Meet the Director

Current Projects

 

The Center for the Study of Education
in Small Urban Communities

Read Full Draft Prospectus for the Center (PDF file) Here...

About the Center
While a great deal of research on educational reform is focused on large urban and rural communities, small urban centers are becoming the modal type of community in the US. In fact, roughly 70% of the public school districts in the nation are the same size or smaller than our own local community of Champaign-Urbana. These communities are experiencing the opportunities and challenges of changing demographics, globalization, federal intervention into school policy, education for economic development, and other social trends to the same or greater extent than large urban centers.

However, little research is directed specifically at how these distinctive small urban communities and their educational institutions are dealing with these opportunities and challenges.

Our location in a typical small urban setting presents us with an accessible and fertile test bed for engaging in cross-disciplinary and translational research into systemic change in the interdependent environment of educational institutions and their communities. We have a unique opportunity to bring to bear the intellectual and practical resources of the university in genuine partnership with local educational institutions and their communities around long-term, intensive research and outreach efforts to create sustainable improvement in education in the local community, while, at the same time, producing generalizable knowledge of what works in these settings, in order to inform policy and practice in similar communities around the country

Critical Goals and Apirations

• Develop a Center for Education in Small Urban Communities that promotes research, teaching and service pertaining to the distinctive educational issues faced by these communities and improves the standing of the University as both a local (Champaign County and the region) and national/international resource for small urban communities.
• Model and implement an innovative, collaborative model of knowledge production and application that is context-driven, problem-focused, interdisciplinary, and application-oriented, that breaks down traditional divisions between theory and practice, or university and community in order to more effectively link research, policy, and action-oriented reform.
• Promote an understanding that the problems and potential of education are not simply the responsibility of institutions of formal education but shared, community-wide concerns, involving families, community organizations, business, civic groups, and neighborhood associations.

Current Capacity

A very large number of faculty in the College of Education have research interests and expertise that are relevant to the improvement of education in small urban communities including:

• Lizanne DeStefano, Professor, Educational Psychology
• William Trent, Professor, Educational Policy Studies
• Nancy Hertzog, Associate Professor, Special Education
• Violet Harris, Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
• Sarah McCarthey, Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
• Luis Miron, Professor, Educational Policy Studies
• Bonnie Armbruster, Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
• Rochelle Gutierrez, Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
• Sue Noffke, Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
• Marilyn Johnston-Parsons, Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
• Scott Johnson, Professor, Human Resource Education; Research Director for the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education
• Don Hackman, Associate Professor, Educational Organization and Leadership
• Carolyn Shields, Professor, Educational Organization and Leadership