Behar-Horenstein named editor of EAP online journal
Following the release of the November issue of the online Florida Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, Professor Linda Behar-Horenstein will assume the executive editor’s post of the UF-published journal, succeeding R. Craig Wood and founding editor Linda Serra Hagedorn.
Behar-Horenstein, professor in educational administration and policy and a UF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, has already appointed a new editorial board. The college’s educational administration and policy program launched the blind peer-reviewed e-journal in spring 2007.
“The journal will take a concerted new direction,” she said. “We are seeking manuscripts that focus on culture-centered leadership, including studies in leadership that have fostered an appreciation for faculty and staff diversity, promoted culturally and linguistically responsive teaching, and enacted an ethical obligation to help all students learn. (We also seek manuscripts focusing on) research that has explored how those practices have effected student achievement, school climate and instruction. Studies from all levels and types of educational institutions are welcomed.”
Although Halloween is over, the education gremlins are still lurking in state and national policy circles. What are the education gremlins? They are the imps who whisper in policymakers’ ears that colleges of education are not sufficiently meeting the challenge of preparing the next generation of high-quality teachers to help increase student learning, especially in the nation’s most underserved schools.
‘Can Web 2.0 save teacher professional development?’ UF’s Sessums will offer insights on ‘Education Week’ Webinar Nov. 18
Brownell, M. T., Bishop, A. B., Gersten, R., Klingner, J., Dimino, J., Haager, D., Menon, S., Penfield, R., & Sindelar, P. (2009). Examining the Dimensions of Teacher Quality for Beginning Special Education Teachers: The Role of Domain Expertise. Exceptional Children, 75(4), 391-411.
Dixon, A. L., Scheidegger, C., & McWhirter, J. J. (2009). The adolescent mattering experience: Gender variations in perceived mattering, anxiety, and depression. Journal of Counseling & Development, 87, 302-318.
Mendoza, P. Mendez, J.P., & Malcolm, Z. (2009). Financial aid and persistence in community colleges: Assessing the effect of state and federal financial aid programs in Oklahoma. Community College Review, 37(2), 112-135.
Mpofu, E., & Oakland, T. (2010). Assessment in Rehabilitation and Health. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.
Clark, M.A. (2009, July). A Cross Cultural Study of Gender Differences in Educational Achievement and Persistence. 2009 Oxford Symposium in Barcelona in School-Based Family Counseling. Barcelona, Spain.
Summit coordinator Thomasenia Lott Adams (pictured, right), a professor in mathematics education at UF’s College of Education, says the program will include panel discussions, group conversations and opportunities for participants to get directly involved in efforts to support students’ success in math and science.
Nancy Dana, director of the college’s Center for School Improvement, has received the second-ever National Impact Award from the New York State Association of Teacher Educators and the New York Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
A new academic year always promises a fresh new start for faculty, students, and staff—a start that is especially welcome after a year of turmoil.
Michael Bowie, director of College of Education recruitment, retention and multicultural affairs, recently completed UF’s challenging Next Level Leadership Program, a yearlong leadership training program for rising university administrators and faculty members in leadership positions.
Rose Gleichowski, a math teacher and cheerleader coach at P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, is one of seven Florida coaches from various sports nominated for the Drug Free Florida Coaches with Character Award for the 2008-09 school year.
The Nov. 16 colloquium also serves as the first gathering of the college’s newly formed International and Comparative Education Learning Community, which so far numbers about 20 faculty as members—many involved in international research, teaching and outreach. The group will meet each semester to share, collaborate and pursue a collegewide international focus. Anyone may attend and participate.
Catherine Cavanaugh, a UF associate professor in education technology and one of the nation’s leading scholars in the fields of distance learning and classroom technology integration, will make the presentation as part of the College of Education’s 2009-10 Distinguished Speaker Series: “21st Century Pathways in Education.” Her lecture is targeted to all interested faculty, students and staff on campus, and to educators in the community.
UF mathematics education professor Thomasenia Adams (center) is shown with Simon and Verna Johnson of Gainesville at a recent social at the UF President’s House celebrating the 50th anniversary of integration at both UF and the College of Education. Simon Johnson, a retired professor emeritus, was the college’s first African-American tenured professor, and Adams is the first African-American woman tenured professor in education.
Guest Speaker
Guest Speaker
“I had visions of coming to a classroom filled with computers so the class could do Web quests every day, and I had all these other big, big, big ideas,” said Miller, who now teaches fourth grade at Crystal Lake Elementary School in Lake Mary, north of Orlando. “I had to step back, wheels screeching in my mind, and say, okay, I still have to make technology accessible to my students with whatever equipment is available.”
‘Stuff the Bus’ for area homeless schoolchildren
Ponjuan, L. Integrating Minority Males into the Higher Education Pipeline. (Panel discussion: College Board “Forum 2009: Education and the American Future”, Oct. 21, 2009; New York City)
In a 
It’s no coincidence that the rise to national prominence for UF’s counselor education program has occurred during the illustrious tenure of Professor James Archer. His colleagues portray him as one of the leading counselor educators whose life work has profoundly influenced their profession. Archer will retire this June after 27 years at UF—first as director of UF’s student counseling center from 1981 until 1994, and for the past 15 years on the counselor education faculty. UF’s student counseling center became known as one of the nation’s best under his direction. Since joining the counselor education faculty, the program has compiled a remarkable streak of top-5 rankings in the U.S. News and World Report national survey—including the top position in 1997. Archer has had help from other leading faculty, but he has served the counseling profession on all levels while educating several generations of counselors. He has held some 15 national leadership posts in the counseling profession, served on five journal editorial boards and has produced more than 80 professional publications and presentations worldwide. His accomplishments led the American Psychological Association to name him an APA Fellow in 1995—the association’s highest honor, and he was awarded a Diplomate by the American Board of Professional Psychology, its premier practice award.
Cecil Mercer was the type of versatile, forward-thinking scholar that a university program needs to forge an enduring national reputation. That may explain why UF typically commands a top 15 spot among special education programs in the yearly U.S. News national rankings—this year as the No. 4 program in its specialty. Mercer emerged as a giant in his field during his 31 years (1974-2005) on UF’s special education faculty. In 1998, he became the first College of Education instructor to be promoted to the rank of Distinguished Professor. A three-time selection as COE Teacher of the Year, Cecil Mercer is one of the most widely recognized names in the field of learning disabilities. His nationwide studies of how various states defined “learning disability”—and how educators were using the term to classify and place students—led to improvements in many states and to more stringent federal guidelines. His research in mathematics yielded evidence to support systematic and explicit instruction for students with learning disabilities. Mercer’s most enduring legacy, though, may be the joint College of Education-College of Medicine project he helped to institute in 1980 called the Multidisciplinary Diagnostic and Training Program (MDTP), which today continues to provide innovative evaluations and interventions for children with challenging learning difficulties.
Jacksonville marriage and family therapist Lesley Hull regularly steps outside of her own successful counseling practice for adolescents and their families to help the next generation of practitioners at UF prepare for their counseling careers. She has dedicated her life’s work to supporting Florida’s adolescents and youth. Hull received two graduate degrees from UF’s counselor education program, most recently in 1997. In her own practice, she helps adolescents deal with substance abuse problems, focus on school work and redirect their attitudes and actions toward success. She returned to UF in 2004, though, for double-duty as an adjunct faculty instructor and supervisor of UF graduate students in mental health and marriage-and-family counseling. Hull offers her students understanding and structure, bringing real-world situations to light rather than relying strictly on didactic textbook case studies. Whether ministering to an adolescent struggling through puberty or leading counselor education students in self-reflective professional inquiry, Hull delivers inspiring instruction with a compassionate heart. Certified in Florida as a clinical supervisor for mental health licensees and for marriage and family interns, Hull is a member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, the American Counseling Association, and the International Counseling Academic and Professional Honor Society.
While Jamee Cagle Miller, a fourth-grade teacher and team leader at Crystal Lake Elementary School in Lake Mary, Fla., teaches with the Sunshine State Standards in mind, she believes teaching goes beyond textbooks. As she explains: “I must equip the students with life skills and street sense… and experiences they need to be successful in life.”Cagle makes it a practice to meet one-on-one with each of her students daily, yet also finds time to supervise junior and senior teaching interns. She recently created a social studies curriculum for the school’s entire fourth-grade program that combines reading assessment benchmarks in tandem with Florida history content. She was named Seminole County 2008 Teacher of the Year, in part, for creating “Cagle’s Caring Crocs” under a $500 grant from the Golden Rule Foundation. The innovative project combines writing assignments with community service opportunities for her students to become role models in their community. She has also been featured as the Orlando Sentinel’s Teacher of the Week and chosen as Evans Elementary Teacher of the Month. Cagle graduated summa cum laude for both of her education degrees from UF: a bachelor’s in elementary education in 2001 and a master’s in 2002 in education technology.
The College of Education didn’t have to look far before selecting Elayne Colón as a 2009 Outstanding Young Alumna. Just one year after receiving her doctorate in school psychology from UF, the College took notice of her extensive assessment background and hired her to head the its national, state and institutional accreditation efforts, including the arduous preparations for the upcoming 2010 accreditation visit and review by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Department of Education. Colón joined the education faculty in 2005, working as a psychoeducational consultant at UF’s Multidisciplinary Diagnostic and Training Program. The MDTP clinic was a collaborative effort between the colleges of Education and Medicine, serving the needs of children with learning and other developmental disabilities. Her research interests include the assessment and remediation of students with learning disabilities, particularly related to difficulties in reading. Other work has focused on curriculum-based measurement, the response-to-intervention model of service delivery in the schools and program evaluation. She has published journal articles in peer-refereed journals, including the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, and presented numerous papers at national and state conferences. She holds state and national certifications as a school psychologist.
Erica McCray, an assistant professor in Unified Elementary ProTeach, believes she’s doing more than teaching facts, figures and processes. She is instilling attitudes in the next generation of teachers. "I teach by example. I teach for social justice," McCray says. She started teaching as a substitute middle school teacher, but soon enrolled in master’s level courses to improve her teaching skills. Wanting to make a big impact on education, however, she charted her course as a teacher educator. She completed her doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of South Florida in 2006, with emphasis in special education, and became a UF assistant professor in special education in 2007. "Dr. McCray carefully plans her classes, uses a range of instructional methods and addresses complex, controversial issues using a delicate but direct approach," says James McLeskey, who heads the special education program. It’s the attention to her students, playing to their strengths and working through their weaknesses, that makes McCray stand out as an instructor. Her students say she practices what she preaches by treating each and every student as an individual—just the lesson she wants to send into the classroom with her newly trained teachers. 
Having lived as a child in Ethiopia and Turkey, Jane Townsend started her teaching career in the mid-1970s with a deep interest in the language and learning of people from diverse backgrounds. Her first job in education—teaching high school English to poor, black and Hispanic 10th-graders—led to additional college coursework in language learning and, ultimately, to a major career shift. She joined the UF education faculty in 1994 after teaching for eight years at the University of Texas-Austin, where she also earned master’s and Ph.D. degrees in English/language arts education. “My instructional focus is helping future and current teachers respect the diversity of languages, cultures and dialects in their classrooms” she says. “This broadens our reach and includes more people in the conversations of learning.” Townsend lately has added the arts to her teaching toolkit to engage students’ creative and critical capacities. Teaching, to Townsend, means nudging students forward with questions and feedback that open their minds to new ideas. Her graduate students describe her as a “fully-involved” mentor and adviser, taking the time to help the budding teachers and professors in their course design and instructional skills. She also helps her doctoral students stay on track even during the final, “all-but-dissertation” stage of their studies, when they typically work unsupervised.
As anyone who has ever sat across the desk from Robin Rossie knows, shrewd advice is best accompanied by a sincere smile. Navigating credit requirements, majors and grades can be overwhelming for any student. This year, the College of Education has chosen to acknowledge a student adviser for exceptional professionalism and achievement. In Rossie the College is also recognizing a person who stands on the student’s side. Rossie joined the university as a clerk typist in 1995. What began as her heartfelt interest in the success of the College’s students has evolved into her professional role as coordinator of academic support services. Although Rossie claims advising for a comparatively small college like Education makes it easier to provide one-on-one support, she has advised thousands of students over the years, while making each one feel valued. "Robin is one of the finest examples of student advocacy on our campus," said Theresa Vernetson, assistant dean of student affairs. “She goes above and beyond for everyone and has the students’ interests at heart in all her decision-making.”
Melissa Nunez, a stellar student in the Unified Elementary ProTeach program, is devoted to enhancing the university experience for UF’s Hispanic-Latino students as much as she is to her own academics. She takes it all on—from individualizing classroom assignments for struggling elementary students to directing the only statewide leadership conference for Hispanic-Latino students. An Ambassador for Multicultural and Diversity Affairs as well as an Embajador for the Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures, Nuñez is also president of the Dominican Student Association (DSA). Her mentoring proficiency—whether for elementary students in her internship assignments or for incoming freshmen as a UF Preview staffer—sets her apart as a leader, an exceptional future educator and an ideal role model. While in ProTeach, Nunez was praised for her work with students at P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School incorporating Sunshine State Standards into lesson plans during her pre-intern coursework. A member of the Kappa Delta Pi international honor society in education, Nunez received an Association of Hispanic Alumni Scholarship.
Key to Anna Harageones’ developing professionalism is her ability to connect with her students. She also believes that when all else fails—SING. Working in a challenging practicum with several students with special needs, she developed a language-arts learning strategy based on the popular “High School Musical” Broadway play and television show. Her students gave it two thumbs up as a smash hit. While employing creative ways to muster student engagement, Harageones regularly assesses her own teaching strengths and weaknesses, always building her lesson plans based on her students’ interests and needs. As active in the community as she is on campus, the former University Chorus singer uses her musical talents as much as her teaching skills, volunteering in after-school tutoring programs, children’s choirs and a local church choir. She received several scholarships and is a member of Golden Key and the Florida Education Association.
Doctoral graduate Erik Black is building the scholarly literature for the burgeoning education technology field—from the ground up. He has presented his research in national and international venues since beginning his Ph.D. program, and is considered a rare expert in the emerging specialty of virtual schools research. His impressive portfolio of peer-reviewed publications and presentations, in addition to grant submissions, editorial responsibilities and conference proceedings, reads like a lifetime of career achievements. But he’s only just beginning. During his doctoral training, Black co-authored a nationally covered report about medical students being too open-faced on Facebook, was the featured webinar presenter about virtual school data collection, and worked with an AT&T grant-funded team developing evaluation methods for virtual schools. He seems to be everywhere that distance learning can go. A mentor and leader among his peers as well, he enthusiastically supports his colleagues. Black has a master’s degree in counseling and human services from the College of New Jersey. A nationally certified mental health counselor, he is a recipient of the Ralph D. Turlington and University of Florida Graduate Alumni fellowships and the Sara Livinia de Keni Scholarship.
Behroz Nowrojee leapt into her graduate studies armed with a bachelor’s in elementary education and a minor in dance. Passionate about her chosen field—special education—Nowrojee sets her standards high in her classroom and in her community work. She organized a Katrina Relief Fund, established a drive to collect school supplies for a school in South Africa, and uses her dance expertise not only to entertain, but to educate. She regularly participates in community festivals and events. Nowrojee is the Young Women’s Division leader for the United Nations-affiliated nonprofit Soka Gakkai International (SGI-USA), where she promotes world peace and serves as a role model for young women. As the group’s leader, she planned the local SGI-USA’s Victory Over Violence campaign, a program begun in response to the rise in youth-related violence; she also organized and performed in a California youth culture festival. She was named a 2008 Aspiring Educator by Teachers-Teachers.com, and has received numerous graduate awards and scholarships named for the following individuals and groups: J.W. Martin & A.M. Martin Phillips, Reach for the Stars, Minority Teacher Education, FEZANA and Paula Porcher Criser, among others. Nowrojee is a member of Golden Key, the Florida Education Association and the National Collegiate Honors Society.
Believing you really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, Donna Sabis-Burns figures the books teachers and librarians choose for their students also should be judged by the content of their pages. Her dissertation—analyzing children’s literature portrayals of encounters between Christopher Columbus and the Taino People—reflects not only her academic study of children’s literature, but the personal insights of a Native American woman well-versed in romanticized depictions of Columbus and Native American culture. Sabis-Burns, an enrolled member of the Mohawk (Turtle Clan) tribe within the Iroquois Six Nations, strives to infuse truth into children’s literature and education. A distance-learning student working toward her doctorate in elementary education, she is a full-time U.S. Department of Education employee with the Office of School Support and Technology in Washington, D.C. She works with indigenous populations in outlying territories such as Guam and American Samoa. She previously worked in the Office of Indian Education helping to create two widely distributed digital workshops for teachers of American Indian and Alaska Native students. She has a B.A. in elementary education and a master’s in language and literacy from UF, with a focus on Native American education and children’s literature. 
Once Julianne Scherker arrived on campus, it didn’t take her long to discover she had a penchant for leading—and for organizing other student leaders to take action. She joined the Florida Cicerones/ Student Alumni Association in her freshman year, giving tours and serving as a student ambassador at university and alumni events. She led the group’s community service activities and organized FCAT Pep Rallies at local schools, encouraging students through singing, dancing and cheering. Scherker also became a group leader for the Camp Boggy Creek for seriously ill children and was a top recruiter for UF’s Teach for America campaign. Her favorite activity was managing the UF student-led “Dream Team” for Project Makeover, helping local under-resourced elementary schools improve their outdoor play and study areas. She worked on landscaping, murals and volunteer recruitment, and raised money to replenish school and art supplies. She somehow balanced her many extracurricular commitments with her scholarly work in elementary education, earning top grades, participating in the prestigious Reitz Scholars program and undertaking an original research project for her high honors coursework.
Members of the UF EduGator Class of 2009 will be remembered for many reasons, but especially for their perseverance and strong will as fighters and survivors. The ’09 classmates endured three straight years of substantial college budget cuts, the threatened elimination of core undergraduate programs, the prospect of a tight job market in teaching after graduation, and even a nationwide swine flu scare that threatened their graduation ceremony.
None of that seemed to matter, though, to the 130 undergraduates who marched across stage May 2 to receive their bachelor’s degrees at the College of Education’s commencement ceremony at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. Smiles, handshakes and hugs were the order of the day for these graduating seniors—with no sign of hand sanitizers or surgical masks that were evident at other UF commencement ceremonies over the weekend. Swine flu? What swine flu?
“Even so, teaching is the best career in the world,” she continued, “because after a few years, or a decade, or two or three decades, you can look back and see that you’ve made a genuine difference in the world. After a career in teaching, you will be able to look back and recall names and faces of people you’ve helped in a very real way. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. A lifetime in education is truly a lifetime of achievement.”
Julianne Scherker’s name was called most often for student laurels, receiving two campuswide honors for Outstanding Undergraduate Leadership and Outstanding Four-Year Scholar. Scherker also is the third College of Education student in five years to be inducted into the UF Hall of Fame, for both her academic achievements and her leadership in campus and community service activities.
Echevarria-Doan (right) received more than $35,600 to create a business plan for establishing a revenue-generating, year-round marriage and family therapy center to serve the community. The center also would serve as a practicum and internship site for counselor education students and provide research opportunities for faculty and students. Her project involves analyzing comparable accredited programs at other university-based counseling centers through phone and skype interviews with other center administrative staff and visits to successful centers at other universities. Analysis of her collected data would be used to develop her final business plan.
de Jong’s award, also for $35,600, will fund activities to enhance her expertise in the research, policy and practice of teaching in multilingual contexts. She will attend two symposia on multilingualism and language policies, conferring with leading European researchers in this specialty, and will visit schools that aim for multilingual competence. She will use her added expertise to build on and extend her current $1.2 million study examining teacher effectiveness with students who speak English as a second language.
With a $26,000 award, Dawson (right) will collaborate with COE faculty in REM (research, evaluation and methodology) to advance her knowledge of evidence-based research methods. Such skills are needed to plan and design large-scale studies for major funding agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute for Education Sciences. Dawson’s research focuses on how technology impacts teaching practices and student learning. She has collaboratively developed online data collection tools that are used by hundreds of teachers in dozens of Florida school districts.
“The Smallwood Foundation awards benefit 22 individual students, mentor teachers and UF faculty involved in UFTeach, but their impact is far greater,” said Tom Dana (right), associate dean of academic affairs at UF’s College of Education. “For instance, the Smallwood undergraduate interns will work with groups of middle and high school students, fostering their understanding and appreciation of science and mathematics. Likewise, the courses developed by the UFTeach faculty will be taken by hundreds of students once the program is in full swing, and can inspire other faculty to also develop courses.”
“These teachers are inspirational and their work provides explicit pictures of research-based recommendations for highly innovative and effective teaching practice. All educators can benefit by reading what these teachers have to say,” said Dorene Ross (right, assisting student), the Fien Professor of Education at UF’s College of Education, who coordinated the Lastinger Center’s research effort.
These playground defenders merit attention because research shows that a majority of school shootings are committed by students who have been bullied, and victims of bullying are at risk for dropping out of school, suffering from depression and bullying others, Porter said. Nearly one-third of students in sixth through tenth grade – 30 percent – report some experience with bullying, either as a victim or perpetrator, he said.
Corwin Press has created an 
The academic honors keep rolling in for Sevan Terzian, associate professor and coordinator of UF’s social foundations of education program. Chosen last year as Undergraduate Teacher of the Year by the College of Education and as Teacher of the Year by the university, Terzian recently received the prestigious designation of University of Florida Research Professor.
Daniels received the Stripling Award—along with five fellow members of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Program’s standards revision committee, plus four CACREP staff members—in March at the American Counseling Association’s World Conference in Charlotte, N.C.
As part of Professor Linda Lamme’s course in children’s literature, UF ProTeach student Kathy Warner (MEd ’09) (pictured, right) describes a selection from her list of favorite children’s books to a group of Alachua County Library staff members. Warner is one of four ProTeach students serving a practicum this semester at either the library or a local public school media center. Each student compiled a list of favorite books on a special topic of interest and created flyers on the books for library patrons. They then presented their book summaries April 15 to library staff. 
Daniels honored for (literally) setting new standards in counselor education
UF honors college’s 2009 Outstanding Young Alumni
Terzian adds elite ‘UFRF Professor’ designation as latest honor
A UF education research team recently presented their National Science Foundation-funded work as part of a major address at the National Education Association Women’s Summit in Washington, D.C. The five researchers–faculty members Rose Pringle (P.I.), Thomasenia Adams, Cirecie West-Olatunji, Diane Archer-Banks, and doctoral student Katie Milton–reported on their NSF study in which they are examining ways African-American girls are steered away from science, mathematics and other technical subjects. (Pictured, from left, are West-Olatunji, Pringle and Adams.) Adams also presented the group’s work recently at the annual meeting of the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, comprised mostly of mathematics supervisors, coaches and curriculum resource teachers.
Ragtime, opened on Broadway on January 18, 1998, christening the brand new Ford Center for the Performing Arts and garnering 13 Tony Award nominations, the most of any show that season. It paints a nostalgic and powerful portrait of life in the turn-of-the-century America. Based on E.L. Doctorow’s distinguished novel, Ragtime intertwines the three distinct stories that poignantly illustrate history’s timeless contradictions of wealth and poverty, freedom and prejudice, hope and despair, and love and hate.
Dr. Cavanaugh was quoted extensively in an in-depth article headlined: “Experts Debate Cost Savings of Virtual Education.” The article refers to her upcoming report written for the Center for American Progress, which addresses the timely issue of the costs of virtual courses. Dr. Cavanaugh offered data indicating that the average per-pupil cost of online learning ($4,300) in the 14-state study was less than half of the per-pupil cost for a traditional public school. According to the article, Cavanaugh’s research focuses on the role that virtual courses could play in expanding learning time—which would allow schools to provide instruction “before, during and after school less expensively.”
While Jamee Cagle Miller, a fourth-grade teacher and team leader at Crystal Lake Elementary School in Lake Mary, Fla., teaches with the Sunshine State Standards in mind, she believes teaching goes beyond textbooks. As she explains: “I must equip the students with life skills and street sense … and experiences they need to be successful in life.” Cagle makes it a practice to meet one-on-one with each of her students daily, yet also finds time to supervise junior and senior teaching interns. She recently created a social studies curriculum for the school’s entire fourth-grade program that combines reading assessment benchmarks in tandem with Florida history content.
The College of Education didn’t have to look far before selecting Elayne Colón as a 2009 Outstanding Young Alumna. Just one year after receiving her doctorate in school psychology from UF, the College took notice of her extensive assessment background and hired her to head the its national, state and institutional accreditation efforts, including the arduous preparations for the upcoming 2010 accreditation visit and review by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE ) and the Department of Education.
