University of Arkansas at Little Rock

The APA Manual, 6th edition, will be released July 1, 2009. This manual will be used by all of the Ed. Leadership classes.

Drs. Hughes, Barrett, Richardson
at the banquet

The College of Education winners of all three of the possible faculty excellence awards made a grand showing at the awards banquet. The videos for these three were excellent and depicted their contributions in the fields of Teaching, Scholarship, and Service during the 2008-09 school year.

Frances Frazier, an Administrative Assistant II in the Department of Educational Leadership continued the winning ways of the Department by accepting the Margaret Presley Staff award on Friday, May 1, 2009, in the Dickinson auditorium during the scholarship awards ceremony. The entire faculty and staff of the College of Education participated in the voting process for the outstanding staff member in the College. Frances is the first person almost everyone meets or talks with in the Department when contacting the Department members by phone or in person.

Drs. James and
Vaughn-Neely

Ken James, the Arkansas Department of Education Director, spoke at the end of the Arkansas Professors of Educational Administration conference which was hosted by the Department of Educational Leadership May 3rd and 4th in the Donaghey Student Center. The chairperson of the Ed. Leadership department was the conference chairperson and is shown with Dr. James at the conference on the last day. Dr. James commented on the current estimates for the use of the federal stimulus money in the state for educational enterprizes.

NOTICE OF NOMINATION FROM THE ARKANSAS STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO DR. ELIZABETH VAUGHN-NEELY:

“A new edition of the School Leaders Licensure Assessment will be administered by ETS beginning in September 2009. Arkansas will need to set a new passing score for this assessment and we are assembling with other participating states a panel of school leaders and faculty members who prepare school leaders. Our state’s representation is very important. We will consider the recommendations of the panel as we decide on the passing score requirement this state will apply to candidates seeking to enter the school leadership profession in Arkansas.”

“Educational Testing Service (ETS) will be facilitating the two multi-state standard setting panel. The panel will meet for two days on May 12 & 13 in St. Louis, MO. You will review the assessment, provide independent judgments, and engage in panel-wide discussions as the panel considers the minimum score needed to be considered qualified to enter the school leadership profession. After the panel meet, each state will decide its own passing score required to apply for licensure. The recommendations of the panels will be a significant factor in those decisions.”

“The Arkansas Department of Education nominates you (Dr. Elizabeth Vaughn-Neely) to serve as a panel member. Our goal is to have educators from Arkansas on the panel, so we ask you to be available. Once each state nominated its educators, they will be selected and assigned to the panel so that, overall, the panel is comparable in terms of representation and expertise.”

Claudia Griffin, who is a dissertation advisee with Dr. Diane Gilleland (HIED) and who is Director of Pathways at UACC-Hope, was selected to attend the 2008 National Summer Data Policy Institute based on a an abbreviated version of her dissertation research prospectus, her statistics experiences, and a curriculum vitae. Attending the institute with her were 54 other graduate students, faculty members, and research professionals, including two from other countries. In addition to learning how to use the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and National Science Foundation (NSF) datasets and about current policy issues, a great benefit of the institute is interaction with the participants, Association for Institutional Research (AIR) staff, and guest speakers. Based on her performance at the 2008 Institute, she was invited to be on the 2009 selection committee. As a member of the review panel, Claudia will be evaluating applications and helping to select participants in the 2009 National Summer Data Policy Institute.

Dr. Sharon Richardson’s manuscript, titled Principals’ Perceptions of Parental Involvement in the “Big 8” Urban Districts of Ohio, has been accepted for publication in Research in the Schools, in the fall issue. Dr. Richardson is a faculty member in the EDAS program in the department of Educational Leadership.

Comps have been set for Spring 2009. The Informational Meeting will be February 26 at 4:30 PM in room 408. The comps schedule is: 9-12 on April 1, 1-4 on April 1, and 9-12 on April 2.

Dr. Bronwyn MacFarlane, a member of the GATE faculty in Ed. Leadership, will have a new book published in March, 2009.

MacFarlane, B. & Stambaugh, T. (in press). Leading Change in Gifted Education: The Festschrift of Dr. Joyce VanTassel-Baska. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

http://www.prufrock.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=1122

A proposal written by Dr. Greg Barrett, a faculty member in the HIED program, has been accepted for the 2009 Association for Institutional Research (AIR) Forum, May 30 - June 3, 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia entitled “A Comparison of the Role of Presidential and Administrative Leadership in Facilitating Organizational Resilience in Two Historically Black Baccalaureate Colleges.”