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Two faculty members in the ��������Ƶ Boulder School of Education, Derek Briggs and Kevin Welner, have been elected to the esteemed National Academy of Education (NAEd), the Academy announced in January. 

NAEd members are elected based on outstanding scholarship or leadership related to education. Briggs and Welner join a group of just 22 national and international colleagues elected to the Academy this year.

“I am delighted that two of our ��������Ƶ Boulder colleagues have been recognized among the highest honors in education," said Fernando Rosario-Ortiz, interim dean for the School of Education. 

Joe Polman, associate dean of research, added: “Drs. Briggs and Welner are leading experts in their areas of study who continue to push our understanding of the impact of educational policies and practices—from the meticulous work that Dr. Briggs uses to scrutinize methodological approaches to evaluating student growth to Dr. Welner’s creative and determined focus on bringing high-quality research to bear on closing opportunity gaps.  

“We know they will be invaluable contributors to the Academy.” 

 Drs. Briggs and Welner are leading experts in their areas of study who continue to push our understanding of the impact of educational policies and practices -- from the meticulous work that Dr. Briggs uses to scrutinize methodological approaches to evaluating student growth to Dr. Welner’s creative and determined focus on bringing high-quality research to bear on closing opportunity gaps.” — Fernando Rosario-Ortiz

Briggs is a professor in the Research Evaluation and Methodology program, where he is also the director and founder of the Center for Assessment, Design, Research and Evaluation (CADRE). He joined the faculty at ��������Ƶ Boulder in 2003, and his research focuses on advancing methods for the sound measurement of student learning and for evaluating the effects of educational interventions on student achievement.   

As a nationally renowned psychometrician, or someone who studies the measurement of students’ knowledge and abilities, and CADRE director, Briggs works with states and education leaders to provide technical advice on the design and use of large-scale student assessments. He is also an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Fellow and past president of the National Council on Measurement in Education. 

“Prof. Derek Briggs is among the foremost leaders in the measurement field today,” said nominator Edward Haertal, professor emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, who agreed to share his perspective. “He is an enormously talented, multifaceted scholar engaging fundamental issues in measurement, identifying questionable practices and assumptions and pointing the way toward solutions...His election would add luster to our Academy.” 

Welner is the director of the and is a research professor in the Educational Foundations, Policy and Practice program in the School of Education, where he has been on the faculty for 25 years. Welner has written and published extensively on opportunity gaps, educational reform, charter schools, private-school vouchers, ability grouping, school finance, and the area of interplay between education policy and the law. He is a former practicing attorney and the co-author of textbooks used in law schools and schools of education to teach education law. He is an AERA Fellow as well as a Senior Fellow of the . He is also chair of the Board of Trustees of the . 

“Professor Kevin Welner’s research contributions are unique in combining careful policy analysis on the use of the law in education with empirical social science analysis,” Polman added. “He is also one of the most skilled public communicators of education policy research in our field. Through their hugely influential work, he and his colleagues have literally changed misguided conversations in this country about ‘achievement gaps' into more productive efforts to identify and address educational 'opportunity gaps.’” 

Briggs and Welner join four ��������Ƶ Boulder colleagues who are also members of NAEd: Rubén Donato, Margaret Eisenhart, Bill Penuel and Lorrie Shepard, who is a former NAEd president. 

Carol Lee, current NAEd president, welcomed members to the Academy , adding they will join peers in making an indelible impact on education scholarship. 

“Education, broadly conceived, is foundational to preparing students across ages to navigate the complexities of our democratic experiment in governance, the increased interdependence of our modern world, productive workforce participation, and their personal development as humans,” she said.  

“Our distinguished colleagues now joining the National Academy of Education bring the range of expertise and commitments needed for our field to update itself and wrestle with these complexities continuously.”  

Founded in 1965, NAEd is an honorific society that “advances high quality education research and its use in policy and practice.” Members serve on expert study panels that address pressing issues in education, and they engage in professional development fellowship programs. 

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Get to know Elizabeth Dutro, the new Bob and Judy Charles Chair of Education

Last fall, Elizabeth Dutro was appointed to the Bob and Judy Charles Endowed Chair of Education—calling it one of the greatest milestones of her career. 

That’s saying a lot for Dutro, who is a nationally respected expert in humanizing literacy teaching and learning. Her scholarship has been lauded with several national awards from organizations like the National Council of Teachers of English and prominent ��������Ƶ Boulder honors like the Provost Faculty Achievement Award, Boulder Faculty Assembly Teaching Excellence Award and Best Should Teach Award. 

Dutro, who joined the faculty in ��������Ƶ Boulder School of Education in 2005, is consistently recognized as a wonderful mentor for both students and other faculty members. 

Her work explores how difficult life experiences can inform literacy instruction that centers students’ knowledge, and her partnerships with teachers include opportunities for teachers to learn together in ways that complement their daily work and relationships with students.  

 Over the years, I have witnessed with admiration how this chair has empowered colleagues and mentors I deeply respect and admire to advance their scholarship, foster meaningful partnerships with schools and communities, and support opportunities for doctoral students. It is truly humbling to step into this role and continue building upon their legacy.”

More recently, her project, “Designing Responsive Literacy Instruction with Rural Elementary Educators: A Professional Development Partnership” with literacy studies doctoral student Olivia Cox, aims to build sustainable, collaborative relationships with rural elementary educators, specifically in Strasburg, Colorado. The project supports teachers in professional learning that is locally grounded, continuous, and tailored to the community’s needs.  

Dutro’s work in eastern Colorado provided a kismet connection between her scholarship and the passions of Bob Charles, a long-time supporter of the School of Education who endowed the only active faculty chair in the School of Education with his wife, Judy, in 2004.  

Charles’s interest in supporting teachers, particularly rural educators, was inspired by his wife Judy, an education alumna who devoted her career to teaching and, later, volunteering in their children’s schools. 

“I know how much Judy loved teaching—it was in her blood—and I’ve always respected the work teachers do,” Charles explained.  

Charles, who splits his time between Colorado and Arizona, sees special opportunities to strengthen rural education in both states. He has heard about the rise in remote and online learning in rural areas, but he is reluctant to consider online learning as the solution.   

“Nothing compares to having a teacher sit down with a student and go over the work face-to-face,” he said. “I have just always felt the rural students are not getting the education they are entitled to.”  

Dutro has rural roots in southeast Colorado’s La Junta, where her maternal side of the family goes back five generations. While she did not grow up in the area, she spent many summers and holidays in La Junta making memories with her family. She notes, when she visits the area, she is not known as “Professor Dutro” but rather her mother’s daughter and one of the many Klein cousins. 

“Bob Charles’s commitment to supporting education research in rural Colorado deeply resonates with me,” Dutro said. “I feel incredibly fortunate that my career brought me back to Colorado, where I and my own children have been able to spend meaningful time with our large, loving extended family.  

“A few years ago, with support from the School of Education’s place-based seed grants, I achieved a long-held goal of expanding my research to a rural region of the state. Over the past three years, Olivia and I collaborated with teachers and administrators at Strasburg Elementary School on a literacy partnership, creating a rewarding and impactful project that builds on my deep ties to rural Colorado.” 

Those connections and opportunities have provided fertile ground for Dutro to understand the teacher-partners she works with in Strasburg, a town of around 2,500 people. Through the responsive literacy projects, Dutro and Cox engage with local teachers who act as “knowledgeable collaborators” working through professional development that integrates equity-focused literacy practices and the Science of Reading, an approach to teaching reading that is required in state policy aiming to improve reading achievement for young learners. 

Dutro and Cox’s goal is to collaborate with school partners to enact instructional changes mandated by policy in ways that amplify teachers as knowledgeable experts and center children’s identities and strengths as literacy learners.  

The five-year Bob and Judy Charles Chair appointment will support Dutro in deepening her work in rural Colorado and supporting education students with similar interests.  

Dutro notes she is truly honored by the chair appointment, and the fact that she follows in the footsteps of other outstanding education scholars, including Margaret Eisenhart, Kathy Escamilla, and Ruben Donato.  

“Over the years, I have witnessed with admiration how this chair has empowered colleagues and mentors I deeply respect and admire to advance their scholarship, foster meaningful partnerships with schools and communities, and support opportunities for doctoral students” she said. “It is truly humbling to step into this role and continue building upon their legacy.” 

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Free and open to the public, the event will feature Kevin Gannon, director of the Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence and professor of history at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina. Gannon will deliver his keynote "Is It Time to Change Your Mind?" on how might we (re)connect with our agency, and use it to anchor our practices in an ethic of hope. 

Kevin Gannon is the author of Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto (West Virginia University Press, 2020), and his writing has also appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Vox, CNN, and The Washington Post. In 2016, he appeared in the Oscar-nominated documentary 13th, directed by Ava DuVernay. He is currently co-editing a volume of essays on campuses in crisis, as well as writing a book on “Zombie Ideas” in higher education.

The event, co-hosted by the Center for Teaching and Learning, School of Education, and College of Arts and Sciences, will honor five ��������Ƶ Boulder faculty members, three K-12 teachers from the School of Education’s partner school districts and lead graduate teachers in the Graduate Teacher Program with Best Should Teach Gold and Silver Awards.

The 2023-2024 Best Should Teach Gold Award Recipients include:

• Nabilah Carlon, Chemistry
• Alex Dietrich, Lockheed Martin Engineering Management Program
• Deena Gumina, School of Education
• Eyal Rivlin, Hebrew Language
• Annjeanette Wiese, Humanities

Teacher honorees from partner school districts include:

• Lori Hattendorf, Boulder Valley School District
• Karen Mancusi, St. Vrain School District
• Vickie Salazar, Adams 12 Five Star Schools

The Best Should Teach awardees were selected for their embodiment of the beliefs, behaviors, and skills of exemplary teachers. The call for nominations for ��������Ƶ Boulder faculty also include nominations from students from all colleges and schools across campus.

The late, lifelong educator Lindley Stiles and his wife Marguerite Stiles established the Best Should Teach Initiative in 1996 to celebrate excellence in teaching, and Stiles’ inspiring motto is inscribed on the Lucile Berkeley Buchanan Building:

“To those who come, I leave the flame! Hold it as high as you can reach. If a better world is your aim, all must agree: The Best Should Teach.”

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Each year, the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting represents the world's largest gathering of education researchers and is a showcase for groundbreaking, innovative research. We are looking forward to the  that will take place in Philadelphia, PA, April 11-14. 

Our faculty, students and alumni will be busy presenting, learning, and exchanging ideas. Use this guide to follow and support ��������Ƶ Boulder researchers and their work. This year, we have ��������Ƶ Boulder faculty, students and alumni featured in over 80 sessions! 

AERA Key Sessions 

Presidential Session:
Bilingual Special Education for the 21st Century: Reimagining the Future

• Sat, April 13, 9:35-11:05 a.m. ET; Pennsylvania Convention Center, Level 200, Room 201A
• Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching in Bilingual Inclusive Classrooms
• Authors: Vanessa Santiago Schwarz and Elizabeth Silva Diaz

Spotlight on Philadelphia and the Region:
Weight of the Crown: Anti-Essentialist Futures for Black Girls’ Identity Construction

• Fri, April 12, 7:45-9:15 a.m. ET; Pennsylvania Convention Center, Level 200, Room 201B
• I’m Not Your Superwoman: Ethnographies of Softness, Silence, and Healing for Black Girls
• Author: Alexis Hunter

Spotlight on Artificial Intelligence: 
Critical Sociotechnical Perspectives on Young People Using, Experiencing, and Making Sense of AI

• Thu, April 11, 2:30-4:00 p.m. ET; Pennsylvania Convention Center, Level 200, Exhibit Hall B
• Chair: José Lizárraga

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A series of mentors nudged Rosario-Ortiz toward chemistry, then environmental engineering, and eventually, academia. He is passionate about university teaching and research, and he has enjoyed leadership roles exploring complex issues in higher education.

Provost Russell Moore named Rosario-Ortiz as the interim dean in November 2023, and the dean appointment began Jan. 1. Dean Rosario-Ortiz’s chief priority over his 18-month tenure is preparing the school and its practices, policies, and budget for the next dean following a national search. Rosario-Ortiz’s multidimensional administrative positions and his respect for the School of Education’s nationally recognized scholarship have positioned him to make a difference. 

Learn more about Rosario-Ortiz, what led him to this role, his goals, and how he spends his time when he is, finally, off the clock in this Q&A. 

Tell us a little more about you and your passions? 

I am a very straightforward person. I love what I do, and I love research and teaching. I appreciate the mission of the university as an educator and researcher. Colorado is a great place to do research and we have great people here. The administrative side of my work is new. This is my fourth leadership opportunity in seven years. I like the aspect of serving the community. Those are some of the things that drive me and why I come here everyday.

Why the School of Education, right? When I was first approached about the opportunity to serve the education community, I was very excited with the prospect of supporting the community. I knew many of the people at our school, and I was quite conscious of the talent that’s here, the ways we support students, and the school’s outstanding national reputation. It seemed like a good opportunity for me to bring my energy, enthusiasm, positivity and optimism and to try to build a bridge to the next phase of the school’s trajectory.

You are passionate about ��������Ƶ Boulder and your faculty role, but what initially led you to university teaching and research?

I come from a small town in Puerto Rico. As most kids from rural areas, you may not have a lot of examples of professional careers around you. A lot of my family members are teachers. I always thought ‘How cool?’ You get to teach and educate people, and more importantly, you get to open minds, hearts and lives to opportunities. I always thought that was interesting. 

My first inclination in college was to become a doctor, as I had limited exposure to other professions such as engineering. I was so unsure about what the world had to offer that I essentially listened to a professor who told me to change my major to chemistry, so I did. 

Then made it to California for graduate school in chemistry, and then on to the Environmental Science and Engineering Program at UCLA. As part of this program, I ended up working in a drinking water treatment facility in Las Vegas, where I began to be interested in the field of environmental engineering. Then I joined ��������Ƶ Boulder in 2008, as professor of environmental engineering. I always wanted to teach. I never thought I had the skill to teach at the primary or secondary level, so I gravitated toward college level. Teaching is important to me. I'm sad that I don't get to do it right now, but I'll come back to it.

What was it about teaching that lured you into higher education? 

I'm here because of teachers and professors. I think there's a lot of me that is essentially paying it forward. I would not be here without some really good mentoring and the opportunity to attend these institutions and continue forward. I didn't grow up in a setting where I became an engineer because half my family are engineers. I always appreciate how education creates opportunities and how it opens people up to different things. I wanted to do some of that. 

To this day, a lot of what I’ve been thinking around the equity lens is essentially how talent is equally distributed and opportunities are not. How do we make sure that we look for the best talent, bring those talented people to our community, and offer them the tools to grow? Ultimately we're better because of it.

You sort of “fell into” chemistry, then environmental engineering, and now various leadership roles. Walk us through those roles and what you have learned from them? 

In 2016, after I returned from sabbatical, I started to get this itch, “what else?” I'd been working very hard on building my own skill set and my research, and I was ready to explore everything else this university has to offer. There was an opportunity for me to be involved in the accreditation of my program, and I took it thinking “let’s just see how this feels.” Accreditation, I am fairly certain, is a very intense process in just about every discipline. It was a lot of work and stressful, but at the end, once we successfully went through it, I remember thinking “oh that was kind of fun.” I liked that it allowed me to take a close look at our program and see how we're better serving the students and the community as a whole. I like that organizational aspect, and I like complex problems around education. 

My next step was associate director for the Environmental Engineering  program, essentially running the graduate part. Then I became a director of my program, where I had all kinds of plans about maximizing the impact, creating opportunities for collaboration, and creating big initiatives. Then within six months, COVID-19 happened, so a lot of the exciting things I wanted to do got put on hold. At that time the priorities shifted to “how do we take care of each other, how do we take care of our students, and how do we continue?” It was a difficult situation for me, like everyone else. It was also very rewarding to work through that and to try to be there for people. We did a lot of things to improve the situation. 

I was looking forward to going back to all the great plans I had for Environmental Engineering, but I was approached about the faculty advancement associate dean position for the College of Engineering and Applied Science. There, my focus was on processes and the support structure the faculty needed to succeed. We worked on improvements to faculty search processes, and we revised our processes for reappointment, promotion, and tenure. We worked with six units and the college to rewrite everything we did, and we started developing updated processes for teaching faculty. Within two years, I was approached about this role in the School of Education, so now I'm here.

It sounds like you make things happen as a leader. What drew you to the dean role and the School of Education?

I knew some of the people here, and I knew that a lot of good things were happening here. Like others, I was a spectator to some of the changes happening in the school. I found out I was suggested (as an interim dean candidate) by people in different settings. Even if I had a few reservations initially, I think that there's a vote of confidence from the people who suggested me. I have worked on a number of campus initiatives, like Academic Futures and for BFA Academic Affairs, so I knew a lot of the faculty in the school.

When I was approached, it took me like 20 minutes to realize that I wanted to do it. I was excited for a lot of reasons. I knew enough of the people here, and to some extent, I thought I could make a difference by supporting the great work happening here and working through leadership transitions together.

What are your priorities as dean?

Overall, I am mindful that there are certain decisions that the next permanent dean should make. My top priority is to transition the school to this next person.  As much as I think we should do some deep thinking about where we’re going—and I include myself in that—I think the process of updating our strategic vision should fall on the next person. 

Having said that, we cannot sit around for the next 17 months. I'm hoping to tackle opportunities that are universal—meaning good things that are going to be welcomed by the next person. What can we do around that? We can continue to work on the budget. We can have some considerations about growth and how we handle growth. We can further invest in research and research opportunities. We can think about how to potentially reorganize certain aspects of the overall operation knowing that ultimately all of those things will be useful to the permanent dean and for the here and now. Overall, I am very excited to be leading this school.

What do you look forward to learning from education students, faculty, staff, and alumni?

I know that the school is impactful, and I would like to have a much better idea of how impactful it is. I know that there are challenges in education— bilingual education when it comes to the arrivals of migrants, economic differences in education attainment, recovery after COVID-19, for example. How do we use AI for new educational enterprises? How do we support the state in economic development by providing support to the school districts? How do we support marginalized communities internationally? There’s a lot to look forward to.

For the folks who don’t know you yet, tell us about your non-work passions. What does a "perfect" Saturday off the clock look like?

I would start with a nice long walk whether that's just walking around the neighborhood or a hike with my wife followed by a nice breakfast. Then probably another type of physical activity in the afternoon like a bicycle ride or another hike, followed by a nice meal. And throw in some music in the middle. (Editor’s note: his choice of music is hard rock!)

Is there anything else you want us to know?

I am excited to be here, and I appreciate the warm reception from faculty, students and staff. I am looking forward to getting to know more students, alumni, supporters and partners of the School of Education, and I hope you all know I am open to your ideas and suggestions. 

Rock on, and welcome, Dean Fernando Rosario-Ortiz!

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As she prepares to step down as dean, Schultz is proud of the school’s collective work and commitments to justice

  The field of education is changing rapidly, and Dean Schultz has met the moment with wisdom, persistence and compassion. Her leadership in the School of Education and across campus has allowed ��������Ƶ Boulder and its students to make tremendous advances, explore new possibilities and positively impact humanity.” — Chancellor Phil DiStefano.”

In her earliest days as dean, Kathy Schultz held one-on-one meetings with every faculty and staff member to learn more about the individual and community contributions from every corner of the ��������Ƶ Boulder School of Education.

Now, Schultz and colleagues reflect on her contributions as dean over the past seven-plus years, as she prepares to step down as dean to return to the school’s faculty at the end of the calendar year.

Provost Russell Moore accepted Schultz’s voluntary decision to resign in September, noting her many accomplishments and “conscientious and compassionate leadership.” He is seeking interim leadership in close consultation with the school’s faculty, staff and students, and a national dean search will follow (UPDATE: Fernando Rosario-Ortiz named interim education dean).

After working steadily as dean and a campus and national leader in education, Schultz has high hopes for the school’s next steps, collective work and deepened connections among students, alumni, colleagues and community partners.

We sat down with Dean Schultz to recount what she is most proud of, some of the lessons learned and her wishes for the School of Education’s future in this Q&A. 

After serving as dean of education at Mills College and professor and director of teacher education at the University of Pennsylvania, what attracted you to the ��������Ƶ Boulder School of Education, and how did you lean into the school’s strengths?

I have devoted my life to working toward justice and equity. Coming to the ��������Ƶ Boulder School of Education was a natural next step because of its longstanding commitment to democracy, diversity, equity, and justice.

Another aspect of ��������Ƶ Boulder that attracted me was the incredible public scholarship happening here and the ways people were doing that really beautifully. I see the role of the dean as being a spokesperson with a platform for local and national issues of education, so there were a couple of ways that I tried to highlight public scholarship.

One was that we worked on changing the standards for faculty tenure and promotion to include public scholarship. That's something that's been taken up by colleagues across the country and by our university. 

The second was Ed Talks. I noticed that people in our university and across the community didn't really understand the wonderful work going on in the School of Education. A lot of people think that schools of education are about “training” teachers. And while, of course, that's incredibly important and it's become increasingly central to our mission, we focus on teaching and so many other aspects of education. Inspired by Ed Talks at American Educational Research Association, we created ��������Ƶ Boulder’s Ed Talks to translate the remarkable research going on in a school for the public.

Your work has largely focused on urban education, yet you created and sustained new rural partnerships at ��������Ƶ Boulder. How and why did that come about?

One of my core beliefs is that universities should give back to their communities. When I came to ��������Ƶ, I was excited to be at a public, flagship university committed to serving all of the state.

As incoming dean, the provost agreed to fund a new place-based partnership seed grant initiative. As a school, we held conversations about research-practice partnerships, community engagement, and all the different kinds of research people were engaged in throughout the school. These were some of the most exciting and gratifying conversations as people shared their work across disciplines, often for the first time. In order to deepen the impact of our work as a school, we chose to locate the funded projects in three different areas: rural Northeast Colorado, Lafayette, and the Montbello area of Denver.

In my early days, I learned about the needs of rural schools and teachers, and we encouraged the faculty and staff to locate projects in rural areas. Later, the Regents offered us the opportunity to create a ‘moonshot program’ that was all online. I don't believe in online teacher education (for pre-service teachers), but I do believe in online professional development. The Online Teacher Leadership program has blossomed as another way we can support teachers and help address teacher shortages.

During your tenure, several new or reconfigured programs addressing teacher shortages and supporting community leaders launched. Why are these programs critical for public education?

These programs are growing, which has meant that the school has shifted from being primarily a graduate school with undergraduate programs to a school that's nicely balanced between undergraduate and graduate programs. That's a shift for us to begin to understand, and I think it's a wonderful new direction. 

The School of Education moved to a new location and redesigned building during your tenure. Why take on such a big initiative?

When I first walked into the School of Education (in 2017), it looked like a junior high school to me. The only place for students to gather was on the floor, along the edge of  the hallways. We had so many cutting-edge programs, but we were teaching in 1950s classrooms. I really wanted our community to have spaces that matched the incredible quality of our faculty and the teaching that was going on in our school, as well as providing spaces for student, faculty, and staff interaction. Collaboration is at the heart of what we do.

In my initial space conversations, I basically heard, ‘There's no way that we're going to expand the building or build a new building.’ I know (Dean Emerita) Lorrie (Shepard) had tried to do this, too. Then there was this need to vacate the building for 18 months because of HVAC updates, and that's when I started talking with the Chancellor and Provost about the possibility of not only relocating temporarily to what was then called the Fleming Building, but to move permanently to the larger, more accessible building. They were very supportive, and we were able to negotiate for the space that we needed. It became very exciting to dream about new spaces for all of us to be able to work and interact in different ways.

Beginning in 2020, the newly named Miramontes Baca Education Building opened in various phases, with the final phase and learning labs expected to open in 2024. What are you most proud of walking the halls?

I love seeing the different ways that people are working together. Universities are very hierarchical places, and when I think about my big goals, in addition to diversifying our faculty, staff, and students and rural education, I looked for ways to break down hierarchies across faculty, staff, and students. The kinds of interactions I see in the building now, and that I imagine in the new spaces that are about to open up, reflect our real attempts to begin to break down those power dynamics and bring everybody into conversation with one another.

You’ve always said that students are the center of the new building and the heart of the school. What other ways have you centered students as dean?

Students are our most important priority as a school of education. I am proud of the ways we’ve responded when students have brought up ideas and concerns. For instance, two groups: the students of color collective and students who represented solo parents of color came to me at different times. I took their observations and requests really seriously, and we, as a school, worked hard to address them and to make changes to practices and policies.

Similarly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was student interest in establishing opportunities for youth who didn’t have the resources for the kind of tutoring that more wealthy families had available to them, as schools and some jobs became remote. We ended up creating a program, the Buffs for Frontline Service Employees program, which we have continued in collaboration with the campus.

Another summer, a committee that was looking at censorship and anti-CRT measures created a request for summer research proposals for our doctoral students, and we found ways to fund all 11 student projects.

I am always seeking ways to interact with students. I taught graduate courses, and I recently joined a wonderful hike hosted by the undergraduate student government, which are some of the fun parts of my job.

What are some of your accomplishments at the national leadership level, especially when it comes to pushing for education justice and systemic change? 

"I can think of very few leaders who have had as profound an impact in pushing higher education towards justice as Dean Kathy Schultz. She is a brilliant and singular public scholar whose vision for diversity, democracy, and justice in education broadly, and teacher education in particular, has permeated a number of professional associations, as when she was president of the Council of Anthropology and Education, vice president of the Teaching and Teacher Education Division (Division K) of the American Educational Research Association, and co-founder of the nationwide Urban Teacher Education Consortium. Over the past few decades, she demonstrated the impact of leveraging scholarly and university resources to build capacities of local schools, including as school board member of the Chester Upland district (PA), faculty director of the Philadelphia Writing Project (PA), and co-chair of the Oakland Education Cabinet (CA).

I was grateful to work alongside her in convening education deans from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area (when we were both deans in the SF area), and a few years ago, in co-founding and co-chairing Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE), which now consists of hundreds of deans and other leaders in colleges of education across the country who support one another while acting collectively to reframe the public debate on education, even and especially when such advocacy challenges dominant narratives.

In her leadership roles, in her professional organizing, and as I've experienced first-hand in her one-on-one mentoring, Dean Schultz pushes us to engage in movement-building for justice and to witness the transformative potential of collective action, often requiring that we occupy our roles as educators, scholars, and especially as leaders differently—ethically, creatively, compassionately, and courageously."

— Kevin Kumashiro, Founding Chair, Education Deans for Justice and Equity, and former dean, University of San Francisco School of Education

A big reason that I came to ��������Ƶ Boulder is its deep commitment to racial justice and equity, which is central to my work.

I joined the school as one of the founders and leaders of a national group, the , which has grown to over 250 deans and other leaders across the country. Now more than ever, that work is vital because of the attacks on education and equity and justice in education.

An outgrowth of that work was to increase the diversity of faculty, staff, and students in the school. We all know how difficult the work is to diversify a school, particularly in a historically white institution, and just how many complex aspects of that work we need to address all the time.

That’s something I reflected on publicly at our last education Deans for Justice and Equity conference, and ideas and challenges that I am taking with me as I leave the position.

You have been open to the challenges we face as a school and university while striving for systemic change and racial justice, including the recent departures for faculty women of color. How have you approached challenges, and what do you hope we will carry forward?

All deans face challenges—from global conflicts affecting teaching and schools to budget or personnel challenges. I've approached each challenge by trying to bring together multiple perspectives and by taking a learning stance: documenting mistakes and learning from them as I continue to make decisions. 

I think both my strength and weakness is probably my stance that I'm everybody’s dean and not dean for one group over another. That's been important to me, but that's also not necessarily something that everybody likes. I've tried to think about who we are and what we believe in as we collectively move forward. I’ve used my regular update emails to bring whatever insights I might have to everybody while sharing opportunities and celebrations. During COVID-19 (remote work), I sent these messages with poems every day. It was a way to try to be open and compassionate as we went through a difficult time as a school and larger community.

As part of my scholarship, I write about listening and the importance of not only listening to the words spoken, but also listening to the silence. I think that too often it's the loudest voices that we hear and pay attention to and we forget to listen to what people are communicating through their bodies or through not talking at all. It goes back to thinking about how to make sure that all voices are represented as often as possible and not only bringing those voices into one-on-one conversations, but also how to create as many spaces where people can contribute their experiences, beliefs, histories, and knowledge to the decisions that we're making together.

One thing you prioritized in your school-wide emails was joy—milestones, poetry, and reminders to rest and enjoy our full lives. What are you looking forward to after serving as dean?  

I'm excited about more time to return to my scholarship. I have two book ideas that I am eager to pursue. I'm also looking forward to having my weekends back to spend more time in the mountains, reading novels, traveling and with family and friends. Also, I have a new grandson in Washington, D.C., so that's a great thing.

   Do you have a story or note to share with Dean Schultz? Send her a note.

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