Grants, Awards and Achievements: May 2023

Curriculum and Instruction

Desiree Pallais • Assistant Professor of Instruction

Last semester, Desiree Pallais was a recipient of the President’s Award for Global Learning. As part of the award, Dr. Pallais led a seminar course with 15 students from multiple departments as they reflected and learned about international efforts in literacy development, the languages and cultures of Amazonian communities and explored basic concepts in qualitative research and program design.

In July, Dr. Pallais will lead a field study experience in Lima and Ucayali with the same students – this will begin the second phase of the award initiative. Designed in collaboration with professors Raquel Villaseca, Danilo de la Cruz and Virgilio Holguín from the Universidad Cayetano Heredia in Lima, four groups of students will learn and document various Peruvian Amazonian perspectives related to literacy. In the fall, each group will present their learning products during a panel organized by the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

Judith Landeros • Ph.D. Student

Judith Landeros, a doctoral candidate in the Cultural Studies in Education Program, was awarded the 2023-24 Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship for her dissertation – an ethnographic and decolonizing archival project grounded in an Indigenous and decolonizing lens in education. Also named a National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellow in 2022-23, Judith’s research interests are at the intersection of girlhood, traditional healing knowledges and reproductive health education.

Educational Leadership and Policy

Martha Ellis • Professor of Practice

Martha Ellis was selected to serve on the National Community College Research Alliance, an alliance bringing together prominent centers and leaders in community college research to increase capacity, communication and collaboration. The alliance is sponsored by North Carolina State University Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research. Previously, Dr. Ellis served as managing director for the Charles A. Dana Center and was associate vice chancellor of academic affairs for the University of Texas System.

Michael Anthony Goodman • Assistant Professor of Practice

Michael Anthony Goodman was recently selected to the NASPA Emerging Faculty Leader Academy for 2023-24, a selective and distinguished honor from NASPA. The academy is a one-year program for emerging faculty leaders to gain additional knowledge, techniques and leadership skills as a faculty member. As part of the Emerging Faculty Leader Academy, Dr. Goodman will have the opportunity to participate in professional development and educational sessions with experienced faculty, staff and other expert leaders to better understand how faculty can provide leadership within the field.

Dr. Goodman was also recently selected as an associate editor of the Journal of Campus Activities Practice and Scholarship, a social science peer-reviewed journal that focuses on publishing scholarship related to postsecondary education co-curricular campus activities. Dr. Goodman’s research focuses on student involvement in the areas of college student government, the student body presidency, sorority/fraternity life, equity and justice issues, queer students and issues in higher education and educational crises and emergencies. Before coming to the College of Education, he previously worked as the associate director of advising and programming in fraternity/sorority life at the University of Maryland, College Park, and as a senior assistant director in student life at Indiana University.

Sarah Woulfin • Associate Professor

Congratulations to Sarah Woulfin on the publication of her new book “Making Coaching Matter: Leading Continuous Improvement in Schools.” The book reflects her work as a reading coach and her scholarship on coaching across multiple states to demonstrate how equity-centered coaching promotes individual growth and organizational change to improve working and learning conditions. Co-authored by Isobel Stevenson and Kerry Lord, the book was recently published by Teachers College Press. Dr. Woulfin’s first book “Making Teacher Evaluation Work: A Guide for Literacy Teachers and Leaders” was published in 2017, and her work has also been published in American Journal of Education, Educational Administration Quarterly, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, and Teaching and Teacher Education.

Emily Donaldson • Graduate Student

Graduate student Emily Donaldson was named a finalist for the 2022 National Awards for Education Reporting given by the Education Writers Association. She is a finalist in the news category along with Talia Richman, Corbett Smith and Eva-Marie Ayala for their article “Texas’ ‘wild west’ teacher prep landscape could make teacher shortage worse,” published in The Dallas Morning News in April 2022. Emily was previously an education reporter for The Dallas Morning News, San Antonio Report and Community Impact.