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New Faculty
Frank Worrell
Frank Worrell Frank Worrell is no stranger to the School of Education. He completed his Ph.D. here in the School Psychology program, graduating in 1994. He’s been a mainstay of UC Berkeley’s ATDP summer program as an instructor, researcher, and counselor since 1989. He has now returned to Cal full-time as the newest faculty member in the Cognition and Development area of study.
Talking to Frank Worrell, one gets the impression that he must actually be several people to accomplish all that he does. In the last year he taught the consultation seminar at Penn State for school psychology doctoral students. He ran the CEDAR clinic in State College PA where school psychology students do their practica, helping students with learning difficulties. He finished designing a ground-breaking program developing national norms in pre-reading and reading skills as well as learning and adjustment behaviors for the Ministry of Education in Trinidad and Tobago, the country he comes from. He also trained local guidance counselors in using the norms in assessment, diagnosis, and intervention. Worrell published seven journal articles and gave five scholarly talks at conferences from Hawaii to Port of Spain. And he served as a consultant and researcher for ATDP in the summer.
But that’s not all. Frank Worrell is also an accomplished singer and conductor of vocal groups, as Tolman Hall occupants know well from when he founded and led the School of Education Chorus as a student. At Penn State, Worrell was the associate director of the Penn State Glee Club and conducted at the group’s homecoming concert in the fall and at their end-of-year concert in the spring. He sang in the premiere of a new musical work commissioned to mark the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, an opera based on the life of York, the one African American member of their party. And while he was backstage, he conducted a part of the chorus.
Not bad for a year’s work.
Worrell doesn’t plan to slow down now that he’s back at Berkeley. He’s already teaching a seminar for the School Psychology program, and has revived the School Chorus. His research interests span the two extremes of academic achievement. His writing and teaching take in both at-risk students and the gifted. “We have something to learn from students who are not at-risk for academic failure,” Worrell said, “something that may contribute to our understanding of kids who fail. We need to examine what variables predict resilience in school, and how we promote those. Student identities play a role in achievement.”
Worrell argues that student identity cannot be looked at in isolation. “Identity is a constellation of variables. Social context tells you about how you are valued as a person and what your contribution can be.” He cites the example of a public school in Harlem that was able to compete academically with the top private schools once the students received positive messages about what they were capable of achieving, and the school had the teachers and administrators who could live up to that challenge.
“We find the best achievers in sports regardless of backgrounds,” said Worrell. “We know how to do that in academics, too—if we invest the resources.”
return to BEL Fall 2003 contents return to GSE publications
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