

Howard Kirschenbaum, chair, counseling and human development program, delivered keynote presentations on the life and works of Carl Rogers at the World Congress on Psychotherapy in Vienna, Austria, and at the Carl Rogers Symposium in California last summer. As a well-known international expert on Carl Rogers, Kirschenbaum was quoted in the June 2002 issue of Counseling Today, a publication of the American Counseling Association, discussing Rogers’ role in the history of counseling. Kirschenbaum also produced a video about the life and theories of Carl Rogers, which will be distributed internationally.

Karen Mackie, associate professor, counseling and human development, and outreach coordinator for counseling, the Warner Center, presented the paper “Coaching Transformation: Using an Understanding of Creativity to Effect Counselor Development” at the Counselor Education and Supervision National Conference in Utah, October 17–20, with her colleague Patricia Goodspeed ’00W (Ed.D.), currently an assistant professor at SUNY, Brockport. Their presentation used video excerpts from live training sessions to demonstrate the effectiveness of using creative improvisation in counseling. They delivered a second paper, “Class Bias in Counseling: Exploring the Culture of Social Class,” at the same conference.

Gerald Rubenstein, part-time faculty, counseling and human development,
delivered a paper, “Windows on Your Whirled: The Paradoxical Role of Vulnerability in Pathology,” at the Adult Psychopathology Institute, University of Southern Maine, in June 2002.

Ellen Santora, assistant professor, teaching and curriculum, co-presented a paper at the Canadian Society for the Study of Education conference in Toronto. The paper, “Representing Identities: the Possibilities and Problems on On-Line Communications in Literacy Education,” was a result of an online discussion of culturally diverse literary texts by teacher education students at the University of Alabama, Memorial University, and Teachers College of Columbia University. Santora’s review of Erie Canal: New York’s Gift to the Nation, was recently published in the Social Science Docket.

Edwardine Weaver, RSM, assistant professor, educational leadership, hosted the 13th annual Institute on Catholic Education, Families, and Catholic Schools: Weaving a Tapestry of Faith, at the University of Rochester in July 2002. The 14th annual Institute, Touching Hearts, Changing Lives, was held July 7–8.”