Short Takes... On Big News at the College

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Archiving Maxine Greene’s closet; some new looks for NASA from Hollingworth Science Camp; new TC faculty; the biological consequences of losing a father; and more.

From Maxine Greene’s Closet

Illustration: Margaret Reigel; Barnard Seal Courtesy of Barnard Archives and Special Collections

Maxine Greene was TC’s revered philosopher, teacher, activist and patron of artists and writers. Much to the world’s benefit, Greene, who died in 2014 at 96, was also a packrat. A trove of her previously unseen writing, letters and photographs has been transformed by Professor of English Education Janet Miller and two doctoral students, Beth Semaya and Maya Pindyck, into the “M. Archive” on TC’s Gottesman Libraries’ Pocket-Knowledge platform. The documents, found stashed high on closet shelves or scattered amidst books in Greene’s Fifth Avenue apartment, include notes she penned as a Barnard College undergraduate, letters written to her parents during a 1936 trip to Europe and a handwritten manuscript of an unfinished novel (alas, excluded from the archive at Greene’s direction).

All of it demonstrates “extreme deliberation,” Miller reports, and all of it, adds Pindyck, is inspiring: “Her ideas touch on aesthetics, literature, poetry, philosophy, and she has this incredible ability to bring it all to bear on almost any question.”

Access the M. Archive at http://pocketknowledge.tc.columbia.edu/. Users must be members of the TC/ Columbia community with a “uni” and have a PocketKnowledge account. Outside researchers must apply as described at: http://library.tc.columbia.edu/archives.php.

COWIN PROGRAM TOPS 1,000

A Milestone for TC’s Financial Literacy Program

More than 230 educators have signed up for the Cowin Financial Literacy Program’s online course. Since 2012, TC’s outstanding professional development program geared to middle school, high school and community college teachers has benefited 1,000-plus educators in 50 states and over 12 countries.

Honors & Distinctions

Ansley T. Erickson, Associate Professor of History & Education, received the History of Education Society’s Outstanding Book Award for Making the Unequal Metropolis (University of Chicago 2016) about segregation in Nashville, Tennessee.

Professor Emerita Joan Gussow received the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior’s Helen Denning Ullrich Award of Excellence and the James Beard Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Detra Price-Dennis, Assistant Professor of Elementary & Inclusive Education, received the National Council of Teachers of English 2017 Janet Emig Award for her article “Developing Curriculum to Support Black Girls’ Literacies in Digital Spaces.”

The American Psychological Association’s newly rechristened Derald Wing Sue Award for Distinguished Contributions to Multicultural Counseling honors TC’s pioneering microaggressions researcher. Sue is the first recipient.

MORE GREAT MINDS

TC Welcomed Four New Faculty in Fall 2017

Daniel M. Fienup is Associate Professor of Applied Behavior Analysis, specializing in instructional design and assessments, including for college students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Mark Anthony Gooden is Christian A. Johnson Professor of Outstanding Educational Practice in Teachers College’s Department of Organization & Leadership, and Education Leadership Program Director.

Douglas Mennin is Professor of Clinical Psychology. His research focuses on improving understanding and treatment of chronic anxiety and mood disorders.

Michael Hines is Minority Postdoctoral Fellow. He researches race and class in American education.

SOME NEW LOOKS FOR NASA

TC’s Hollingworth Science Camp took its 37th summer to space. Informed and inspired by a NASA teacher program, the campers put together an International Space Station, which debuted at the camp’s annual Maker Gallery in

July. Campers “built” contributions to the Station such as a water filtration system, habitats for studying animals, solar panels, control panels, a rover and a deceleration pod to return to Earth. The event also displayed the children’s individual invention prototypes, designed from recyclables to solve everyday problems.

TENEMENT HISTORIAN

Kevin Jennings (M.A. ’94) is all about inclusion. The TC Klingenstein Center alum and former Obama administration official (he combated school bullying) is perhaps best known for his advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ students. Now he’s President of the New York Tenement Museum, focused on New York City’s immigrants. “I grew up in the South, and Faulkner has it right,” says Jennings, who was once a history teacher. “‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ And there’s no issue about which that’s truer than immigration.”

AN EDUCATION - MINDED COUNSELOR

“The creative approaches to public and private education, the emphasis on social justice and civic education — if you’re interested in education, TC is the place to be.”
– Michael Feierman, TC’s New General Counsel

Feierman spent 25 years at Barnard College, including 15 as General Counsel

IN BRIEF

Amy Greenstein, TC’s new Executive Director of Enrollment Services, is emphasizing “real-life stories of TC students and alumni who are making a difference” and the College’s academic breadth: “There are so many paths you can end up taking here, with so many possibilities for working in different fields.”
David M. Houston, Politics & Education Ph.D. candidate, received a 2017 National Academy of Education/ Spencer Dissertation Award. He is researching the impact of public preferences on state education spending.
Fiona Hollands and Henry Levin, Associate Director and Founder, respectively, of TC’s Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education, received William T. Grant Foundation funding to study and facilitate evidence-based decision-making by state and local education administrators.
Teachers College and Germany’s Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel (together with the Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education) agreed to explore — from a social science and linguistic point of view — the growing “anxiety culture” in many countries stemming from issues such as immigration, climate change and terrorism. TC is also working with King’s College of London’s School of Education, Communication & Society toward establishing a joint Center for Innovation in Teacher Development.

Preparing Nursing Leaders Who Care

TC’s Nurse Executive program, directed by Professor Elaine La Monica Rigolosi, ranks first in New York and sixth nationwide. The program grounds administrators and educators in business administration and finance, health care law, nursing and hospital administration, psychology and human relations. Bucking the trend, it also emphasizes face-to-face teaching. “Our graduates work and communicate directly with people,” says Rigolosi, who developed a rating scale to help managers measure their own empathy. “They serve as role models, so we believe our teaching must be conducted that way, too.”

“My doctorate makes me an ideal candidate to be a chief nursing officer,” says Giselle Melendez (Ed.D. ’16), who manages 90 staff members at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “I was asked to keynote a pediatric nursing conference in Scotland. This degree has opened many opportunities.”

Loud Reports: Headline-Makers from TC

Structuring education research to reflect participants’ concerns; preserving Federal Work-Study; chromosome damage in kids who lose their fathers

■ In June’s Urban Education, young scholars of color respond to TC early childhood education expert Mariana Souto-Manning’s theory and method of critical narrative analysis, which bridges analyses of how language reinforces power relations in society with the everyday narratives of the “minoritized.” “Mariana has repeatedly called on the research community to think carefully about what we’re asking in our studies,” says guest editor Limarys Caraballo (Ed.D. ’12) of New York City’s Queens College. “Her ultimate message is that we need to incorporate what the participants themselves recognize as problems so that we don’t perpetuate their marginalization.”

■ In June, The Brookings Institution published TC economist Judith Scott-Clayton’s report arguing for preservation of the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program, targeted for massive budget cuts. FWS appears to improve “degree completion and the likelihood of employment after college,” Scott-Clayton writes. Defunding the program would chiefly penalize those it benefits most: low-income students at public institutions.

■ Losing a father may have lasting biological consequences in children as young as nine years old, a research team that includes TC developmental psychologist Jeanne Brooks-Gunn reported in July’s Pediatrics. They found that telomeres — protective caps on the ends of chromosomes — were, on average, 14 percent shorter in children whose father had died, been incarcerated or left the home. The damage, associated with adult heart disease, cancer and other disorders, resulted from the emotional impact of father loss, as well as economic loss to families. “Losing a parent is a catastrophe for a child, and not just through death,” Brooks-Gunn says. “That’s significant because we have such complex families now. Forty percent of children are born to unwed mothers.”

Published Monday, Dec 11, 2017

TC News | Teachers College Columbia University

Short Takes... On Big News at the College