In Brief:

Christine Cziko

Christine Cziko has co-authored the book, Reading for Understanding: A Guide to Improving Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms, published by Jossey-Bass. The book uses the reading apprenticeship approach to improving literacy across the curriculum. Says Judy Cunningham, principal of South Lake Middle School in Irvine: "Reading for Understanding should be in the hands of teachers, principals, superintendents, curriculum coordinators, school board members, state education leaders, university professors, and teachers in training."

Anne Haas Dyson won the Alan C. Purves Award for an article she published in the journal Research in the Teaching of English (RTE). The award is given annually for the RTE article deemed most likely to have a significant impact on teachers' understanding of literacy learning and/or teaching. Professor Dyson received the honor at the convention of the National Council of Teachers of English in Denver in November. Her article is entitled "Coach Bombay's Kids Learn to Write: Children's Appropriation of Media Material for School Literacy," and it appeared in the May 1999 issue.

Andrew Furco was recently selected to serve as one of the first members of the newly established National Review Board for the Scholarship of Engagement. The mission of the board is, "to provide external peer review and evaluation of the outreach and service scholarship activities of faculty." The board is sponsored by the American Association for Higher Education in collaboration with other institutions. Each of the board members will be reviewing faculty portfolios from around the country when professors prepare for annual review, promotion and tenure. The review will assess the level of scholarship of engagement, such as when a faculty member starts a community-based activity that is aligned with the professor's intellectual interests and discipline.

Maryl Gearhart has received a grant from the Spencer Foundation to conduct research on classrooms where children help in assessing their own work. The study is entitled, "When Children Assess Their Work: Reconciling Subject-Specific Norms, Classroom Norms, and Personal Values." In this research Maryl Gearhart will concentrate on the ways that children's ideas about their work emerge, as they reconcile their personal views with norms negotiated in class.

Paul Holland is this year's recipient of the prestigious AERA/ACT Lindquist Award, and will accept the honor at the AERA awards ceremony on April 26 in New Orleans. "The award acknowledges a body, rather than a single piece of research, of an empirical, theoretical, or integrative nature," said Robert L. Brennan, chair of this year's Lindquist Award Committee. "Particular emphasis is given to research that has advanced the companion goals of greater understanding and improved use of testing and measurement techniques." Winning this award puts Paul Holland in the ranks of such outstanding researchers as Robert L. Ebel, Melvin R. Novick, Robert L. Linn, Samuel J. Messick, Ann Anastasi, and Darrell Bock.

Carol Stack was honored by her alma mater, the University of Illinois, as one of the year's distinguised alumni in the liberal arts. One of only four selected from a pool of 120,000 alumni, she was lauded for her work that has, "challenged stereotypes and popularized the study of American society..." Stack is particularly renowned for her classic study in urban anthropology, All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community (1974), and for the lyrical style and in-depth analysis that marks such writings as Call to Home: African Americans Reclaim the Rural South (1996). She is currently writing a book on a research project she has completed on youth working in fast-food restaurants in Oakland and Harlem.

Eugene Garcia

Robert Jorgensen

Colin Ormsby

In a faculty, staff, and student collaboration, Eugene Garcia, Robert Jorgensen, and Colin Ormsby co-authored an article on how dependence on SAT scores in admissions has shut out many qualified Latino applicants from UC campuses. Their article was the lead story in the Summer/Fall issue of College Admissions magazine, and was entitled, "How Can Public Universities Still Admit a Diverse Freshman Class? The Case of Latinos, the SAT, and the University of California." The article makes the case that SAT scores are not valid predictors of student performance and it suggests alternatives. Eugene Garcia is the dean of the GSE, Robert Jorgensen is director of school relations, and Colin Ormsby is a doctoral student in Language, Literacy, and Culture.

Julia Aguirre

José (Tony) Torralba

Alberto Arenas

Alberto Arenas, a doctoral student in Social and Cultural Studies, recently published a book chapter on, "Managing U.S. Campuses with an Ecological Perspective" in Sustainability and University Life, edited by Walter Leal Filho. The chapter focuses on several universities in the United States currently engaged in environmentally-sound practices, and demonstrates that it is possible for a large institution to reach a high degree of sustainability in its day-to-day operations.

Bill Charland, a doctoral student in Policy, Organization, Measurement, and Evaluation, recently received a grant for his project on, "Service Learning and Art Education in Community Organizations." The project is supported by the Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership. Bill Charland, who is currently assistant professor of art at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is using the grant to create mosaic murals with children through community organizations.

Bill Charland

Bernadette Chi

Bernadette Chi, who is working on a doctorate in Policy, Organization, Measurement, and Evaluation, was one of twelve applicants selected this year for a National Service Fellowship. The fellowship, funded by the Corporation for National Service, is facilitating her study on the effects of service-learning on the citizenship development of K-12 students. "The purpose of my project," she said, "is to examine what and how K-12 students learn about 'citizenship' through service-learning experiences in the community." She's focusing on 30 teachers in 20 schools across California.

Laura Goe, a first-year Ph.D. student in Policy, Organization, Measurement, and Evaluation, is working on a project to look at how ten California schools are using the resources allocated to them under the new Public Schools Accountability Act. Part of the legislation gives extra resources to help low-scoring schools raise achievement test results. Her study will document the effectiveness of various strategies to improve exam scores, looking at how schools direct the resources and how their choices affect students in the classroom.

Laura Goe

Deborah McKoy

Deborah McKoy, a Ph.D. student in Policy, Organization, Measurement, and Evaluation, is currently teaching a course for undergraduates where they plan and teach a six-week session in an Oakland high school on community planning. In conjunction with UCB's School of Environmental Design, Deborah McKoy has restructured the course to have a strong education component. Cal juniors and seniors will learn to design and teach curriculum to help students at Oakland Technical High School experience the process of urban planning, and ultimately present their projects to a jury of professional and community leaders at Oakland City Hall. The course is supported by a service-learning grant.

Anne Whiteside, who is pursuing her Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture, is co-directing a service-learning project at City College of San Francisco (CCSF). The project, called SHINE (Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders), places over 100 students per semester from San Francisco State and from CCSF in citizenship, ESL, and adult literacy classes around San Francisco. Now in its third year, the project is part of a national service-learning grant. The focus is on intergenerational learning, and most of the students being tutored are elders. "The students are often immigrants themselves," Anne Whitehead remarked. "They report tremendous satisfaction at being able to give back to their communities. They also note the patience they've developed and their increased respect for elders who work so tenaciously to pass the exams."

Anne Whiteside

Vic Wong

Vic Wong, the GSE's computer support wizard, has now worked 30 years at Cal. For the last nine years he has solved every imaginable digital problem at the GSE. "I most enjoy using applications--programming and setting up databases, for instance." Originally from Fresno, Vic Wong's family moved to Watsonville when he was a teenager. He received a B.A. in mathematics and statistics, and an M.S. in industrial engineering and operations research, both from Cal. He keeps up-to-date on the latest software and hardware by checking certain sites on the Internet every day. In his years working at the GSE, he's also developed an interest in schools: "I keep an eye on the news stories about education." He not only does computer support, he sets up the databases, supervises the website, and maintains all the online mailing lists. It's not unusual for him to come into work Monday morning and find 100 e-mails waiting for him. He is a voracious and well-rounded reader and particularly enjoys fiction.