tc Fall/winter 2012 Today The Magazine of Teachers College, Columbia University

Wellness in a Thinking Wo r l d Teachers College explores the mind-body connection

Bringing Body and Soul to Clinical Psychology Why closing the achievement gap depends on Student Health Getting kids to like gym cutting through the noise in deaf education Elizabeth Weinberg Photograph by beyond TC’s doors. A tranquilvista,just MORNINGSIDE afternoon IN

lofi studios PRESIDENT’S LETTER

liver an outstanding, comprehensive competition. With childhood obesity education reflecting our knowledge and diabetes threatening the nation’s and experience in teaching, learning future, their work argues powerfully and child development. for a reconsideration of gym, recess This issue of TC Today taps that and other endangered activities. same source and grows out of our Beyond these more traditional belief that being “comprehensive” areas of health, you’ll read about – in education or any other area of our new Spirituality and Mind/ development – means addressing Body Institute, founded by psychol- physical health and its connections to ogist Lisa Miller, who has helped intellectual and emotional well-being. establish meditation, mindfulness Of course, the mind-body con- and prayer as a legitimate focus of n my elevator speech about nection has been remarked upon psychological inquiry. Supported Teachers College, I remind throughout human history, from by Goldman Sachs Gives at the people that TC has long stood Scripture (“Do you not know that direction of Phil Armstrong, a Gold- for educating children through your body is a temple?”) to the Iron man Sachs partner, Lisa and her a rich array of academic and non- Chef, recycling the epicure Brillat- students are using these techniques I academic programs that meet their Savarin (“Tell me what you eat, and I to help New York City’s homeless intellectual and developmental needs. will tell you what you are”). But today, children attain and maintain emo- This past September, we stood science is revealing precisely how our tional health. tall indeed as we celebrated the minds are inextricably linked with These stories illustrate how our arrival of the Teachers College our physical selves. health care system can deliver more Community School (TCCS) at its TC health education professor for less. They also suggest ways permanent home in West Harlem. Charles Basch has underscored that each of us can take control of our The ceremony brought together link in his remarkable crusade to own health. For example, in reading parents, teachers, community board document how seven major health about health education professor and members, TC faculty and staff, and conditions are hindering the academ- Deputy Provost John Allegrante’s representatives from the New York City Department of Education and The mind-body connection has been Columbia University. Their joy and pride were evident as first graders remarked upon, from Scripture to the Iron Chef. sang “What a Wonderful World” and But today, science is revealing precisely how TCCS Founding Principal Jeanene Worrell-Breeden spoke of building our minds are linked with our physical selves. the school of her dreams. Virtually from the moment I ic achievement of low-income and research on using positive thinking to became TC’s President, one of our minority students. Chuck has worked help patients manage chronic illness, board members and staunchest tirelessly to bring this information you’ll meet an elderly woman who supporters, E. John Rosenwald, to audiences ranging from White recalls how researchers urged her to has challenged me to conceive and House officials to community groups. take advantage, in exercising, of her execute big and bold ideas about the Several states have adopted many two-story home. future of the College. TCCS, which of his recommendations for using Following her lead, I’m inclined counts John as a leading benefactor, schools to provide students with to adjust my TC elevator speech enables us to demonstrate one of our coordinated health care. along similar lines: Instead of using biggest and boldest ideas: University Even as many districts cut school the elevator, let’s all take the stairs. partnerships with local schools and physical education programs, Ste- communities can bring about lasting, phen Silverman, Carol Ewing Garber cost-effective improvement to urban and other TC faculty are champion- public education. At TCCS, you will ing a new approach to youth fitness find our faculty and students working that emphasizes enjoyment and with parents, teachers and staff to de- lifelong athletic skill-building over susan fuhrman (ph.d. ’77) lofi st udio s lofi

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 1 Wellness in a Thinking Wo r l d

features Fall/Winter BODY AND SOUL

14 How Faith Heals TC is offering the Ivy League’s first master’s degree program in spirituality and psychology

20 The Power of Positive Patients As America ages, people need to think positively to better manage their own care

SOUND mind, SOUND body

26 Head Games WE HAVE LIFTOFF The Teachers College Community School is Welcome to “the New Gym,” launched in its permanent home. where kids hold group discussions and use iPads, and teachers ponder the role of race, gender and body type 42 Eating Smarter When patients relearn the friend of tc 32 Taking Student seemingly innate act of Health to Scale swallowing, their brains change – 54 Not Very Tall, Chuck Basch says we won’t and their lives can too but Bigger Than Life close the achievement gap until E. John Rosenwald Jr. is a we attend to student health. 46 A Community fount of wisdom and force of He has a plan of Healing nature who can prod institutions Lena Verdeli has brought a to reinvent themselves 38 Cutting Through talking cure to people living in the the Noise most adverse circumstances TC’s Deaf/Hard of Hearing program poses the big questions 50 As Nurses Go, So Goes about assistive technologies Health Care Current TC faculty and legendary alumnae weigh in on why nursing education is more y jeff glendenning jeff y important than ever

on the cover: b ogra p h t

Photograph by Elizabeth Weinberg Pho

2 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday alumni focus tc 66 A Very Patient Today Advocate The magazine of Teachers College is Raising a child with autism was produced by the Office of Development hard, but getting the nation to and External Affairs at Teachers College, Columbia University. understand the disorder really required Ruth Christ Sullivan to Suzanne M. Murphy vice president, take the long view development & external affairs (Ed.M., Organization 67 Putting Her Best & Leadership, 1999; Fall/WinterFoot Forward M.A., 1996) As both a dancer and a scientist, James L. Gardner Elizabeth Coker Girón explores associate vice @tc the ties between imagination and president, external affairs 4 First Editions movement

Leadership guides for nurses and tc today staff the rest of us, by Elaine LaMonica 68 A Fencer with Rigolosi; Building Mathematics Joe Levine an Edge executive director, Learning Communities, by Erica Walker Her familiarity with other cultures external affairs helped Olympian Maya Lawrence Sheryl Hoffman 6 News in London director, TC’s new public school finds a external affairs permanent home; the College hosts a 69 Running the Numbers Jeff Glendenning creative director major conference on teacher prep; Alumna and new faculty member and more Sonali Rajan uses statistics to Paul Acquaro director, identify programs that address office of the tc web 12 Essays overall health in a synergistic way (M.A., Instructional Barbara Wallace on a new paradigm Technology, 2004) for understanding health disparities; 70 Helping All Women Patricia Lamiell on building trust to director, Randi Wolf to Have It All media relations conduct health education As the new leader of the nation’s Matthew Vincent oldest YWCA, Danielle Moss associate web editor Lee is reaching out to overcome Hua-Chu Yen disparities for women at all levels web development 57 alumni news specialist 71 Up on the Roof Kalena Rosario 58 Alumni Association Nate Wight and his students are administrative assistant 59 Alumni Awards creating an environmental literacy Rebecca Chad, lab atop their school in the Heather Smitelli 61 editorial assistants Class Notes South Bronx 64 In Memoriam Urania Mylonas contributing writer 72 Looking Kids in the Kee eun Lee Eye, Every Day contributing designer The late educator, counselor TC Today, Fall 2012 Volume 37, Number 1 The Joy of Giving and philanthropist Betty Fairfax Copyright 2012 by Teachers College, Columbia University Thanking and celebrating major believed in involving herself in students’ lives TC Today is published twice per year by donors to Teachers College: Teachers College, Columbia University. Evalyn Edwards Milman (M.A. ’64), Articles may be reprinted with the per- mission of the Office of External Affairs. page 7; Joyce B. Cowin (M.A. ’52), Please send alumni class notes, letters page 8; Sue Ann Weinberg to the editor, address changes and other correspondence to: y jeff glendenning jeff y (Ed.D. ’97), page 11; Marla Schaefer TC Today Office of External Affairs, 525 (M.A. ’03), page 19 W. 120th St., Box 306, New York, NY 10027, 212-678-3412, [email protected] h b ogra p h t www.tc.edu/tctoday Pho

2012www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 3 First 4 I wanttobe.alone amresponsible!” “I have the power to become whatever outlook: her up sums while enhancingself-esteem.” allows others tolearn aboutone’s feelingsandidentity to communicatein“anopen, mature anddirect way… that “keep thecoffeepotgoing”and asbroad asaninjunction consultant Peter Drucker, andoffers tipsasspecific the psychologist AbrahamMaslow andthemanagement and Leadership. chaired TC’s DepartmentofOrganization organizations andother businessesandformerly nursing administration.Sheconsultsforhealthcare relations andcounseling,medicalsurgical practicing attorney, sheholdsdegrees inhuman Cage, “You put on the eyeglasses that frame what you see.” of theirown world. OrasRigolosiwritesinUnlockYour Leadership guidesfor nursesandtherest ofus Bedside andLakeside On Management– fall/ Yet asinglelineinRigolosi’s shorter booksuccinctly Management andLeadershipcitesthinkers asdiverse as Rigolosi herself hasworn manylenses.A winter 2012 control, setgoalsandbetheleaders Yet bothbooksexhortreaders totake education administration. psychology, healthcare, lawand from business,organizational effectiveness thatappliestheories is apracticalguidetoorganizational Experiential Approach (Springer, 2013) in NursingandHealthCare: An smaller. figure outwhytheirlilypadseems family consultsaGreat Wizard to fable inwhichalake-dwelling (CreateSpace, 2013)isanallegorical more different. UnlockYour Cage Program inNursing,couldnotseem and Director ofTC’s Executive Rigolosi, Professor ofEducation two newbooksby ElaineLaMonica www.tc .edu/tctoday Members ofthe TC Community in Print Management andLeadership

—Joe Levine

Editions mathematics learning forall.” ­— across andwithinschools—“ensure meaningful on allstudents’ significantmathematicspotentialand achievement, Walker argues, itishightimewe capitalize OECD nationsinsecondary students’ mathematics strengths. Given thattheUnitedStatesranks25thamong support mathematicsengagement andbuildonstudents’ better serve studentsofcolorthrough practicesthat for suchanapproach. Walker suggeststhatschoolscan math educatorBobMoses,describesseveral models which containsaforeword by civil rightsactivistand communities canraisethebarformathachievement by all. students tohigher expectations,educators, familiesand educational contentinreal-world experiences andholding strengthening peer academiccommunities,grounding rigorous success ofhigh-achievingstudents.Shesuggeststhatby and teacher networkscontributedsignificantly tothemath school shecallsLowell HighSchool,learnedthatfamily, peer potential oreven theiractualperformance. emerge, brandedas“underachievers” regardless oftheir consigned toaremedial trackfrom whichtheynever order thinking.Manystudents ofcolorare simply basic-skill mathematicsthatdoesnotpromote higher- low expectationsforstudentsofcolor, oftenteaching Decades ofresearch documentthatmanyeducatorshave lack opportunitiestolearnhigh-qualitymathinschools. attitudes toward mathematics,Walker writes,butoften for supportingstudentachievement Why mathcommunitiesare critically important for MathSuccess the Odds Changing Building MathematicsLearningCommunities, Walker, whodidresearch forher bookataNewYork City students generally have positive involvement ofstudentscolor. These and practiceslimitthemath argues that,toooften,schoolpolicies Professor ofMathematicsEducation, Press), EricaWalker, TCAssociate Urban HighSchools(Teachers College Communities: Improving Outcomesin in building mathematics

learning —Steven Kroll

Photograph by Heather Van Uxem Lewis @tc xem L e w i s U xem an her V t her 6 News TC’s new public school finds a permanent home; the College hosts a major conference on teacher prep; and more y H ea y 12 Essays Barbara Wallace on a new paradigm for understanding health disparities h b ogra p h t Randi Wolf on building trust to conduct health education Pho

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 5 NEWS@tc

IT’S A WRAP President Susan Fuhrman and friends cut the ribbon for the Teachers College Community School in late September. A School Arrives TCCS celebrates its new home

“Good afternoon, everyone. I want TCCS, a public, university-assisted Now serving 125 students in pre-K, to welcome you to the Teachers Col- school for pre-K through eighth grade, kindergarten and first grade, and with lege Community School’s permanent run by the New York City Department plans to add one additional grade per home. Thank you!” of Education and formally affiliated year, TCCS is operating in a refur- At those words from TCCS with TC, admitted its first class – a bished building located at 168 Morn- Founding Principal Jeanene Worrell- group of kindergarten students – last ingside Avenue at West 126th Street.

Breeden, an audience of more than year in a temporary facility. The “This is a dream become reality,” L e w i s U xem an 300 parents, teachers, neighborhood school, designed with neighborhood said TC President Susan Fuhrman, her V t her residents, city and state dignitaries residents, integrates delivery of ser- “a university-supported public school y H ea y and members of the Teachers College vices for children and families in order that will offer unparalleled education and Columbia University communi- to optimize educational opportunities for the children of our community.” h b ogra p h ties burst into loud applause. and achievement. She added, to cheers, “Can you imag- t Pho

6 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday The joyof gi1580+ving 75 Evalyn EDWARDS milman Preparing the Next Generation of Literacy Specialists

ine the improvement we would see in public education in America if every university worked in concert with local schools and communities?” Fuhrman was joined on the TCCS auditorium stage by others who made the school possible, including the Rev- erend Georgiette Morgan-Thomas, Chair of Community Board 9; Donald iteracy is the community and transfer Notice, Chairman, and Kofi Boateng, “ freedom to expand learning into practice.” Executive Director, both of the West L one’s thought, Evalyn studied child one’s mind, one’s con- development as an Harlem Development Corporation; fidence,” says Evalyn undergraduate at Cor- New York City Councilman Robert Edwards Milman (M.A. nell. Her gift marks her Jackson, who chairs the Council’s ’64), who has given graduation from TC’s Teachers College master’s degree program Education Committee; Manhattan $1 million to establish in Curriculum and Teach- Borough President Scott Stringer the Evalyn Edwards Mil- ing nearly 50 years ago. (represented at the event by Deputy man Literacy Fellowship. She taught in the early- Borough President Rosemonde Pierre- “I would like to see the childhood grades before College boost literacy earning another master’s Louis); New York State Board of and involve children who degree in art history Regents Chancellor (and TC alumna) are in need, and produce at Hunter College. She Merryl Tisch; New York City Schools scholars and teachers has since worked as a Chancellor Dennis Walcott; Columbia who will excel.” curator and television The Milman Fellowship producer and owned a University President Lee Bollinger; will support two or more cultural tour company. New York State Assemblyman Keith outstanding TC students Daniel Ferguson, a Wright; and Nancy Streim, TC’s to further their literacy- C&T student and the first Associate Vice President for School related research and Evalyn Edwards Milman practice in TC Partnership Fellow, will be in the and Community Partnerships, with- Schools in Harlem. The new cohort of literacy out whom, Fuhrman said, the school Milman Fellows will be specialists. Daniel, who “would never have happened.” directed by Nancy Streim, has taught in New York, Morgan-Thomas said that “TCCS Associate Vice President Alabama and Japan, calls for School and Com- teaching literacy “life- illustrates for us the value of collabora- munity Partnerships, and changing” and “by far tion” and praised TC for having “heard mentored by TC faculty. the most philosophically the needs of our community and been The Fellows will play a stimulating experience big role in improving the I’ve had.” Evalyn antici- extremely responsive.” educational and devel- pates “celebrating the Wright also drew thundering ap- opmental outcomes of award and seeing Daniel plause. “Langston Hughes wrote a children in West Harlem. in action. long time ago, ‘What happens to a “Through Evalyn’s “I am so pleased that generosity, we can the Milman Fellows will dream deferred – does it dry up like transform learning for get to the heart of what a raisin in the sun?’” Wright looked teachers and students,” teaching means,” she around the room and grinned. “No! A says Kecia Hayes, Direc- says. “I love the fact that tor of the TC Partnership the program enables TC xem L e w i s U xem an school gets built on 126th Street and L e w i s U xem an Schools Consortium. students to teach and Morningside Avenue!’” her V t her “Her wonderful gift learn on a one-on-one V t her provides teachers with basis. TC is in a position y H ea y H ea y a unique opportunity to to lead other schools and To view a video about TCCS, go to study effective instruc- universities, not just in h b ogra p h http://bit.ly/TNk3z8 b ogra p h t tional practices in a the United States, but t

Pho professional learning around the world.” p ho

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 7 8 fall/ E “ also has fully endorsed the also hasfullyendorsed the Commissioner JohnKing New Y by alumnaPola Rosen. Marri, withconsultation faculty memberAnand been developed by T 2013. Theprogram has will begininSummer New Y for teachersfrom select 9-12. Thefirst workshops with studentsingrades school teachersworking for NewY development program a uniqueprofessional Financial LiteracyProject, tion (W!SE):TheCowin in SupportofEduca- and thenonprofit W Department ofEducation College, theNewY nership amongT T T gift froma Joyce, whois (M.A. ’52). is,” saysJoyce B.Cowin and whatamortgage much topayfor rent clothes andfood, how interest, how toshopfor monitor acredit card and exceed income,how to sure thatexpensesdon’t checkbook, how toen- tion, how tobalancea finance acollegeeduca- edge ofmoney–how to rustee, isfundingapart- C alumna and longtime C alumnaandlongtime T o that end, a generous o thatend,agenerous winter 2012 should have knowl- the ninthgrade very personpast ducation ork StateEducation ork Cityschools The Ensuring Financial Literacyfor ork City public ork Citypublic oc B. Co Joyce T eachers eachers omorrow’s Citizens j ork City ork City www.tc .edu/tctoday orking orking oy C C of happens again.” happens again.” tion toensure thisnever educate thenextgenera- she says.“W and theylosteverything,” subprime mortgages, were snookered about throughout theirlives who hadsaved money ful, hardworking people 2008, somanywonder the marketcollapsedin moral imperative. “When a financial literacyis materials atnocharge. download theproject’s from whichteacherscan ies willcreate awebsite 21st century.” dents’ successinthe necessary for ourstu- “Financial literacyis wrote toJoyce. City SchoolsChancellor, M. W important field,”Dennis students’ skillsinan Y of strengthening New sectors, withthegoal the publicandprivate of partnership between is awonderful example new program. lege’s GottesmanLibrar unit ofT and beyond, theEdLab Y hold throughout theNew Literacy Project takes The Cowin Financial ork City school system ork Cityschoolsystem ork Citypublicschool giving For Joyce Cowin, T “This collaboration o help ensure that o helpensure that alcott, NewY win eacher’s Col- e need to e needto ork

- - In 2006,American science 21 literacy students ranked among students for International the Programme in industrialized countries, on comparison. Assessment di know? Student st in 30 you 25 literacy math in

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breakthrough discoveries. Marie Curiestruggledtoachieve their scientists suchasAlbert Einsteinand approach usingstoriesofhow famous hard work; andasocial-historical can literally changeandgrow through students thattheirmindsandbrains neurocognitive approach thatteaches performance inSTEMcourses:a instruction programs onstudents’ two classroom-based motivational Carol Dweck willtestthe impactof Stanford University socialpsychologist New York City–area schools,Linand engineering andmath).Working in13 STEM subjects(science,technology, students topursueaninterest inthe Foundation toprobe whatmotivates grant from theNationalScience has received afive-year, $2.5million TC facultymember XiaodongLin public schoolprincipals asalumni,now than 12percent ofNewYork City’s Fellows program, whichcounts more Education. The15-monthCahn the NewYork CityDepartmentof of in theOfficeofNewSchools become SeniorDirector ofRecruitment succeeds KristaDunbar, whohas the CityCollegeofNew York. Heaphy Center forLeadership andService at as DeputyDirector oftheColin Powell special educationteacher whoserved new director: NoraHeaphy, aformer Distinguished SchoolPrincipalshasa TC’s Cahn Fellows Program for Sciene Saying T A Xiaodong Lin C’s New Direc tor For n Fellows Cahn Yes to

clockwise from top left: tc file photos; ‘did you know’ source: White House “Educate to Innovate” web page

tc file photos includes participants from Chicago and NEWS@tc Newark, New Jersey, as well.

episodes from the HBO television series Professionalizing Masterclass has been distributed by the Pakistan’s Teachers Young Arts Foundation free of charge to some 6,500 middle and high schools in This past summer Teachers College New York City, Los Angeles and Miami. hosted 22 high-ranking Pakistani Masterclass chronicles the experiences education officials and provincial of teens chosen by Young Arts to work Derald Wing Sue leaders as part of a USAID-funded with great artists such as tenor Placido project to professionalize teachers Domingo, choreographer Bill T. Jones, and significantly improve education tolerance among children ages 10 architect Frank Gehry, actress Liv in Pakistan’s primary and secondary to 16. The curriculum, a response to Ullman and playwright Edward Albee. schools. Under the three-year, rising levels of racism and xenophobia Creation of the study guide was led $5 million TC collaboration, all worldwide, will enter pilot distribution by Hal Abeles, TC Professor of Music Pakistani teachers will be encouraged in 2015 in 5 to 10 countries. Sue has and Music Education, and former TC to hold four-year or two-year teaching been a leader in moving issues of Professor Margaret Crocco, now Dean degrees in their fields by 2018. Since identity and difference to the center of of the University of Iowa College of 2009, TC faculty members have worked counseling psychology. Education. The guide seeks to build with 15 Pakistani universities in four 21st-century critical thinking skills. the Elephant in the Classroom Connecting Teaching to Research “Beyond the Schoolhouse Door: Bringing Non-School Factors Into In July, TC and TeachingWorks, Education Policy,” a conference held based at the University of Michigan, at TC in September, focused on the presented “Connecting Advances latest research on the connection in Learning Research to Teacher between poverty and education and Practice,” a conference on the future of the implications for policy. teacher preparation. Gita Steiner-Khamsi Sponsored by TC’s Department of TC President Susan Fuhrman told Education Policy and Social Analysis more than 400 attendees that recent provinces, as well as with the global (EPSA), the event featured Richard negativity about the value of theory nonprofit Education Development D. Kahlenberg, of the Century in educator preparation coincides, Center, to create an undergraduate Foundation; Greg J. Duncan, of the ironically, with “an explosion of new 136-credit, four-year teaching degree School of Education at the University knowledge…about how both adults and a two-year associate’s teaching of California, Irvine; Richard Murnane, and children take in information most degree. The USAID grant was received, of the Graduate School of Education effectively. and the project is administered, by TC’s at Harvard University; William F. Tate, “How will we incorporate this new Office of International Affairs. Faculty of Washington University in St. Louis; knowledge into teacher preparation member Gita Steiner-Khamsi is the and TC’s Michael Rebell, Professor and practice?” Fuhrman asked. project’s principal investigator. of Law and Education. Jeffrey Henig, The answer, said Deborah

e: s our c e: w ’ Chair of EPSA, moderated. Loewenberg Ball, Dean of the School “There has been a remarkable of Education at the University of Sue Named To divergence in the educational outcomes Michigan, begins with recognizing age

p for kids growing up in high- and low- that “simply knowing the subject

; ‘did you kno you ‘did o s ; UNESCO Panel t income families,” said Duncan. doesn’t enable you to teach it well.” e” w e b t e” Derald Wing Sue, TC Professor of Ball argued for a medical residency file p ho file

: tc : Psychology and Education, is serving model of teacher prep that combines o I nnova o lef t e t t e on an advisory panel for an effort A Masterclass theory with hands-on experience. o p by the United Nations Educational, Study Guide o s t Social and Cultural Organization to develop a global curriculum designed A study guide created by Teachers View a video of the conference at http://bit.ly/QqVcSC file p ho file to foster racial, ethnic and multicultural College to accompany the first year of e “ E du c a H ou s e Whi t e e from t from c k w i s e c lo tc

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 9 10 NEWS The AlumniRelations Team your loved onesthebest. in theTC Community wishyou and Stay safe, andknow thatallofus together asonetohelpother. throughout ourregion coming see neighborsandcommunities please visit:http://bit.ly/TNk9a8. resources thatmayprove helpful, this historic storm. For alistof work todoinrecovering from communities have muchhard other damage. by flooding, lossofpower and have beenmostseriously affected lives, familiesandneighborhoods extend ourconcern for thosewhose and theregion. Collectively, we the storm hasleftonNew York City painfully aware ofthedestruction spared damage;however, we are taking atollonyour dailylives. storm andthattheaftermath isstill many ofyou were hithard by this of Hurricane Sandy. We know that thoughts are withyou inthewake Please know thatourheartsand fall/ Dear T Meanwhile, it is heartening to Meanwhile, itishearteningto Our cityandsurrounding Fortunately, ourcampuswas ARTS Community: winter 2012 verbal andmathscores. shown increased years di Multipleindependent positively correlated sat of enrollment in @tc you studies have courses are courses are with higher C Alumni &

know? www.tc .edu/tctoday

of California, Los Angeles; and of California,Los Angeles;and Daniel Solórzano, oftheUniversity University of Wisconsin–Madison; Gloria Ladsen-Billings,ofthe three leadingscholars were honored: London, delivered thekeynote,and in EducationattheUniversity of Professor ofCriticalRaceStudies and practice.DavidGilborn, Urban Word andspannedtheory performances coordinated by the conference includedyouth of EducationatBarnard College, Education, andLeeBell,Professor Diop, TCAssociate Professor of any oftheseissuesgoneaway?” the AdministrationofJustice.’Have Subordination.’ ‘Discriminationin ‘Public Facilities: Symbolsof ‘Interracial SexandMarriage.’ Racism andtheUsesofHistory.’ chapter headings.‘American American Law.“Listentothese masterwork, members assheheldaloftBell’s Community Affairs,toldaudience Vice President forDiversity and York City,”Janice Robinson, TC’s a puppy LegalAidlawyer inNew focused onraceandsocialjustice. Harvard LawSchool,whosework African-American professor at late Derrick Bell,thefirsttenured hosted atTCinMay, honored the Studies inEducationConference, The sixthannualCriticalRace Bell’s Honoring Derrick Bell Organized by MichelleKnight- “I’ve owned thisbooksince Iwas special report Legacy Race, Racism and Race, Racismand Derrick

might bealive today.” about young menofcolor–Trayvon he knewwhatwasworth knowing access tothosecounter stories–if If George Zimmermann had regarding hisheightandweight. regard toTrayvon Martin are those the onlycounter storiesreported in the forefront,” shesaid.“To date, in “Raceisoftenplaced identity. for “counter stories” ofblack accounts underscore the need five-foot-eleven and158pounds. pounds. Theautopsylistedhimas as beingsix-foot-three and150 Martin’s familydescribedhim and weighed 160pounds,while that Martinwassixfeettall Florida policeinitiallyreported because heseemed“suspicious.” a whitemanwhohadfollowed him student, by George Zimmermann, an AfricanAmerican highschool last February ofTrayvon Martin, Association, recalled thekilling Critical RaceStudiesinEducation of CriticalInclusivity.” Chacko, spokeon“Towards aPraxis Sarah Schlessinger andMaryann Oyler, withstudentsWanda Watson, TC Professor ofEducationCelia Building inHigher Education”; and Literacy Roundtables asCommunity Something toTalk About:Racial Education, co-led“Give Them TC Assistant Professor ofEnglish School Youth”; Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Access forBlackandLatinoHigh “Troubling CollegeReadiness and Joanne Marciano presented on University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. TC alumnusMarvinLynn, ofthe Michelle Knight-Diop To Berry, theseconflicting Theodora Berry, President ofthe Knight-Diop anddoctoralstudent

clockwise from top left: Courtesy of the New York University School of Law; tc file photos; ‘did you know’ source: 2006, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies

TC File Photos The joyof giving Sue Ann Weinberg Honoring a Champion of the History of Education Celebrating a Tradition for Tomorrow As Teachers College prepares to celebrate the 125th anniversary of its founding, we are presented with a wonderful opportunity to tell the TC story – our rich history, our legacy of “firsts” and our positive impact on the community. Now is our time to reinvent ourselves by building on our strengths, embracing our distinctions and creating an institution that honors the past while transforming the future. To that end, we have literally sought to make our mark anew, developing an anniversary icon that speaks to our core arry Cremin was a TC’s relationship with values while reflecting the unflagging vibrancy we bring to our “ magical teacher,” Columbia through work in each new era. The new TC icon will be visible across L says Trustee Sue collaboration with our campus and in all our communications, evoking a sense Ann Weinberg (Ed.D. Columbia’s Department of forward motion and representing our three major areas of ’97). “He was so widely of History. focus: Education, Health and Psychology. Each of the three read, and he had such “I had such a great overlaps with the others, as they do in our daily endeavors. a broad understanding experience at TC that So, welcome to a year to remember. Join us in celebrating of education.” opened up so many 125 years of excellence – and join us in looking forward To honor the former intellectual interests to 125 years more. TC President and Pulitzer and pursuits for me,” Prize-winning historian, says Sue Ann, who Visit www.tc.edu for updates on the 125th anniversary who was also her started out just taking celebration. dissertation adviser, Sue courses, but ended up Ann has given a sub- pursuing a doctorate stantial gift that honors because of Cremin’s Lawrence Cremin’s encouragement. “Larry vision and memory by was trying to teach us laying the foundation for to think critically — to a center for the History see that each historian of Education. was writing from “What this wonderful his own perspective,” gift will allow us to do is she says. to approach the history With Cremin as her of education as a form of adviser, Sue Ann wrote civic education, because her dissertation about educational histories are Lewis Mumford, the file file a gateway for under- philosopher and architec- ; tc ; w standing the formation of ture critic who wrote for citizens and the develop- The New Yorker. “I think A gen c ie s ment of democracy over it’s important to have time,” says Provost history written by many e A r ts t e a Thomas James. different people from Representing the Candidates As TC celebrates its many different points of 125th anniversary, such view,” she says. on Education a center will help the With this gift, Sue Ann In a debate in the Cowin Conference Center at Teachers L a of S c hool U niver s i t y ork Y College reclaim its is ensuring that Cremin’s College on October 15, Jon Schnur and Phil Handy, top standing as the custo- history and legacy is not education advisers to President Barack Obama and his ly of S t of Ass em b ly t ional dian of the history of forgotten at TC or Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Governor American education. It anywhere else. “Larry was Mitt Romney, staked out clear philosophical differences over will encompass funding a real renaissance man,” for senior faculty, she says. “He was the role of the federal government in funding education and he N e w t he of Cour t e s y : doctoral research and constantly reading. He incentivizing reforms in testing and teacher preparation. N a 2006, s our c e: w ’ lef t future programming in was interested in Titled “Taking the Election to School,” the debate spot- o p the History of Education, everything his students lighted a topic many felt had received short shrift during the broadly conceived as were doing. And he gave campaign. The event – this year’s Phyllis Kossoff Lecture o s t Cremin intended it. And of himself without on Education and Policy – was moderated by TC President

; ‘did you kno you ‘did o s ; it will strengthen holding back.” t Susan Fuhrman. Watch a videotape of the debate at p ho e from t from c k w i s e c lo

ile Pho F ile TC http://bit.ly/Z61w29

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 11 12 Health A New what the resilience the resilience what Coordinator oftheProgram inHealth fall/ research tells the researchthe tells of diverse groups groups of diverse Education, Department ofHealth same sad story, same sadstory, about coping. about Barbara Wallace isProfessor can teach us teach us can overlooking of HealthEducationand winter 2012 and BehaviorStudies. Too much Barbara Wallace P www.tc .edu/tctoday Disparities aradigm

A to members ofthediverse group, while research focuseson deficits attributed contemporary times.“Deficit-oriented” that disparity,bothhistorically andin context thathave helpedproduce factors inthesocial-environmental individual —effectively neglecting disparity asbeinglocatedwithinthe fies keyfactorsproducing ahealth victim” or“deficit-oriented” research. also mustavoid engagingin“blame-the ties ondiverse populations.Butthey pact ofasthmaandother healthdispari - to absenteeism. color by a6-to-1 margin, iscontributing disproportionately affectschildren of Asthma, whichinsomeneighborhoods – particularlyinaninner-city school. “Blame-the-victim” research identi- Researchers mustrecognize theim- be stunnedby emptyseats once intheclassroom may tiful leaves ofautumn,but teacher mayenjoy thebeau- for

Understanding teachers of“whatworks” incoping. ed” perspectives canemerge as resilient “blame-the-victim” and“deficit-orient- mending, thoseformerly studiedfrom Within thenewparadigmIam recom- interventions withinhealtheducation. creation ofprevention strategiesand coping responses thatcanguidethe source ofvitalinformationonadaptive A diverse populationmaybecomea identifies adaptive copingwithstress. ed” research andtoward research that “blame-the-victim” and“deficit-orient- vision isaparadigmshift,awayfrom of healthequity.However, keytothis rooms andencounter greater evidence that teachers willenter urbanclass- researchers orteachers. er by members ofdiverse populations, among theadaptive responses —wheth- for socialjusticeandadvocacy maybe stress. Nottobeforgotten, socialaction and maladaptive attemptstocopewith on distinguishingbetweenadaptive with stress. Researchers canthenfocus represent attemptstoadaptandcope ways thatmany“problem behaviors” diverse groups, butalsounderstand and documenttheresilience ofmany researchers cannotonlyconceptualize variables. Byadoptingthisparadigm, stress; anddemographicother coping strategiesthatrespond tothat factors associatedwithpoverty; various environmental context,suchasracismor of specificsources ofstress inthesocial- ships amonghealthstatus;experiences groups fare worse thanwhites. of historicallyoppressed racial-ethnic story over andover again:Members too muchresearch tellsthissamesad and resilience inthefaceofstress. Far neglecting evidenceoftheirstrengths Before thiscentury’s end,Ibelieve A newparadigminvestigates relation-

TC

shutterstock; (inset) tc file photos

getty images; (inset) tc file photos essays@tc Randi Wolf Reaching Patients Where They Are Yet, men and women over the age of 50 often resist having colonoscopy done. They tend to be unfamiliar with the test’s purpose or to view it as embarrassing. They are less likely than younger adults to perceive themselves as at risk, doubtful that peers have undergone screening, and fearful both of cancer and of the procedure itself. Their primary care physicians are often inconsistent in directly supporting colorectal cancer screening. Thus, we have learned to tailor our communications to each individual. Sometimes that means abandoning efforts to promote colorectal cancer screening and instead talking to people about other pressing health issues, or simply addressing their fears. We start with an approach we call “RESPECT,” for creating rapport, Standardized s a health educator, I believe educating without overwhelming, start- an informed public is a ing with people where they are, having health education healthy public. But educat- a philosophical orientation based on a ing people isn’t just about humanistic approach to education, en- often doesn’t impartingA information. gagement, care and empathy, and trust. work. Teaching Over the past decade, my colleague Unlike other widely used health behav- Charles Basch and I have shown ior models, this approach is unique in people about that telephone outreach can increase being conceptualized as a set of general screening for colorectal cancer in hard- guidelines rather than as specific learning wellness starts with to-reach, low-income, urban minority objectives, content or scripts to promote building trust. populations. But hundreds of telephone informed decisions about health. outreach calls have also convinced us Once health educators have estab- that “cookbook approach” interventions, lished rapport with patients, they can focusing on content and executed in a dispel myths about colorectal cancer and standardized fashion, simply don’t work. screening, make sure facts are under- You might think people would stood and underscore the urgency of be-

o s respond to the facts alone. Colorectal ing tested. Only by creating such caring o s t t cancer is the third most commonly and trusting relationships can educators

file p ho file diagnosed cancer among U.S. adults change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. file p ho file ) tc ) ) tc ) and causes about 50,000 deaths annu- We think these strategies would ally. Removing polyps detected through work well in almost any health care

s e t (in o c k; screening can prevent cancer from oc- situation. Promoting them as a model curring. Screening also helps detect can- is what, ultimately, health education is Randi Wolf is Associate Professor of cer earlier, when it can often be cured. all about. s hu tt er st s e t (in image s ; ge tt y Health and Behavior Studies. TC

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 13 Half a century ago, people were asking, “Is God dead?”

SPIRITED AWAY Eleanor Ford, a doctoral student in TC’s clinical psychology program, is interested in teaching meditation to young children.

14 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday BODY AND SOUL How Faith Heals

Now, TC is offering a new master’s degree program in spiritualityand psychology

By Siddhartha Mitter Photograph by Heather Van Uxem Lewis

Students in the program increasingly are involved in spiritual practices, says Lisa Miller, the program’s coordinator.

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 15 16 Other studentsare working infieldplacementsManhattan spiritual practices andresilience againstmajordepression. nance imaging(MRI)ofthebrain toresearch thelinksbetween Enough, whoadvocates the healingpower ofprayer. thor ofAll Your Prayers Are Answered known as psychophysical education, and mon, pioneer of a holistic approach to mind and body health areas taughtby well-known adjunctfacultysuchasTed Di- ed by Miller, theconcentrationoffers coursesin“alternative” health andwell-being. chology program onspiritualityasapowerful force inmental and psychology –partofanewfocuswithinTC’s clinicalpsy - League’s firstmaster’s degree concentrationinspirituality live outyour practiceasateacher, ahealer, aguide.” because thisisquitenaturallythereservoir from whichyou have askedtheelephantinroom –modestytoleave, time whenyou were aspiritualteacher forsomeoneelse.We ing. “So, in that spirit, I invite you to reflect and reenter a people permission todothesame.”Shelooksaround, smil- “As we letourown lightshine,we unconsciouslygive other had aspiritualinfluenceonthem. of spiritualawakeningintheirown lives, andofaperson who for you inyour own life.” She asks everyone to think of a time tention.” Sheinvitesthemto“journalwhatsacred spaceis class to“clearaspaceforyourself withyour breath andin- course inSpiritualityand Psychotherapy. She invitesthe three dozen master’s degree students on dayoneof her cation andDirector ofClinicalPsychology you are.” want tohighlighttogether how magnificentandfullofawe Doctoral studentswhowork withMiller usemagnetic reso- Titled Spirituality andContemplative Practicesanddirect- Welcome towhatTheNewYork Times describesastheIvy “Your playingsmalldoesnotserve theworld,” sheintones. Then, shequotestheauthorMarianneWilliamson. Lisa Miller, Associate Professor ofPsychology andEdu- fall/ BODY AND SOUL winter 2012 “ I www.tc .edu/tctoday and When Therapy Isn’t Sam Menahem, au- , isgreeting some a “deepconnectionwithnature ortheEarth.” religion and that oftenincludes aphysicaldimension suchas sonal spiritualorientation that isuncoupledfrom organized lup describeanincrease inpeoplewhosaytheyhave aper- and onNPR,surveys by thePew Research Center andGal- or stress reduction. At the same time, as reported in tripled between2001and2010. For many, thegoal isfitness number ofyoga practitioners intheUnitedStatesmore than fulness exercises. According toYoga Journal,forinstance,the body practicessuchasyoga, meditation,Tai Chiandmind- several nationaltrends. Mind/Body Institute,placestheCollegeatconfluenceof venture within the department called the help young menandsingleteenagemothers. meditation andreflective techniquesinspired by Buddhismto with anetworkofshelters across theAmericas, where theyuse at Of course,theterm “spirituality”canseemvague.Miller de- A growing number ofAmericans are engaginginmind- All ofthiswork, whichfallsunder theumbrella ofanew Covenant House,anonprofit charity serving homeless youth yoga 50ormore times di Over 8.5MILLIONof 20 in theUnitedStates yoga participants these peopledid 76% of whom76% were female. you MILLION There were in2010, per year.

know? . 1

cortex andmore concentrated tation have athicker prefrontal sana and other forms of medi- disciplines suchasZen,vipas - tice a formofreligious faithor suggest thatpeoplewhoprac - some onBuddhistmonks – mental healthandwellness. and theirimplicationsfor faith andspiritualpractices, particularly onthebrain,of tifying thephysicaleffects, ties andhospitalsthatisiden- of research from top universi- at all about the growing body greater thanthemselves. individuals feeltosomething simply astherelationship that verse,” whileothers describeit with a loving and guiding uni- fines itas“adirect relationship Multiple studies – including Multiple studies–including But there isnothingvague Spirituality and Time

‘did you know’ source: The Sports and Fitness Industry Association

clockwise from top: tc file photos; courtesy of Lisa Miller gray matter in parts of the brain that in- fluence emotion and mood. At last year’s American Psychologi- cal Association convention, Miller, Ravi Bensal and their collaborators in the labs of Myrna Weissman and Brad Peterson of the New York State Psychi- atric Institute presented brain imaging UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM Miller believes depression can be studies showing cortical thickening in a precursor to spiritual emergence. people who, over the preceding five- year period, had attached a high de- gree of importance to religion or personal spirituality. The some residual effects afterward. However, in one of the thickening occurred in brain regions where thinning is typi- monks – a Rinpoche, or lama-like elder, who lives in a con- cally observed in people who have strong family histories of stant state of meditation – the brain activations looked depression. The people in Miller’s study who were religious extremely organized all the time. also reported higher levels of emotional satisfaction and And in 2011, neuroscientists at Massachusetts General mental stability than “controls” who were not religious. Hospital found that people with no prior meditation expe- Karen Froud, Director of Teachers College’s Neurocog- rience displayed changes in gray matter density after using nition of Language Lab, is leading a study comparing peo- a technique called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction for ple who have meditated for many years with those who just eight weeks. The positively affected brain areas influ- are novices at the discipline. She was inspired to conduct ence memory, compassion, empathy and resilience to stress. this research by a visit to her lab a few years ago by three The study’s brief duration established an unmistakable Buddhist monks from Thailand, who underwent electro- cause-and-effect relationship between meditation and the encephalogram scans. The scans pinpoint, to within mil- observed brain changes. liseconds, the brain’s response to specific stimuli. Froud While such work is still mostly in the basic research phase, found that brain activations in all three men became much mainstream health care clearly has recognized the impor- more coherent and organized during meditation, with tance of patients’ spiritual orientation and the value of spiri- tual and mind-body therapies. Since 2001, for instance, the Joint Commission on Accred- t ion itation of Healthcare Organizations has required hospitals to perform a “spiritual assessment” of critical-care patients. The commission’s suggested questions include: “Does the patient

ry Ass o c ia I ndu st ry use prayer in their life? How would the patient describe their philosophy of life?” Meditation and yoga in cancer care, end-of-life pastoral

and F i t ne ss and counseling and 12-step addiction treatment are other ac- ; o s ; t cepted techniques that draw on patients’ spiritual resources. “In leveraging spirituality for healing, other fields are file p ho file it’s all in your head Miller, Bansal and colleagues have well ahead of clinical psychology,” says TC lecturer Aure- : tc o p : found cortical thickening — associated with higher emotional lie Athan, who collaborates closely with the Spirituality and p or ts S The s our c e: w ’ satisfaction and mental health — in the brains of people Mind/Body Institute. But now, Athan adds, that gap is start- who consider religion or spirituality to be personally important. The areas of thickening are highlighted above in red. ing to close. “We have books and articles that I never had

‘did you kno you ‘did when I was starting out in my training. People are asking M iller L i s a of c our t e s y e from t from c k w i s e c lo

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 17 18 chology and Spirituality, a600-page, ship, ofTheOxford HandbookofPsy- publication, under Miller’s editor- tal disorders. Andthisyear sawthe property ofspiritualityagainstmen- journal articles on the protective duced more than50 peer-reviewed her studentsatTChave sincepro- rence ofmajordepression. Sheand personal spirituality limits the recur- has found,amongother things,that sion andtheiradultchildren, which of women with a history of depres- ing involvement ina20-year study as teenmothers. Shebegananongo - teem amongvulnerable groups such positive messagingtoboostself-es- development inadolescents.Shefocusedontheabilityof tive psychology, wasinvestigating religiosity andspiritual sylvania withMartinSeligman,oneofthefounders ofposi- Miller, whohadpreviously studiedattheUniversity of Penn- when psychology sawitselfaslargely antitheticaltoreligion, body oftheAmerican Psychological Association. Atatime joined TC’s faculty in 1999 andnow serves on the governing was here 10to15years ago.” how tobestintegratespiritualityincurricula. Noneof this changing research onpsycho-physiology underlyingspirituality. GROUNDBREAKER Much ofthatprogress stemsfrom thework ofMiller, who fall/ winter 2012 Student www.tc .edu/tctoday Ariel K or ispartoftheparadigm- phil armstrong Sachs’s Operations Division. Phil Armstrong, Co-Chief Operating Officer for Goldman ported by GoldmanSachsGives attherecommendation of underlies Miller’s work atCovenant House,whichissup- es) andother techniques. people’s geneticmakeupby examiningtheirDNAsequenc- MRI, genotyping (theprocess ofdetermining differences in study thatwilllookatemerging adultsages18–22,using $2.5 milliongranttotestthishypothesisthrough afive-year benefit patientsinthelongterm. Miller recently secured a than astheresult oftraumaorchemicalimbalances,may If so,thentreating depression asaspiritualprocess, rather through enroute tofindingamore stablekindofhappiness. sion serves asapainful butnecessaryphasethatpeoplepass even twofacetsofasinglephenomenoninwhichdepres- gence ofpersonal spiritualitymaybetightlyconnected,or well-being. Shehasargued thatdepression andtheemer- (such asanxietyordepression), butalsotoactively increase proaches thataimnotjusttodiagnoseandcure disorders schoolwork amongchildren ages9–12. mend fostered greater concentrationandincreased attentionto in privatepractice,foundthatthehybridtechniquetheyrecom - the University ofSouthern California,andLee,apsychologist builds onclinicaltrialsinwhichSemple,whonow teachesat meditative practiceswithWestern cognitive therapy, thebook Cognitive Therapy forAnxiousChildren . IntegratingBuddhist whom holddoctoratesfrom TC,publishedMindfulness-Based erature. In2011,Randye J.SempleandJennifer Lee,bothof these issues. perience, andthehistoryofpsychology’s engagementwith cal healthandspirituality,theneuroscience of spiritualex “sacred dialogue” intreatment, connectionsbetweenphysi- Western andEastern traditionsofprayer, meditationand 60 scholars.TheHandbookspansspiritualdevelopment, 39-chapter tomethatincludescontributionsfrom more than That sameidea,ofspiritualityarisingoutdepression, Ultimately, Miller isinterested indeveloping clinicalap- Miller’s former students have also added to the field’s lit- Armstrong at http://bit.ly/Psc1L sition where Icanoffer tohelp.”Readmore about “I’m very fortunate thatGoldmanputs me inapo- ages theCovenant Housework. Addsrmstrong, Mastropieri, astudentofLisaMiller’swhoman- volved through aGoldmanSachsalumnus,Biaggio work withCovenant House.Armstrong gotin- Gives hasmadesubstantialgrantstofundT At rmstrong’s recommendation, GoldmanSachs Officer forGoldmanSachs’s OperationsDivision. youth,” saysPhilArmstrong, Co-Chief Operating to changethelives ofthousands ofhomeless “I thinkwe are justatthebeginningandcanaspire Wall Street at TC as Well ason He’s a Partner –

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C’s C’s -

Photographs by Heather Van Uxem Lewis

tc file photos Miller’s team of current Ph.D. students offers a form of group therapy that feels as much practical as spiritual, ad- The joyof giving dressing the issues of participants who are in crisis or tran- sition, but with some use of meditative techniques and a Marla Schaefer discussion emphasis on love and connectedness. Alexandra Creating a Space for Peace Jordan and Marina Mazur lead sessions for single mothers. Biaggio Mastropieri and Lorne Schussel work with young men transitioning to self-sufficiency. It’s a real-world setting, with clients who often carry great anger and suspicion. The therapy aims to help them overcome the trauma of homeless- ness and “nourish internal resources intended to increase emotional regulation and awareness.” Schussel opens each session with a mindfulness exercise, asking the young men to focus on the sound from a Tibetan singing bowl as it dissipates. Later, the men take time to vi- sualize their “best selves.” In a session with volunteers will- ing to let a reporter sit in, these techniques mingle with more classic sharing of past traumas and current challenges. e can either Center is internationally “Meditation is great for conflict resolution,” Schussel says lat- “ kill each other, recognized for innovation er. “It helps you step back, see your anger as it arises and allow W or sit down in theory, research and it to dissipate. And that’s what we’re experiencing at Covenant at a table and work out practice. Marla’s gift will House. Once you transform anger, you can bring in love.” our problems,” says TC provide a state-of-the- Trustee Marla L. Schaefer art space that will help In the women’s group, Mazur reflects, “we look at the (M.A. ’03). “I vote for sit- attract new students and motherhood experience as a spiritual transformation, as well ting at the table.” scholars. as other things. We are there to help them bring out their Marla recently gave a “Their offices re- inherent strength and the knowledge that they really already $575,000 gift to reno- minded me of a rabbit’s vate just about every- warren,” says Marla with have.” This group is co-supervised by Aurelie Athan, whose thing at the International a laugh. “They needed own work with women is informed by a spiritual orientation Center for Cooperation updating. The space has that frames motherhood as a growth-producing process. and Conflict Resolu- so much character, but tion (ICCCR), headed by they need a real place to These doctoral students are spiritually inclined them- Peter Coleman, Associate work. It’s a privilege to selves, in eclectic ways – some more intensely than others. Professor of Psychology be able to help them at- Mazur, for instance, simply sees a “spiritual connection to and Education. Her gift tract the best and bright- the universe” as a useful tool for managing daily life. Schus- will create the Marla L. est. If there is anybody Schaefer Office Suite at out there in the world sel, by contrast, embraces an array of alternative techniques the ICCCR. best equipped to work such as energy healing and Holotropic Breathwork. During her time as out the world’s conflicts, Perhaps the biggest change she has witnessed in teaching a student in the orga- it’s the ICCCR.” spiritual psychology for the last 13 years, Miller says, is that nizational psychology Marla has provided program, Marla took a funding to ICCCR in the each year more students arrive already curious about spiritu- weekend-long practicum past, including a 2008 ality and involved in practices of their own. that introduced her to gift that supported the “They get it,” she says. “Many of them meditate, many conflict resolution. “If translation into Ara- pray, do spiritual journeying, some of them do a shamanic it hadn’t been for that bic of The Handbook of class, I wouldn’t have Conflict Resolution: practice. They’re already making a practice in their life of developed an interest in Theory and Practice, spiritual awareness and spiritual values.” the field,” she says. “I edited by Deutsch and Miller believes that everyone’s expression of spirituality is was so impressed with Coleman. “It just made unique, and that holds for patients as well as therapists. In Peter and the ICCCR’s sense to also have it work in this area.” in Arabic — it’s one of her master’s degree class, she asks students to explore their The ICCCR is com- the most widely spoken own spirituality, precisely so that they will be able to help mitted to developing languages in the world,” their patients do the same. knowledge and practice she says. to promote construc- “If I can help push a Her job as a teacher, she says, is to give students full- tive conflict resolution, door open, I would be xem L e w i s U xem an fledged scientific training in clinical psychology methods effective cooperation and thrilled. I think giving

her V t her while validating their spiritual orientation. social justice. Build- should be about provid- ing on the foundational ing people with access. y H ea y “I find that students are quickly able to work out of this

b scholarship of social I feel I’ve done that with o s t spiritual understanding,” Miller says. “And when students psychologists Kurt Lewin this new gift, as well as are clear within, they go into the therapy room as emerging ogra p h s and Morton Deutsch, the others.” t file p ho file healers, and then the client is naturally at home.”

Pho tc TC

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 19 BODY AND SOUL The Power of Positive Patients TC health educators are helping people think positively to better manage their own care

By Joe Levine Photograph by Hannah Whitaker

20 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 21 BODY AND SOUL

Four years ago, Sarah McMahon (not her real name), then 83, suffered a heart attack and had surgery to implant a stent, a tiny, balloonlike device that expanded to increase bloodflow through her coronary life. But many of the critical issues we now face are related to behav- artery. Afterwards, she was told to watch ior. The key is to help people quit smoking, maintain a healthy weight her diet, take her medications and – and diet, stay physically active and, because physical activity has been shown to if they are taking medications, ad- here to treatment.” significantly reduce death rates following Doctors tell patients to do these things all the time, but en- stent surgery – exercise regularly. suring compliance is much easier said than done. For example, as But where most patients struggle to keep to such a regi- many as half of all stent patients stop exercising within four men on their own, McMahon, who lives alone in Eastchester, months, and one-fifth experience a new adverse event within New York, joined a follow-up study that evaluated ways to a year after surgery. What’s needed, then, are care managers get patients to exercise. She signed a “contract” to try to meet who can get inside patients’ heads – master motivators who certain exercise goals. She tracked her progress with a pe- are as much Phil Jackson or Vince Lombardi as they are Ben dometer and in an interactive workbook about self-manag- Casey or House M.D. ing heart disease. And, in an unusual twist, the research team “It’s not sufficient anymore for a doctor to simply dispense helped her identify personal associations, positive thoughts advice and prescriptions,” says John Allegrante, Professor of and proud moments that would motivate her to exercise. Health Education and Deputy Provost at Teachers College, and Twice a month, team members called her to remind her of editor of the journal Health, Education & Behavior. Allegrante these strategies. They also mailed her occasional small gifts. and his former TC student Janey Peterson, a health researcher “It was wonderful,” recalls McMahon. “When I volun- at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, were part of teered for the study, I was just so pleased to be alive. It was the investigative team that designed the study that Sarah Mc- gratifying to think I might be doing something useful, par- Mahon participated in. “What’s emerging is a more motivation- ticularly at my age. And then, the girls who called me were so al, intervening type of practice, in which the physician is better lovely, and I enjoyed speaking with them.” at listening, at discussing patient preferences and approaches to With people 65 and older expected to constitute nearly 20 a problem, and at building pa- percent of the population by 2030 (up from 13 percent now), tients’ confidence in their ability the United States is becoming a nation of Sarah McMahons – to change how they live.” did you know? older people with multiple ongoing health problems. In 2005, In the tool kit wielded by 133 million Americans, or nearly one in two adults, had at least this new breed of doctor, posi- ion: t ion: one chronic illness, and 7 in 10 deaths were due to longer-term tive emotions loom large. conditions such as cancer, heart disease and stroke. Treatment “You can threaten patients costs were estimated at $1.7 trillion annually. with the consequences of fail- Faced with these trends, health care experts increasingly ing to take care of themselves, Participation in t ion agree that traditional medical approaches no longer suffice. but that’s not enough,” says Pe- a structured cardiac

rehabilitation program – Ass o c ia “We’ve had enormous success with medical discoveries – terson, a former cardiothoracic including exercise – they’ve led to advances such as statins, beta-blockers, clot- intensive care nurse. “They improves survival by busting drugs and continuous refinements in procedures need a positive reason, some- such as angioplasty [stent surgery] and coronary artery by- thing that comes from within pass surgery,” says Susan Czajkowski, a scientist at the Na- and that can be self-induced.” Cir c ula in re p or t ed Clini c , M ayo s our c e: w ’ tional Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) who is an Psychologists such as Dan- 46%. ‘did you kno you ‘did expert on psychosocial aspects of illness. “They’ve extended iel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, H ear t A meri c an t he of J ournal

22 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday Martin Seligman, Edward Diener and Alice Isen have long tion group than in the controls (42 percent vs. 36 percent) focused on the power of positive thinking. They have argued – a gain “consistent with some of the most effective interven- that optimism and happiness are learned skills requiring tions available,” according to the journal Cardiology. practice and that a positive outlook can change behaviors In the asthma study, a subgroup of severely asthmatic pa- ranging from making purchasing decisions to processing in- tients who received the intervention exercised more than formation about medical risk. their counterparts in the control group. In 2003, NHLBI issued a nationwide call for proposals for None of the three studies demonstrated improvement in studies to apply such findings to improving patient outcomes. patients’ health, but previous, longer studies have estab- “Many scientists were doing excellent basic behavioral re- lished that exercise and adherence to medication create bet- search, focused on understanding why people act, think, feel as ter health outcomes. they do, but they weren’t applying what they found about hu- “These studies are revolutionary,” says Czajkowski. man behavior to specific clinical problems,” says Czajkowski, “They show that this kind of approach can be done and who spearheaded the Institute’s effort. “So we asked teams of that it is fruitful.” basic and clinical behavioral scientists to work together to tack- For Allegrante, the studies are significant because they le pressing clinical questions in the heart/lung/blood realm.” demonstrate that positive affect enhances the power of pa- The team that included Allegrante and Peterson – headed tient self-management. “The control group itself received a by Mary Charlson, Chief of the Division of Clinical Epide- pretty robust intervention – it was no straw man,” he says. miology and Evaluative Sciences Research at Weill Cornell – received funding to conduct a set of studies aimed at developing and refining a behavioral intervention, culminating in three randomized clinical trials involving 1,000 pa- tients. One trial focused on boosting physical activity among asthma patients; another on get- ting African American patients with high blood pressure to adhere to prescribed medication (Af- rican Americans have substantially higher rates of hypertension than other ethnic groups); and a third on getting stent patients like McMahon to exercise. In each study, a treatment group and a control group received state-of-the-art instruction and tools for managing their own care. The treatment WALKING CURE Positive thinking has helped people group also received a motivational intervention, exercise more after heart surgery. delivered by phone, that included using positive thoughts and recalling proud moments. Gifts were delivered by mail. The studies tested the power of both “We built the best mousetrap we could and then gave addi- “positive affect,” defined as “a state of pleasurable engage- tional positive affect and self-affirmation components to the ment with the environment [that] reflects feelings of mild, treatment arm, so that we’d have a good test of the added everyday happiness, joy, contentment and enthusiasm,” and value of focusing them on positive emotions. And the results “self-affirmation,” such as using memories of past accom- were remarkable.” plishments, to “preserve a positive image and self-integrity But can self-management techniques, including positive when one’s self-identity is threatened.” thinking, be broadly implemented in a health care system The results of the studies – the first clinical trials to test with a marked preference for a pound of cure rather than an the power of induced positive affect in patients with a seri- ounce of prevention? The evidence suggests that such tech- ous medical condition – were published this past year in The niques are cost-effective. For example, in a 1999 study of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP), a In the trial involving stent patients, 55 percent of those well-known group program created at Stanford University’s who received the motivational intervention increased their Patient Education Research Center to increase patients’ con- expenditure of kilocalories by at least 336 per week, versus fidence, skills and social support, health care costs for the just 37 percent of the control patients – the equivalent of patients who received CDSMP were $820 lower (even ac- walking 7.5 miles weekly versus walking 4.1 miles weekly, counting for the intervention’s cost) than for patients who says Peterson, who authored the angioplasty manuscript. did not, primarily due to reduced days of hospitalization. In the hypertension study, adherence to medication after Health care expenditure savings for the intervention group 12 months was 6 percentage points higher in the interven- were roughly 10 times the cost of the intervention. y image s ge tt y

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 23 But David Sobel, M.D., Ph.D., Director of Patient Education atry and the cardiothoracic intensive care unit, I learned how and Health Promotion for the Permanente Medical Group and to connect on a personal level with patients and their fami- Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California region, sounds some lies at a very vulnerable time in their lives and address their cautionary notes. For behavioral programs to be better inte- psychosocial, educational and health care needs,” she says. grated into clinical care, Sobel says, we need “good evidence of “Hospitalization created a teachable moment when many effectiveness in real-world settings and aligned financial incen- patients were more open to receiving health information tives – or at least an absence of disincentives. With medications, that could significantly affect the rest of their lives.” Today, there is a whole industry and strong financial drivers to promote she says, when nurses can practice as clinicians, research- their use. How can the drivers for non-pharmacological and be- ers, scholars and educators, there are greater opportunities havioral interventions be mobilized?” to “make the world a better place for our patients.” Unlike most insurers, Kaiser Permanente does not reimburse And Kate Lorig, Director of the Stanford Patient Research physicians on a fee-for-service basis, Sobel says. Kaiser clients Center, believes that the move toward motivating behavioral – an employer, a university, an individual – pay a lump sum for change could take place even farther away from care centers. improved health outcomes, and Kaiser can use whatever evi- “People spend 99 percent of their time outside the health care dence-based approaches it believes will work best. system, and it’s what they do there that determines their health “If we can better manage high blood pressure through a and their quality of life,” Lorig says. “In lots of parts of the coun- body-mind program, we’ll do it, whereas a doctor in a fee- try, community organizations teach self-management. Your doc- for-service practice has to bill an insurance company for an tor says, ‘There’s a Jewish community center a few blocks from office visit, which might be the least effective thing for con- your house. You’re not interested? We’ll contact you when we trolling high blood pressure,” says Sobel, a practicing physi- learn of something more to your liking.’” cian who helped develop and evaluate CDSMP in real-world Meanwhile, in 2009, NHLBI issued another research so- care within the Kaiser Permanente system. licitation for behavioral intervention studies, this time fo- Sobel believes more traditional insurance companies cusing on obesity and obesity-related behaviors. A second would be receptive to self-management approaches sup- effort, taking in a wider range of health-related behaviors ported by good evidence for quality of care and improved and involving several organizations within the National In- outcomes. Right now, though, “there are very few evidence- stitutes of Health, is getting under way. based self-management programs that have been evaluated,” “We really need to keep increasing the pool of efficacious in- he says. “It’s one thing to do an evaluation in a clinical trial terventions for behavioral health problems,” says Czajkowski. under specialized circumstances and another to replicate the “It’s like drug development – even when we have drugs that program in a real world care system. Often, you can’t just ex- work, pharmaceutical companies continue to use findings from basic biological science to make better ones. Behavioral scientists should be doing the “You can induce positive same.” affect as easily as Peterson finds the analogy with phar- maceuticals particularly resonant. by telling a joke or smelling “A few months ago, one of the attend- ing physicians in the class I teach told me some nice perfume.” that he dispenses written prescriptions for — Janey Peterson physical activity,” she says. “That’s incred- ibly powerful, because that’s what physical activity is – it’s medicine, and often it’s as trapolate from clinical trial data to ‘This will achieve a reduc- least as strong, if not more so, than many pills people take.” Mo- tion of X number of days in the hospital.’” tivating people can be “so delightfully simple and easy. Instead Costs, though, are only one piece of the puzzle. How to of asking people to sit through weeks of therapy or classes, you change the operating style of doctors and other care-givers can induce positive affect as easily as by telling a joke, or smell- working on the front lines? ing some nice perfume, or keeping pictures of your grandchil- Allegrante believes the effort must begin in medical schools. dren by your bed.” “To date, we prepare doctors largely to be biomedical scien- Sarah McMahon, the patient in the positive affect study, tists, not applied behavioral scientists, which are what’s really agrees. “When you get to be this age, your children have their needed in an era when behavioral management of chronic dis- own lives, and you’ve really got to find ways to take care of ease is critical,” he says. “If we’re going to get the outcomes we yourself. When the people from the study would call, they’d want, and that insurers demand, we need both.” always ask me about the staircases in my house. It took me Janey Peterson believes nurses could be key change agents a while to catch on, but what they were really saying when in making behavioral interventions a bigger part of medicine. they’d ask me about them was ‘Use those stairs. They can “In the 1980’s when I worked as a bedside nurse in psychi- help you.’ And they were right.” TC

24 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday connection to what he had a career path she traces been studying. directly to her mentor. “I started thinking about Peterson originally trained the relationships among as a nurse and worked in behavior, wealth, status and cardiothoracic intensive health outcomes, and about care during the 1980s. the limitations of our health The waves of elderly patients care system.” with chronic illnesses who During the past 30 years, flooded her unit convinced Allegrante has coauthored her that the system an “action textbook” on wasn’t working. teen health; been a frequent “If you look back at how guest on radio programs hospitals have managed and a contributor to journals patients with cost-driven and lay publications; and diseases, you see that they’ll collaborated extensively with monitor you for a single health education and public condition, like diabetes,” health researchers in Iceland. Peterson says. “But if you “We have a lot to learn have, for example, diabetes, from the Nordic countries heart disease, a cellulitis on that have come to a your leg, and depression or political consensus about cognitive issues – which is the morality and practical a really common scenario economic value of making – there’s no one who will health care a basic human manage everything together, service, available to all,” he and the caregivers aren’t says. “The investments they talking to each other. The have made are making a reimbursement system isn’t huge difference.” set up for it.” Allegrante (left) set BEHAVIORAL STRATEGISTS As editor for the past But it wasn’t until she Peterson on a path to empowering patients two years of the journal became involved in a study Health, Education & led by Allegrante, teaching Behavior, Allegrante has patients with arthritis to also published a number of manage their own care, that A Different studies and commentaries Peterson began to see the focused on patient self- glimmer of an answer. Kind of management. “John was a role model Meanwhile, at TC, since for me, and he really 1998 he has led a yearly stimulated me to learn Health Insurance delegation of students to more about working with Capitol Hill to lobby Congress people and their behaviors,” John Allegrante was a Times about the injustices for additional federal Peterson says. “Because 26-year-old Ph.D. student of a society in which funding for the U.S. Centers of him, I began thinking at the University of Illinois hardworking people could for Disease Control. And since about questions like, How Urbana-Champaign when his find themselves unable to becoming the College’s do people take charge? father was diagnosed with pay for medical care. To his Deputy Provost in 2009, Particularly people who are serious heart disease. But surprise, the Times printed Allegrante has founded and used to a doctor telling them the real shocker came a few an edited version of the hosted a new what to do?” days later, when Allegrante piece on its opinion page, colloquium called “Health, Fifteen years passed walked into his father’s under the headline “Well, Behavior and Society,” in before Peterson enrolled hospital room back home in Who Needs Life Savings?” which guest speakers as Allegrante’s doctoral Poughkeepsie, New York. President Jimmy Carter read examine the interconnections student at TC. Now they’ve “He said, ‘Get me out it and invited Allegrante among biology, behavior worked together on a study of here, I can’t afford to Washington to talk with and environment in relation that represents some of this,’” recalls Allegrante, his special health adviser. to health. the most advanced thinking now Professor of Health A hospital on Long Island Above all, he has in their field. Education and Deputy offered Allegrante, Sr. free influenced generations of “Health educators find Provost at TC. “He was a medical care. students to think about ways to operationalize self-employed barber, and Even before his father’s health education issues. behavioral strategies,” xem L e w i s U xem an it turned out he had no illness, Allegrante had One of those students, Allegrante says. “That’s

her V t her health insurance.” resolved to pursue a career Janey Peterson, is now a what we do. It’s especially Allegrante was so upset in health education. Still, clinical epidemiologist and satisfying when you have a y H ea y that he fired off a long his father’s revelation gave behavioral scientist at Weill chance to prove that they letter to The New York him a different kind of Cornell Medical College – can work.” — jl h b ogra p h t Pho

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 25 SOUND mind, SOUND body

mental gymnastics At The School at Columbia, the emphasis is on lifelong learning of physical skills.

26 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday Welcome to “the New Gym,” where kids hold group discussions and use iPads, and teachers ponder the role of race, gender and body type

By Siddhartha Mitter

Photographs by Heather Van Uxem Lewis mental gymnastics At The School at Columbia, the emphasis is on lifelong learning of physical skills.

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 27 SOUND mind, SOUND body

CRITICAL THINKING Students use iPads to critique one another’s form.

n a Friday morning in games,” one boy announces seriously, “are traditionally a the gym at The School at Columbia University, Doug LeBlanc part of the culture of New York.” (M.A., ’01, ’03) has asked his third graders to prepare to exer- Later, while the kids work in groups across the gym, LeB- cise their bodies by warming up their minds. In a moment the lanc, their “Wellness” teacher, asks them to photograph one children will grab jump ropes and work individually, then in another on their iPads while they jump rope. The images will small groups,O at double Dutch. But first they sit in a circle and be used back in the classroom as subject matter for writing discuss how street games came to be invented amid the special time, and possibly on the class blog as well. conditions of big-city life. Carlos Jamieson, a Teachers College master’s degree stu- “City” is, in fact, a third-grade curriculum theme across dis- dent in physical education, looks on. He’s just started his stu- ciplines at The School. The kids call out ideas they’ve stud- dent-teaching placement at The School, leading warm-ups ied in the classroom: how jump rope, stickball and other pas- and assisting LeBlanc and his Wellness colleagues, many of times were the product of limited space and materials; the whom are also TC graduates. “Is this the first time you’ve way buildings and sidewalks substituted for fields. “Street seen iPads in a phys ed class?” Jamieson whispers to a fellow observer. “Me, too.” This tight integration of gym and classroom is part of an emerging “If you feel your body doesn’t teaching approach that proponents hope could revolutionize the physi- mirror particular dominant cal education (P.E.) field. The new method grows out of research by ideals, it impacts your physical experts at TC and elsewhere who education engagement.” are discovering connections among attitude, motor skills, knowledge — Laura Azzarito and fitness outcomes. Their find-

28 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday BALANCE OF POWERS Martial arts class is very much a thinking person’s game.

ings point P.E. away from the traditional gym class model – competent students, while others go through the motions, competition as motivator; the jocks rule – toward learning, chitchat or just stand around – dies hard. enjoyment and lifelong skills development. That’s no surprise, says Walrath’s mentor, Stephen Silver- The School champions the new approach, but it has not man, who chairs TC’s Department of Biobehavioral Sciences cast team sports aside. Seventh graders still do a soccer unit, and coordinates the College’s Physical Education program. for example, but it’s linked to a teaching theme. The students After all, most P.E. teachers are athletic types themselves. form a league modeled on the one organized by Nelson “One problem is that most of us who were undergraduate Mandela and other prisoners in the Robben Island peniten- P.E. majors were successful doing motor skills, so we’re not tiary. They write letters arguing for the league’s recognition thinking about those other kids,” says Silverman, himself a and demanding equipment, as the prisoners did, and their scuba instructor and diving enthusiast. “And those other kids teachers evaluate their efforts for persuasiveness. are a lot of the kids, if not most of them.” The students study cricket as well, to supplement classes on Why are so many kids either inhibited about being physi- India and British colonial rule. Along with how to bowl and bat, cally active or else simply unmotivated? Some of the most they learn the sport’s history, rules, scoring and etiquette. “You important reasons originate outside the school setting, be- catch the kids who consider themselves bookish that way,” says ginning with images of physical competence and body stan- Laura Walrath (M.A. ’07), The School’s athletic director, who dards that pervade society through media and language. played Division I soccer in college. “They can teach it to the “If you feel your body doesn’t mirror particular dominant other kids, and the kids who are better at the physical skills will ideals, it impacts your physical education engagement,” says xem L e w i s U xem an help them play. You have to reach all types.” Laura Azzarito, Associate Professor of Physical Education,

her V t her Reaching all types – kids who think of themselves as ath- who joined TC’s faculty in 2011. “The body, and learning

y H ea y letically competent, and others who, for a variety of reasons, how to move, matter a great deal to young people, and find- b do not – is a challenge for every P.E. teacher. Not all choose ing a self that fits and is comfortable in sports, health and to address it. The roll-out-the-ball gym class stereotype – physical education can be very difficult for them.” ogra p h s t where the teacher sets up competitive activities for the most Gender, race and class affect “embodiment” – how one sees Pho

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 29 dents of both genders lose interest and enthusiasm for P.E. as they get older, particularly around seventh grade, and that the decline is faster and steeper for girls. That finding, which holds broad- ly across ethnic groups and regions, came to light thanks to a survey in- strument, titled Student Attitude Toward Physical Education, that Steve Silverman codeveloped with Raj Subramaniam, a professor at Ithaca College. First published in 2000, and based on Subramaniam’s doc- toral research, which Silverman supervised when the two were at the University of Illinois, the survey is now widely used in the field. It has produced a wealth of research data, both on overall trends in student attitude and on REACHING ALL TYPES Walrath offers some advice on the art of throwing. the attitudinal impact of curricu- lum and teaching methods. This research on attitude has “With team sports, helped to substantiate insights not everyone is playing, and so they’re that seem intuitively obvious: For example, physical education activi- not learning. And the teachers ties based on competition have an adverse effect on the motivation can’t possibly spend enough time of kids with lower skills. But it has also supported some unexpected with them.”— Stephen Silverman conclusions: For example, de-em- phasizing competition doesn’t turn off students with higher skills. oneself in relation to physical participation and enjoyment “Sometimes P.E. teachers will say to me, ‘If I do what you -- says Azzarito, who is Italian-born and earned her Ph.D. suggest, the high-skills kids will get bored,’” Silverman says. at Louisiana State University before teaching at Britain’s “But our research suggests there’s nothing they can do to Loughborough University. In her own research, she says, she mess up the high-skills kids. That’s not the problem we have has given digital cameras to young people and asked them to in kids learning and enjoying P.E.” create visual diaries to express how they feel in their bodies. In fact, the really good news from the new attitude re- “Many of the boys showed themselves performing sports, search is that skill level, high or low, is not the defining factor very centered in the photos. Many girls were completely ab- in whether students engage in and benefit from physical edu- sent; they took pictures of other people and never wanted to cation. What really tips the scales, so to speak, is the quality be in their own photo.” of instruction; there is no inherent reason why a less athletic Research on body perception, while certainly extensive in student would be less likely to enjoy P.E. “We found that the psychology, is still quite new as applied to physical education, teacher and the curriculum were the primary factors that af- Azzarito says. “With the methods I use, I’m trying, first, to em- fected attitude,” Subramaniam says. power young people to tell their own stories about their experi- Jennifer Rasmussen (Ed.D. ’06), a lecturer who coordi- ences and struggles in physical activity. Second, I try to assist nates TC’s master’s degree program in physical education L e w i s U xem an them in understanding the role of the media in the development and supervises student field placements, calls that finding V t her of their identities and their bodies. And third, I try to help teach- “breakthrough stuff” because it changes the goals of P.E. H ea y b ers to see and address inequalities that inform young people’s “Now teachers have to design their lessons to target the

experiences and physical education.” low-skilled and the advanced,” Rasmussen says. “So what are ogra p h s t

All researchers in the field agree that, across cultures, stu- you going to do? What modifications are you going to make Pho

30 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday as an educator so that everybody is learning within their ac- Back at The School, Wal- tivity and at their own pace?” did you know? rath operates in precisely this The integrated curriculum at The School at Columbia fashion with a group of sev- University offers one answer: giving students the histori- Nearly enth graders who are work- cal or political context about different sports (e.g., colo- ing on a fitness unit, practic- nialism as a backdrop for cricket) to lend physical activity ing curl-ups and push-ups. greater meaning. The School also employs the Sport Edu- She moves from pair to pair, cation Model, an approach to teaching team sports that gives tips on form, offers en- rotates students through all the relevant roles – player, couragement and stops to coach, referee, scorekeeper, equipment manager – so that 2/3 work more closely with a few everyone’s involved. of the nation’s high students who need help. But it’s equally important to tailor physical activities as school students do In the end, Silverman says, closely as possible to individual skill levels, so that students not meet one teachers must play the key are motivated to rise to challenges instead of avoiding them. recommended level of role in making physical edu- participation in physical And that, says Silverman, would ideally mean taking the activity. cation effective and enjoy- most radical step of all: dropping team sports entirely from able for all students. There’s physical education classes. no question that at an inde- “With team sports, not everyone is playing, and so they’re pendent institution like The School, which is blessed with not learning,” he says. “And the teachers can’t possibly spend curricular freedom and resources, the teachers are more enough time with them.” likely to accept the hours and workload that interdisci- Instead, Silverman says, students should work to achieve plinary teaching entails. But Silverman hopes that as the personal targets through individual and small-group activi- new gospel spreads, newer teachers coming up are going ties, enabling teachers to roam the gym offering individual- to get on board. ized instruction. Or to put it another way: Forget the old- “It boils down to whether the teachers want to do it,” he fashioned gym teacher, barking out commands. Instead, says. “Where there are a lot of young teachers together, you think yoga instructor or personal trainer. tend to see changes happening.” TC

Giving P.E. a Second Wind o s

t “Physical activity can be a the country from cutting ing wind and could use a really good tool to help en- gym hours. In 2011, only substitution. Or to be more gage kids, help them attend 52 percent of high school specific: Physical education file p ho file better and behave better in students attended a P.E. isn’t worth the investment h; tc t h; the classroom,” says Carol class, according to the U.S. because too many kids look Ewing Garber, TC Associ- Centers for Disease Control at gym simply as something ate Professor of Movement and Prevention. Meanwhile, to be ducked. Sciences, who this past year America is getting flabbier: That’s why the new ap- led an American College of 36 percent of adults and 17 proaches being advanced at Sports Medicine panel that percent of children qualified TC and elsewhere are genu- issued new guidelines on as obese in 2010. ine cause for excitement. physical activity. “And kids Certainly lawmakers are The new thinking could give hool H eal c hool S of J ournal Ba sc h, sometimes learn concepts under pressure to slash P.E. the fresh legs it needs by using their bodies – for spending – and schools to because it holds the po- example, math and science redirect time and resources tential to get all kids to be concepts by moving.” to meet testing targets. But active – not only in gym, but Yet, even that case for there may also be a sense for life. So listen up, Coach: e: Charle s s our c e: w ’ physical education isn’t that – to use a sports meta- Maybe it’s time to put the Carol ewing Garber stopping districts across phor – P.E. itself is suck- new kid in the game. — sm ‘did you kno you ‘did

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 31 SOUND mind, SOUND body

Taking Student Health to Scale

Chuck Basch says we won’t close the achievement gap until we attend to student health. He has a plan

By Joe Levine Illustrations by Jillian Tamaki

CHANGING VENUE Some kids can’t get to school early enough for breakfast in the cafeteria. One solution: let them eat in first-period class.

32 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 33 SOUND mind, SOUND body To Basch, who gave the keynote address at Colorado’s an- nual statewide education summit last spring, insufficient break- fast is just one facet of a much more complex and challenging problem: the inferior health status and health care received by many low-income and minority children in the United States. In 2010, in work originally commissioned by TC’s Campaign for Educational Equity, Basch documented the scope of these “ed- ucationally relevant health disparities” in a meta-analysis that filled an entire issue of the Journal of School Health. Incorporat- ing information from hundreds of previous studies by other re- searchers, he showed unequivocally that poorer students suffer disproportionately from a group of interrelated health problems – poor vision, asthma, teen pregnancy, aggression and violence, inadequate physical activity, insufficient breakfast, and inatten- Last year, when tion and hyperactivity – that directly hinder their achievement in school. The publication included a preface by one of Basch’s Colorado began former students at TC, Howell Wechsler, Director of the Divi- sion of Adolescent Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Con- offering a new public trol. Wechsler wrote that “the articles by Basch…represent the most comprehensive, authoritative, and compelling summary of why addressing health-related barriers to learning needs to be a school program fundamental component of school reform efforts.” Perhaps just as important, Basch called attention to pre- that enables kids to cisely how and why each health issue affects school perfor- mance. For example, he reiterated findings that a sense of grab breakfast off a “school connectedness” fosters a desire to achieve. He also cited evidence that exercise stimulates the production of lobby cart and chow brain-derived growth hormones, oxygen saturation and oth- er chemical reactions in the brain that that facilitate learning. “If you can’t see, if you’re not getting a good night’s sleep down during their because you can’t breathe, if you’re not thinking clearly be- cause you haven’t eaten breakfast or if you’re afraid to come first-period classes, to school because you live in fear of getting hassled and bul- lied, there’s no way you’re going to be able to learn, and cer- some teachers tainly not at the level of other students who don’t face these issues,” Basch said recently in his office in TC’s Thorndike and administrators Hall. He is a lean, intense man who talks rapidly when he gets on the topic that has occupied most of his time for the past several years. “Eighty to ninety percent of school turn- raised concerns. around efforts have failed, and I believe that a big reason is True, schools have been offering free breakfast for years in that we haven’t addressed these health barriers. Until we do, their cafeterias, prior to the first bell. But wouldn’t eating in our efforts to close the nation’s achievement gap by academic class be a major distraction? What about the mess? means – improving teacher and leader effectiveness, improv- The fact is, breakfast programs nationwide are significantly ing curriculum, strengthening learning standards and assess- underused because parents have difficulty getting their kids ment – are going to be greatly compromised.” to school early, and also because, for many older students in Similar positions have been endorsed by organizations particular, there is a stigma about eating “charity food.” such as the National Education Association, the Ameri- To the state’s administrators, though, there was a bigger can Association of School Administrators, the American reason for making the change: Eating breakfast can help im- Association of State Boards of Education, the American prove academic outcomes. School Boards Association and the Association for Super- “Neuroscience research has identified the processes by vision and Curriculum Development. Since publishing his which dietary behavior influences neuronal activity and syn- report, Basch has been sharing his findings and propos- aptic plasticity, both of which influence cognitive functions,” als with audiences across the country, ranging from U.S. writes Charles Basch, Teachers College’s Richard March Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and state and city Hoe Professor of Health and Education. education commissioners, to advocacy group leaders, rep-

34 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday profit that works closely with the public schools, agrees with that assessment. “Chuck Basch is really flipping the traditional school health model on its head,” Wasserman says. “There have been many school-based attempts to improve students’ health, but they haven’t been very connected with academic outcomes. Chuck’s approach makes it very clear why educators should care.” Basch himself is partnering with the New York City De- partment of Education and New York City Department of Health to seek funding to test his approach in nearly 60 of New York City’s lowest-performing elementary schools. His team at TC consists of his longtime colleagues Randi Wolf, Professor of Nutrition and Education, and Patricia Zybert, a research scientist and statistician in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies. Other TC faculty in his group include Eric Nadelstern, Professor of Practice and former Deputy Chancellor of New York City’s public schools; Mi- chael Rebell, an expert on comprehensive services for stu- dents from poverty backgrounds and school finance; Henry Levin, the noted education economist; Aaron Pallas, an au- thority on standardized testing; Lucy Calkins, the literacy guru who is founding Director of the TC Reading and Writ- ing Project; and Ernest Morrell, a nationally recognized English educator who directs the College’s Institute for Ur- ban and Minority Education. Their goal is to compare the HEARD IN HIGH PLACES Basch (left) met with Duncan last spring. standardized test scores (and mediators, including school at- tendance and school connectedness) of students in schools receiving Basch’s intervention with those in a control group resentatives of private foundations, school boards, teach- of schools that did not. ers, parents and concerned citizens. Meanwhile, a number of states and districts, including “What’s needed now is to put into practice what we know in Tennessee, Ohio, Idaho, Colorado and the Boston and Den- a way that is scalable to reach thousands of schools – especially ver public schools, are instituting all or parts of Basch’s pro- the 5,000 lowest-performing schools in the nation,” he says. posal on their own. Working closely with the Chicago-based Healthy Schools The Basch model has three major components. Campaign, Basch has framed a blueprint for change that would First, it targets health issues that are prevalent and dis- put schools themselves at the center of a coordinated network proportionately affect low-income and minority youth, have of players – parents, teachers, state and city agencies, schools a direct impact on educational outcomes, and can be effec- of education – all focused on student tively addressed through school health health. “What I’m proposing is going to programs. require a real social change in the way “We need the Second, the Basch model uses a we think of the mission of schools, and education group of proven, evidence-based pro- in the connections among schools, com- grams that have improved health and munities and families,” he says. “Schools goals of the nation educational outcomes for thousands have resisted taking on health problems to recognize and sometimes millions of students, as part of their fundamental goals in the but which have never been collectively past because they haven’t seen that as the importance evaluated for their impact on academic their primary mission. But they’ll be of addressing performance. These programs include much more receptive if they realize that Breakfast in the Classroom; Vision for focusing on health can have a substan- educationally Success, a program designed by Basch tive impact on educational outcomes, relevant health and a former doctoral student, Danna and that failure to do so will jeopardize Ethan, together with New York City their other educational efforts.” problems.” health officials, which has doubled Stephanie Wasserman, who directs the in-class use of eyeglasses; and health and wellness initiatives for the — Chuck Basch Open Airways in Schools, an asthma

b a sc h c hu k of c our t e s y Colorado Legacy Foundation, a non- education program developed by the

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 35 choosing to focus on certain priori- ties,” says Jill Carter, Executive Di- rector of the Boston Public Schools (BPS) Health and Wellness Depart- ment. Basch was the keynote speak- er in December 2011, when BPS Superintendent Carol Johnson, who has made improving student well- ness a critical part of her Academic Acceleration Agenda, presented the plan to city officials. The BPS plan incorporates all the key features that Basch recommends. These include a physical activity pro- gram that incorporates in-class move- ment breaks, physical education and even staff wellness; an in-class break- fast program; and a vision program that issues two pairs of glasses to each qualifying student. Carter and her team recently received grants that will enable them to launch a pregnancy prevention program in middle schools. “The idea of coordinated school health has been around for 25 years, and we were working on a lot of these issues before Chuck published his paper,” Carter says. “But part of what he’s done is to provide the data analy- American Lung Association, which aims to reduce poorly sis to support the idea that all of this really matters. It’s hard controlled asthma and improve school attendance. Other to be an expert in your own district, but if someone from initiatives recommended by Basch focus on improving stu- Teachers College is saying it, and it’s in the news – well, it dents’ social and emotional skills, decreasing behavioral must be good, because they’re talking about it.” problems and building character, and increasing in-class In Ohio, Basch’s ideas constitute the foundation of a pi- physical activity. lot partnership between the State Department of Health Third, the Basch model applies a “scaling mechanism” for and the State Department of Education to improve student implementing all of these programs together. The scaling health and school performance. mechanism consists of a full-time school health coordinator “Chuck’s article came out at a perfect time for us,” says Laura position in each school, professional development for teach- Rooney, Adolescent Health Program Manager in Ohio’s De- ers and school personnel, and roving coaches who would partment of Health. “We had received funding for coordinated provide assistance to teachers, staff and administrators. school health from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Along perhaps with an assistant principal for school health, Prevention and were trying to link health outcomes to school these new positions ultimately would become the focus of a improvement, and his work does precisely that. new professional track developed by schools of education. “As Ohio is restructuring school report cards and teacher “Chuck’s proposal is the only one I’ve ever seen that accountability, we wanted to find a mechanism that supports presents a comprehensive approach to student wellness, the district’s ability to look at the whole child for student suc- from nutrition to health screening to behavioral modifica- cess and go beyond test scores and curriculum.” tion to classroom performance,” Nadelstern says. “Other Ohio schools placed on academic watch or academic emer- efforts have used aspects of this, but he’s saying, ‘If we can gency status are recruited to participate in a Healthy Schools have resources and incentivize all the schools to focus on Leadership Institute that helps them to identify health mea- all of these issues, we can have a profound impact.’ And I sures that can aid students.

think he’s right.” “We ask schools to look at their students’ behavior and Tamaki J illian y Many other education leaders agree. health outcomes, and then to line those up with overall ion b t ion “We started work on our strategic plan in 2010 using school performance, so that they are the ones making infer-

Chuck’s article to set the tone and reference why we were ences,” Rooney explains. “Then, they look at their policies I llu st ra

36 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday and practices to see which ones are supporting student health and which ones are impeding it. How are they taking did you know? attendance? Do they know why students are absent? Can they get that information? If a lot of their kids have diabe- Births per 1,000 among U.S. 15-17 year-olds tes, do they know whether absences are occurring because by race/ethnicity: of that? And if so, are there interventions they could put in place? Ultimately, each school writes a change plan that re- flects an analysis of their policies, practices, leadership initia- tives and school climate.” In a final step, the schools link their change strategies to their districts’ overall school improvement plan, “so that 11.8 36.1 47.9 health measures are not looked at as being separate from white black hispanic school performance,” Rooney says. Basch emphasized this last point during a meeting with Arne Duncan last spring. The meeting was arranged by Rochelle Davis of the Healthy Schools Campaign, and it included Davis, Basch and the leaders of the W.K. Kellogg could appeal to Republicans as well as Democrats because it Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust. Basch had all comes down to getting more bang for the taxpayers’ buck just a few minutes to summarize his plan, and when Duncan and using existing resources more wisely. As another col- asked why many features of it weren’t already happening in league, Aaron Pallas, puts it, “this is one of those ideas that’s schools, he had an answer ready. so obvious that you wonder why it hasn’t been tried before.” “I said, ‘Because we need the education goals of the na- Right now, though, state legislatures are strapped for cash, tion to recognize the importance of addressing education- and only the most dramatic kind of evidence is going to con- ally relevant health problems, especially for youth living in vince them to embrace a change of this magnitude. To that poverty,’” Basch recalls. “ ‘We need changes in accountability end, Basch is betting that the lowest-achieving New York structures to ultimately promote change. Because if schools City elementary schools would achieve increases of 20 scale aren’t held accountable for it, if no one’s measuring it, then points (versus a 10-point increase in controls) on both Eng- it’s not important.’” lish language arts and mathematics standardized tests, rais- Basch, along with Davis and the meeting’s other attend- ing the percent of students proficient at grade level from 34 ees, urged Duncan to empower an Office of Safe and Healthy percent to 68 percent in the former and from 42 percent to Students, run by a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education, 70 percent in the latter. to provide strategic leadership to fully integrate health and “Test scores alone are clearly an imperfect metric for judg- wellness into the Department’s policy and practice. They ing the extent to which schools are succeeding, but that’s the also recommended that student health criteria be incor- metric widely used in states as well as nationally,” Basch says. porated into the federal government’s various professional “For many people, parents included, improving problems like development and human capital programs for schools, such children’s vision, school connectedness and absenteeism are as Investing in Innovation, School Improvement Grants and worthy goals in themselves. Nevertheless, this work won’t con- Blue Ribbon Schools. vince thousands of school leaders to adopt school health as a In a subsequent speech, delivered early in May at the fundamental mission of their schools if we can’t influence aca- National Press Club in Washington, demic achievement. But if we do succeed, it D.C., Duncan spoke about the impor- will be judged revolutionary and could cre- t h tance of school health and vowed to “What I’m ate a transformative change in the ways we promote change. proposing is educate the next generation of Americans.” “I think [Duncan] gets it. But the U.S. is In Colorado, it’s still far too early to know unique in having such a decentralized edu- going to require whether Basch’s proposed reforms will cation system,” Basch says. “The govern- a real social achieve that kind of impact. But in Octo- ment is incredibly influential, but it also has ber, Wasserman of the Legacy Foundation limitations. And the politics are intense.” change in the reported hearing from teachers that, since hool H eal c hool S of J ournal Ba sc h, Indeed, politics are a major reason why way we think of the launch of the new school breakfast pro- Basch, who is no great fan of standardized gram, “kids are way more focused. testing, has made a dramatic improve- the mission “In Boulder, one kindergarten teacher ment in standardized test scores the key told us that she has a little girl in her class e: Charle s s our c e: w ’ of schools.” endpoint of his proposed study. It may be, who had never spoken,” Wasserman says. as his TC colleague Michael Rebell sug- — Chuck Basch “When they began serving breakfast, she

‘did you kno you ‘did gests, that comprehensive school health spoke for the first time.” TC

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 37 38 fall/ n t t c winter 2012 www.tc .edu/tctoday o u h h e i t r o s t e u i

shutterstock SOUND mind, SOUND body

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Students in TC’s Deaf/Hard of Hearing program wrestle with the big questions about assistive technology

By Barbara Finkelstein

“I don’t understand, Dad,” rages the narrator of Raymond Luczak’s poem “Practice” and smashes his hearing aid with the telephone receiver. The poet himself, who lost most of his hearing after being stricken with double pneumonia as an infant, has passed a similar verdict on audio tech-

o c k nology, declaring that it renders sound “noisy and meaningless.” Michael Sagum, a first-year student in TC’s Deaf and Hard of Hearing (D/HH) program, takes a somewhat different view. Born profoundly deaf s hu tt er st

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 39 ing world? How long does it take to become a fluent signer? What is the impact on the child of the parents’ approach to language? The deaf and hearing worlds have been debating these ques- tions, in one form or another, since the prototypes for modern assistive technology emerged late in the 19th century. In one camp, many deaf individ- uals and organizations that speak for them have described deafness as a unique culture, with its own language and modes of social in- teraction, rather than as something to be cured. The National Asso-

TO HEAR OR NOT TO HEAR? Rosen (left) and Kretschmer pose questions ciation of the Deaf has yet to fully that go to the heart of cognition and identity. endorse cochlear implants, a tech- nology introduced in the 1970s. The Association says CIs are not in both ears, Sagum, as a mainstreamed student in Seattle, appropriate for all deaf and hard of hearing children and adults relied on hearing aids and FM listening systems. He had au- and not a cure for deafness, and that success stories with im- ditory and speech therapy from the time that his hearing loss plants should not be overgeneralized. In the other camp, most was diagnosed at the age of 10 months. of the hearing world, as well as some schools for the deaf, did At 15, Sagum elected to receive a cochlear implant (CI). not approve ASL as a legitimate language until the mid-1990s. He still gets emotional when he remembers the moment the Under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, implant was activated and he heard birds chirping. Sagum deaf children – like all children with disabilities, and not unlike says that hearing his own speech is a “source of pride” but their typically developing counterparts – are now accorded a is careful to emphasize that he respects all ways of commu- “free and appropriate education” at schools in their own neigh- nication for the deaf. He feels that the years of auditory and borhoods. And, according to a directive that proponents of deaf speech therapy that he has had are a critical component for culture view as being comparable to policy regarding English the success of the cochlear implant. He’s also chosen to learn Language Learners, public schools must “consider the com- American Sign Language (ASL), which he calls “a very im- munications needs” of D/HH children and provide “opportuni- portant part of my life.” ties for direct instruction in the To hear or not to hear? child’s language and communi- As technology improves, that’s increasingly the question cation mode.” did you know? for many people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and it But which mode? speaks to the very nature of identity and cognition. Hearing aids, which evolved In the United States, “Does language map out what you already know, does lan- in part from the work of Alex- roughly guage dictate thought or does language add to the cognitive ander Graham Bell and were map?” Robert Kretschmer, Associate Professor of Education first marketed in behind-the- 42,600 and Psychology, asks students in his first-year course, Lan- ear form in the 1950s, amplify guage Development and Rehabilitation. “As educators and sound but do not separate out e INst i t u e t ional researchers, we are obligated to ask how children process the speech from ambient noise. adults world if they do so without the sense of hearing.” Nor can they adequately am-

Kretschmer, who assigns readings on the language devel- plify high pitches, particularly N a s our c e: w ’ opment theories of linguists such as Benjamin Whorf Lee high female voices. 28,400 D i s order t ion and psychologists such as Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, Personal FM systems have raises a host of issues related to the cognition and educa- proved somewhat more effec- ; ‘did you kno you ‘did o s ; tion of D/HH children. Is signing an absolute equivalent of tive, especially in the class- children t spoken language? Will a child whose deafness goes undi- room. The teacher speaks into her Communi c a her Ot and agnosed past the age of three experience lifelong learning a microphone, usually a lava- have received p ho file cochlear implants. tc : and thinking deficits? With the use of assistive technologies, lier. The student receives the L ef t on D eafne ss on will a deaf child identify more with the hearing or the sign- signal, via radio waves, through p To

40 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday an FM receiver that may or may not include implants and tend to place too much a hearing aid interface. FM systems improve faith in technology. I worry about the the speech-to-noise ratio, an assigned num- kids whose family members, teachers, ber value that boosts the voice speaking into coaches and friends assume that the the microphone over background noise such kids are doing very well when, in fact, as scraping chairs, air conditioners and stu- deaf children miss some pretty signifi- dents. The focus on the microphone wearer’s “ cant elements of classroom instruction voice can be further heightened by a cochlear h earing and after-school life.” implant. But there are drawbacks: The FM Atkins says that in mainstream class- signal quality may be hampered by unknown is not the rooms, “most kids who are deaf or hard interference, and the system may be too com- of hearing sit in front of the class so that plex for young children to use without help. only means of they can see the board and teacher. But And then there are cochlear implants them- obtaining what happens when a student behind selves, which have stirred the greatest hopes – them says something? The deaf child and controversies. Unlike hearing aids, which information may miss all or part of what was said, rely on inner ear hair cells to convert vibra- whether she has a cochlear implant, a tions into nerve signals, cochlear implants and hearing aid or use of an FM system.” transmit directly to the auditory nerve, which communicating Atkins says she has addressed this issue then sends information to the brain. Some im- by asking students to repeat what they plant recipients, such as TC’s Michael Sagum, with said – a benefit for all concerned. But in praise the device for enabling them to learn to people.” a fast-moving classroom, lunchroom or speak and interact with hearing people. Oth- social situation, such instant replay isn’t ers who are deaf or hard of hearing argue that, — Russell Rosen always possible. at best, implants, can only approximate an Will technology ever elevate deaf or ability they will never fully have. hard-of-hearing students to the status “What’s the point of using a CI if it does not do anything of equal players in a hearing world? for me except make me aware of environmental noises?” Rusty Rosen is skeptical. says Russell (“Rusty”) Rosen, a lecturer in the D/HH program “Every generation has a ‘true believer’ faith in a particu- at TC who is deaf. “Hearing is not the only means of obtain- lar technology,” he says. “In the late 1960s, when I was a ing information and communicating with people.” student at the Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens, Graduates of TC’s D/HH program must accommodate to people thought hearing aids were a cure-all. Chairs were all these views when they work in schools and other settings. arranged in a semicircle. The students wore headphones “The children I work with are cochlear implant and hear- and the teacher spoke into a microphone. But what I ing aid users, and most rely on FM systems in school,” says heard through my hearing aids were mechanical sounds, Dana Selznick (M.A., M.Ed ’10), who is a hearing educa- not organic human voices. So, even though the technology tion teacher for the New York City Department of Educa- was focused on auditory intake, the classroom was really tion. “What you learn right away is that you have to integrate only set up for visual learning.” More recently, Rosen re- the technology based on knowing the child’s unique needs. calls a school board member – a physician, no less – who Each child responds to new assistive technology differently, rejected tenure for an ASL teacher on the grounds that which is why it is so important to understand the learner as cochlear implants had made deafness obsolete. “We’re a whole. For example, teachers have to train the kids to un- just not there,” he says. derstand the difference between voice qualities when using Atkins believes technology plays a vital role, particularly for the FM system.” those who have some hearing. “Signing is an important part of Dale Atkins (M.A. ’72), a TV and radio personality who deaf communication for a large segment of the D/HH popula- graduated from the College’s deaf education program and tion, but it doesn’t do anything for people who are basically has worked extensively with D/HH children, their families auditory learners.” Still, she says, the ultimate role of deaf- and professionals in the United States and abroad, says education specialists and other experts is to help the deaf and that assistive technologies have not changed the basic hard of hearing cut through the noise around the technology- equation facing children with hearing issues. “The cogni- versus-signing debate and find the best individual solutions tive and learning issues that existed before the era of co- for themselves and their families. chlear implants haven’t really disappeared,” Atkins says. “People are starting to understand that the conversation “Certainly, the earlier a child is implanted, the earlier he’ll about deafness can’t exclusively be about technology,” At-

o c k have access to language and good speech patterns, and kins says. “It’s about celebrating children for the unique and the better off he’ll be. The problem, though, is that hear- precious people they are. Realizing that is a human advance, ing people have very high expectations for the cochlear not a technological one.”

s hu tt er st TC

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 41 Eating

BEFORE SWALLOWING THERAPY The brain of a right hemisphere stroke patient with a swallowing disorder. There is almost no neural activity associated with his swallowing.

When patients relearn the seemingly innate act of swallowing, their brains change – and their lives can, too By Patricia Lamiell

One afternoon this past August, Joseph Forrester underwent Now, after four weeks of trial therapy, Forrester was testing at the Dysphagia Research Clinic at Teachers College’s being reevaluated by Amy Ishkanian and Carly Wein- Edward D. Mysak Clinic for Communication Disorders. reb, master’s degree students in TC’s Speech-Language Since suffering a stroke the previous January, Forrester Pathology program, which runs the Mysak Clinic. After had been unable to swallow food or drink without choking performing some other tests, Ishkanian and Weinreb gave (the condition called dysphagia). He was being fed through Forrester a few sips of water. He sputtered a little but got a tube in his stomach, but he missed eating, especially jerk it down. They used a small, balloonlike device on the end chicken and fish, specialties of his native Jamaica. of a tube to test Forrester’s tongue strength, and they pro-

42 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday Smarter

AFTER 8 WEEKS OF SWALLOWING THERAPY Significantly increased brain activity of the same patient during swallowing. This change was accompanied by functional improvements in swallowing.

When patients relearn the seemingly innate act of swallowing, their brains change – and their lives can, too By Patricia Lamiell

nounced his progress good. They swabbed different fla- apy program, says that Forrester and four other patients in vors – sweet, salty, sour and bitter – on his tongue, and he a pilot project at Mysak have all “improved remarkably” in

nne R o bb in s . A nne identified each. They checked his gag reflex and air flow their ability to swallow. But it’s what may be going on in their ed s ed u (2011), J ohn s on & – again, all signs positive. They asked him to repeat the brains that she finds truly exciting.

r. J o D r. y word buttercup as quickly as he could, and he complied, In the small, utilitarian space on the ninth floor of until they all broke into giggles. Thorndike Hall that she established last year as TC’s Georgia Malandraki, Assistant Professor of Speech-Lan- Swallowing, Voice and Neuroimaging Laboratory, Malan- guage Pathology, who spearheads TC’s new swallowing ther- draki has been analyzing functional magnetic resonance ed Ba s ed I n c . Son s , & Wiley J ohn from p ermi ss ion w i t h b led st udy a on alandraki, R o bb in s M alandraki, I n:

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 43 Swallowing disorders are on the rise, and the demand for therapy is growing rapidly. As advances in health care and nutri- tion enable people to live longer, rates of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other dis- orders that disproportionately affect the elderly have risen dramatically, and many of these conditions trigger dysphagia. Indeed, of all patients seen by speech- language pathologists in hospitals, nurs- ing homes and rehabilitation centers last year, more than half received swallow- ing therapy, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. In New York City alone, up to 90 per- cent of patients seen by speech-language pathologists in acute-care facilities have swallowing disorders.

BACK AT THE TABLE Forrester can eat solid food again Many dysphagia patients lose their after weeks of therapy at TC’s Mysak Clinic. Elana Winters, a student cough reflex, putting them in danger of in Speech-Language Pathology, looks on. aspirating food or liquid into the lungs and developing pneumonia or dying. While feeding tubes offer an alternative, they are expensive and inconvenient and raise the risk of in- “Nobody has ever shown fection. Moreover, eating is one of the few remaining pleasures before that swallowing for the frail elderly, and Malandraki and other experts say that many of those who lose the ability to eat lose their appetite and strengthening therapy can lead their will to go on living, as well. More than 35 muscle pairs are involved in swallow- to neuroplasticity.” ing, including most of those involved in speech. Like all — Georgia Malandraki muscles above the neck, they are connected directly to the brain stem by cranial nerves that bypass the spine. Un- til the 1970s, doctors believed that the swallowing reflex images (fMRIs) of the brains of dysphagia patients who is innate and governed largely by the autonomic nervous participated in a postdoctoral research project she con- system. They believed that, although swallowing can be ducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under intentional, the throat muscles mostly work like the heart, the direction of swallowing researcher JoAnne Robbins. which beats continuously without conscious direction Like Joseph Forrester, some of the patients in that project from the brain. It was thought that someone who had lost performed regular tongue exercises over an eight-week the ability to swallow could never recover it. period in order to restore tongue strength diminished by By the early 1980s, Martin stroke or other brain injury. W. Donner at Johns Hop- Initial images taken before the patients began their exercise kins and, later, Jerilynn A. regimen showed large brain areas where there was little to no Logemann at Northwestern neural activity. But images retaken halfway through the trial, University (who has been and again at the conclusion, showed increasingly large multi- Malandraki’s collaborator) colored splotches, indicating more brain activity (see images on and other researchers began pages 42 and 43). Malandraki says the results, which have been to understand swallowing

submitted for publication at the 2013 International Stroke as a more complex, coordi- LE W I S Conference, appear to offer the field’s first true confirmation nated activity performed by UXEM

of what has long been suspected and hoped: Muscle exercises muscles in the mouth, throat VAN

not only improve muscular function, but also can stimulate and esophagus that activates T HER HEA neuroplasticity – the actual rebuilding of injured areas of the different parts of the brain. Y brain or the transfer of brain functions to healthy areas. Their research led to a new B “Nobody has ever shown before that swallowing strengthen- hypothesis: By exercising OGRA P Hs ing therapy can lead to neuroplasticity,” Malandraki says. georgia malandraki these swallowing muscles, T P HO

44 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday patients were transferring func- did you know? tion to new brain regions. In recent years, a range of Approximately technologies have made it pos- sible to pinpoint which neurons At the come into play under different 10 conditions and in response to MILLION different stimuli, enabling re- Mysak Clinic, Americans are evaluated searchers to correlate observed each year with behavior with brain function A Growing swallowing difficulties. and development. The Dyspha- gia Research Clinic in the Mysak Emphasis on However, studies Clinic is newly equipped with indicate prevalence many of these technologies, in- of swallowing cluding high-quality fiber-optic the Brain disorders may be as endoscopes, which are used for high as the evaluation and diagnosis of swallowing physiology; elec- TC’s clinic for communi- particularly as more has cation disorders opened become known about tromyography (EMG), which in the 1940s and was the role of the brain in 22% is used for evaluation of the later named for speech speech and swallowing. electrical activity produced by in adults over 50. pathologist Edward D. Georgia Malandraki was swallowing muscles; respira- Mysak. Today, under the hired at TC by John Sax- tory biofeedback and muscle- direction of Dr. Kathleen man, who will step down Youse and her assistant in 2013 as Speech-Lan- strengthening devices; and sensory stimulation equipment director, Elise Wagner, the guage Pathology program and materials. Mysak Clinic spans a wide coordinator, because of Currently, Malandraki is working with doctors and therapists range of areas, of which her ability to introduce at Columbia Medical Center who treat patients with dysphagia swallowing – a func- scientific methods and caused by head and neck cancer. Using fMRI technology, she tion that employs many swallowing research into of the same muscles as a mostly linguistically evaluates candidates for trans-oral robotic surgery, which can speech – is the newest oriented program. remove the tumors without an incision to the neck or throat, and and smallest. At the same time, measures how the tumors have affected swallowing physiology The clinic provides di- however, Malandraki says and brain function before and after surgery. Malandraki started agnostic and therapeutic she likes the interdisci- the project in 2011 with Salvatore Caruana, Chief of Head and services for a sliding- plinary environment at scale fee for children and TC, especially within the Neck Surgery at Columbia Medical Center, backed by a grant adults with disorders of Biobehavioral Sciences from TC’s Provost’s Investment Fund. The team, which includes language, articulation, Department, where An- Robert De La Paz, Columbia’s Director of Neuroradiology, and voice and fluency, as well drew Gordon, Peter Gor- TC alumnus Winston Cheng, Chief Speech Pathologist, is at- as the problems associ- don, Tara McIsaac, Carol tempting to raise more money to establish a swallowing and ated with cleft palate, Ewing Garber and other cerebral palsy, hearing faculty work at the nexus neuroimaging center at Columbia. loss, aphasia and other of the brain and body. Meanwhile, Joseph Forrester has continued to come regu- handicaps. Malandraki also appre- larly to the clinic and to do his assigned tongue and neck Under the close ciates the opportunities t ion exercises at home. By early October, he had made further supervision of faculty to mine neurocognitive progress in swallowing and tongue strength and had re- members, every student research being conducted in TC’s Speech-Language at TC, most notably by sumed eating many of his favorite foods. He had even gone, Pathology program, which the incoming Speech- unescorted, to a friend’s house and eaten his beloved jerk earing Ass o c ia H earing includes those who par- Pathology program chicken. The swallowing therapy at the Dysphagia Research ticipate in the new Dys- coordinator, Karen Froud, Clinic “has given him his independence back,” says his son, phagia Research Clinic, who runs the College’s L anguage/ Jason Forrester. does some clinical work Neurocognition of Lan- at Mysak with clients guage Lab. As of this writing, the elder Forrester was still using the referred by physicians or “This is a great place feeding tube in his stomach to ingest water, a challenging word of mouth. to be,” Malandraki says, substance for patients with dysphagia, but there was hope The fields of both “because there are so that the tube could be taken out in a few months. “When my speech-language pa- many tools at your dis- father first had his stroke, the initial concern was the length thology and swallowing posal and so many great p ee c h/ S A meri c an s our c e: w ’ research have become minds at work on related of time, efficacy and danger of infection using the feeding more scientifically-based, problems.” — PL tube,” Jason Forrester says. “That’s not something we’re even

‘did you kno you ‘did speaking about now.” TC

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 45 By Jonathan Sapers south sudan

democratic republic of the congo uganda kenya

IT TAKES A VILLAGE Verdeli recruited community members who were not psychology professionals.

rwanda y of of c our t e s y verdeli lena

46 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday Lettering and map by MarÍa Sanoja IT TAKES A VILLAGE Verdeli recruited community members who were not psychology professionals. y of of c our t e s y verdeli lena

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 47 assessment of mental-health needs by Johns Hopkins Universi- ty showed that many adults were so paralyzed by yo’kwekyawa and okwekubazida – self-hatred and self-pity – that they were neglecting their families and cutting themselves off from community resources. Verdeli, Director of TC’s Global Mental Health Lab, thought these states of mind sounded strikingly like depres- sion, but she worried about “medicalizing” extreme suffer- ing. After all, who wouldn’t be depressed living under such adverse conditions? Still, she was encouraged by a field re- port from her colleague, Paul Bolton, a Johns Hopkins public health researcher, indicating that Ugandans themselves rec- ognized they had a problem and were eagerly seeking help. With few doctors available and no funds to provide medica- tion, Bolton had recruited Verdeli to collaborate in a clinical trial of interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), a time-limited treatment for depression, with standardized steps and inclusion criteria, rriving in codeveloped by her mentor, Columbia University psychologist and epidemiologist Myrna Weissman. Under an agreement southern with the nongovernmental organization World Vision, Verdeli and a colleague, Kathleen Clougherty, would train African men- Uganda in tal health professionals employed by World Vision to lead group therapy sessions among the villagers. 2002, Teachers College Yet, almost as soon as they stepped off the plane, Verdeli psychologist Lena Verdeli and Clougherty learned from Bolton that World Vision had decided it could not spare its personnel. Instead, Verdeli and knew she had her work cut Clougherty would be working with the mental health work- ers’ younger brothers and sisters – people who had no psy- out for her. The country had chological training at all. “Kathy and I just looked at each other and said, ‘Now we endured a brutal civil war are here, why not?’” Verdeli says. and was still in the midst of a In the end, the raw recruits turned out to be a blessing in dis- guise. Since they came from the same communities as the study devastating AIDS epidemic. participants, they gave valuable input about the local culture, where people seemed to view themselves primarily as commu- Vast numbers of people in nity and family members rather than as individuals. “There is an old African saying, ‘People are people within the northern regions were people,’” Verdeli says. “It means that people are defined by living in internally displaced other people, by a mutual and endless reflection of them- selves in their community and group that constantly shapes persons camps. A qualitative and reshapes individual identity.” Tossing aside their training guides, Verdeli and Clougherty asked their train- ees open-ended questions in order to de- velop a culturally relevant context for un- derstanding Uganda’s malaise. For example, Verdeli says, IPT theory identifies four categories of depression triggers: the death of a loved one; covert and overt disputes; life transitions such as job loss or divorce; and interpersonal deficits such as longstanding difficulties in initiating and maintaining relationships. However, during the discussions the train- ees gave them examples that fit into the Lena Verdeli first three categories but not the fourth.

48 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday ian development agencies. Following the success of IPT in southern Uganda, Verdeli and Clougherty were asked by another NGO, War Child, to adapt IPT for children in internally displaced persons camps in northern Uganda. Many of the children had previously been abducted by rebels in the Lord’s Resistance Army, a militant cult accused of widespread human rights abuses. There were important differences in these populations. For example, unlike the adults in the south, many of the children had interpersonal deficits as a re- sult of their traumatic developmental histories. “The kids had grown up without attachments, and sometimes with very limited language,” Verdeli says. “Sometimes their objects of at- tachment were the rebels themselves. The kids THE GOOD NEWS Even depression resulting from were very confused because some of the rebels physical disaster can be treated. were actually affectionate with them.” An IPT adaptation for these children was compared with an existing, play-therapy intervention and “They basically told us, ‘We don’t have that problem here, was shown to be more effective in improving depression. because we do everything in groups,’” Verdeli says. Verdeli has applied lessons learned from Uganda to her work The trainees also provided valuable insights in conducting elsewhere. For example, in order to ensure sustainability, her role-play exercises designed to help people explore accept- projects in Goa and Haiti are built around partnerships with able ways of becoming “unstuck” from oppressive situations. local health care centers, government agencies and universi- Sometimes they described solutions that might have eluded ties. Meanwhile, she and others are building the case globally or even alienated someone with Western values. for improving the treatment of depression in under-resourced For example, when a woman in Uganda discovers she can- areas. That’s important, because as infectious diseases are in- not conceive, an acceptable option might be to ask a friend or creasingly brought under control, depression is emerging as the a relative to marry her husband and give one of the resulting condition with the greatest impact worldwide, as measured by children to her to parent as her own. Or, when a man with AIDS financial cost, death and other factors. The World Health Orga- insists that his wife have unprotected sex with him, she might nization reports that 75 percent of the world’s neuropsychiatric ask an older member of her husband’s family to act as her ad- disorders occur in lower-income countries. vocate, and thereby avoid the “International donors and agencies have known for a long ostracism that will follow from time that depression is incredibly disabling,” Verdeli says,

resisting and being sent back to did you know? but they’ve focused on poverty, disease and other conditions T H her parents’ home. that breed it. “Since our team and others showed through HEAL A randomized, controlled Depression affects studies that distress can be significantly alleviated even in 121 million trial of Verdeli’s IPT program people worldwide. the context of extreme poverty, international agencies have in southern Uganda was con- started paying more attention.”

: W ORLD S OUR C E : W” ducted. Participants who re- Teachers College and Columbia are capitalizing on this mo-

KNO ceived the treatment reported mentum, collaborating with the New York State Psychiatric

YOU an 80 percent reduction in Institute and Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health to T IVE 15% prevalence of depression at of the population from create a Global Mental Health program that offers two different INI T IA the end of the trial. World Vi- high-income countries master’s degree programs – one based at Mailman that empha- ; “ DID VERDELI ; sion hired the trainees, who and sizes epidemiology and policy, and one at TC that emphasizes ) S URVEY ) LENA went on to treat – and train mental health assessment and treatment. OF MH (W

T H others to treat – some 6,000 “Global mental health is going to be a major source of in-

HEAL people. Ironically, World Vi- novation, because people in under-resourced areas have to AL sion ultimately closed the pro- 11% think out of the box to deal with the shortages,” Verdeli says.

MEN T

T: C OUR T E S Y RIGH T: O P gram precisely because it was from low/middle-income For example, in Haiti, community health workers do regular T so successful (passing it on countries are likely to checkups with people afflicted with a number of health con- W ORLD get depression over their

T ION to volunteers) and turned its ditions – an approach Verdeli would love to see adopted in T AND LEF T lifetimes.

OM attention elsewhere – a com- the United States: “Let’s not forget we have a lot of under- TT ORGANI Z A B O mon occurrence in humanitar- resourced communities in our own backyard.” TC

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 49 As Nurses go, So Goes Health care

Current TC faculty and legendary alumnae weigh in on why nursing education is more important than ever

By David McKay Wilson

“If you want to improve the health care system, nurses have to be at the table,” says Margaret McClure (M.A. ’65, Ed.D. ’72), Professor and retired Chief Nursing Officer at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. “But those nurses need to be educated.” Claire Fagin (M.A. ’51), former Dean of the University of Penn- sylvania’s College of Nursing (and subsequently Interim President of Penn itself), calls nursing “the application of science in an artistic way” that requires its practitioners to be “very knowledgeable— about science, about humanity, about patient care.” The vision of nurses as professionals who, like physicians, teach- ers and others in highly technical fields, must pursue lifelong learn- ing, was born at Teachers College. Since Mary Adelaide Nutting launched the nation’s first nursing education program more than a century ago, the College has produced thousands of nurse educa- tors. TC now serves the field through its Diabetes Education and Management and nurse executive programs. “Today, we approach the education of nurses across the breadth

of TC’s programs,” says Kathleen O’Connell, TC’s Isabel Maitland o c k Stewart Professor of Nursing Education, and founding Director of the Diabetes Education and Management program, which was s hu tt er st

50 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 51 launched with a gift from TC Trustee Marla Schaefer (M.A. uate baccalaureate program to equip nurses as “primary prac- ’03). “Diabetes is a classic example of an area where the nursing titioners” who conducted initial patient workups. Fagin later field is making a huge impact, because diabetes is a disorder was a pioneer in shaping gerontological care and in “retirement” where most of the management occurs in the patients’ homes. has helped create scholarships for nurse educators to conduct Education by diabetes educators is critical for success.” research. She believes the profession needs more people with Elaine La Monica Rigolosi, Professor of Education and Di- doctorates who can build the discipline and research national rector of the College’s Executive Program in Nursing, sees policy issues – skills TC helped her to acquire. nurses as “leaders who are shaping health care” through their “It was an atmosphere of intellectualism that I had never ex- management and coordination of patient care and their grow- perienced before,” Fagin says. “I felt truly educated.” ing executive function in many medical organizations. She McClure, who taught at TC from 1972 to 1981 and received says that now more than ever, all of these functions require the the College’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999, has led in kind of interdisciplinary preparation found at institutions such encouraging more nurses to obtain four-year bachelor’s degrees. as Teachers College. “Our society is increasingly diverse, and She helped develop nurse-education standards for “magnet nurses need to be able to respond as well as to use skills in lead- hospitals,” a designation increasingly sought by top institutions ership, management, psychology and other fields. At TC, we’ve across the country. In recent years, McClure also has developed been pacesetters in the field.” seamless protocols for nursing students transferring from New McClure and Fagin – both lionized as “Living Legends” by York City community colleges to four-year state institutions. She the American Academy of Nursing – and several other promi- obtained funding for a pilot program at Queensborough Commu- nent TC alumnae have adapted and re-adapted nursing science nity College and Hunter College, which is now being replicated at and practice to the challenges of new eras. Their work cuts Lehmann Community College and Bronx Community College.

Educating the Field

claire fagin Laura Jannone lucille joel ruth lubic Margaret mcclure

across hospitals, nursing homes, birthing centers, homes and “Nurses need more knowledge to give care in a more complex schools and has helped shaped the careers of nursing profes- world,” says McClure. “We’ve raised the ceiling – you can now sionals in advanced practice and those of nurse practitioners, get a Ph.D. in nursing – but we haven’t raised the floor.” nurse midwives and nurse specialists. Indeed, while more than 300 universities offer programs that All agree that today, when nurses constitute the largest occu- lead to a doctorate in nursing practice, tens of thousands of pational sector in American health care and the defining chal- nurses continue to earn their R.N. credential from community lenge they face is the management of chronic disease, education colleges and a few remaining hospital-based diploma schools. me z ey t hy is especially important. Lucille Joel (Ed.D. ’70), Professor at Rutgers College of Nurs- Fagin, at 17, attended an undergraduate nursing program at ing, says the push to boost the entry-level credential for nursing Wagner College after being advised that colleges, rather than has had ramifications for the latter group. hospitals, represented the future of the profession. At Lehman “It’s a shabby market for those nurses without a B.S.,” says College, she subsequently founded the nation’s first undergrad- Joel, a past President of the American Nurses Association who y of ma of c our t e s y m cc lure; is active in TC’s Nursing Education ille joel; joel; lu c ille of c our t e s y jannone; laura of c our t e s y o s ; Alumni Association. “Hospitals have t “Diabetes is a classic example of where come to expect it.” Joel, whose textbooks, Kelly’s Di- p ho file : tc : nursing is making a huge impact, mensions of Nursing and Advanced y of margare t of c our t e s y o s ; o righ t o t because most of the management occurs Nursing Practice Nursing, are widely t used on the collegiate level, teaches

— Kathleen O’Connell an online course at Rutgers for R.N.s p ho file from lef t from in patients’ homes.” tc

52 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday seeking a four-year degree. She says nursing faculty positions have become increasingly difficult to fill. “Nurses need more Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, knowledge to give more care in Joel is devising new ways to attract nurses with ad- vanced degrees to the professoriate. a complex world.”— Margaret McClure “The salary scale in academia is much below the scale in the practice arena,” says Joel, recipient of TC’s Distin- guished Alumni Award in 2012, “so it’s a big challenge to get On the other end of the life spectrum, Ruth Lubic, (B.S. ’59, faculty to stay in academic practice.” M.A. ’61, Ed.D. ’79), has championed personalized care dur- Laura Jannone (Ed.D. ’06), recipient of the New Jersey ing labor and childbirth, particularly for women in low-income League 2010 Nurse Recognition Award, is Associate Profes- neighborhoods. Lubic – the first nurse to win a MacArthur sor in the School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Monmouth “genius” award – is a leader in creating opportunities for nurse- University, where she developed and directs a program to train midwives to deliver newborns in nurse-run settings. She found- school nurses. Jannone says school nurses play an increasingly ed New York City’s Childbearing Center on East 92nd Street in important role as schools mainstream children who depend 1975 and co-founded the National Association of Childbearing on medical technologies, such as insulin pumps for diabetics, Centers. She also has helped establish 230 free-standing birth which require daily monitoring. centers across the country – work that earned her the Fore- More broadly, school nurses are typically the only on-site mother Award for Lifetime Achievements from the National health professionals serving thousands of students and faculty. Research Center for Women and Families. “Our role becomes like a community-health position,” says Her most recent project – the D.C. Developing Families Cen- Jannone, who has testified before ter, which she founded in 2000 in the nation’s capital – provides New Jersey officials to oppose efforts comprehensive care to low-income, predominantly African to eliminate nurses from schools. American patients. The family health and birth center, which is “You serve a high school with 1,500 run on a nurse-midwifery model, has delivered improved out- kids, and it becomes quite complex.” comes, with fewer pre-term births, low-birth-weight newborns Complexity also challenges nurs- and deliveries by cesarean section. es who practice in nursing homes, “When I was in nursing school in the 1950s, the treatment of where patients have physical, cogni- women giving birth was almost barbaric,” Lubic recalls. “They’d tive and functional disabilities. Ma- be put under general anesthesia and cuffed to the table. They thy Mezey (Ed.M. ’73, Ed.D. ’77), weren’t allowed to touch the baby. How could women mother Professor Emerita, Senior Research after such an experience?” Scientist and Associate Director of She’s now raising funds to implement the D.C. Develop- the Hartford Institute for Geriatric ing Families Center model across the country. “There are so mathy mezey Nursing at NYU’s College of Nurs- many places that want to replicate what we’ve done,” she ing, recently developed placement says. “We need to carry it further, to make sure all families for nursing students in nursing have the best chance to raise healthy children who can suc- homes and is working on protocols to encourage more nurses ceed in their educational efforts.” TC to specialize in geriatric care. “Nursing homes are great places to learn how to interview and interact with people,” says Mezey, co-editor of The Ency- did you know? F u t ure clopedia of Elder Care. “The patients you see on Monday and Tuesday will still be there when you come back a week later, so There were Their number is projected student nurses see that their actions are making a difference.” to rise to Nursing, like other helping professions, including social 2,618,700 s N ur s ing’ for aign work and medicine, suffers from a dearth of professionals who nurses in the 3,200,000 choose to specialize in the care of the elderly, Mezey says. She United States in by has worked with the American Association of Colleges of Nurs- ing both to develop curriculum materials for geriatric studies and to encourage nursing schools to require courses in geriat- 2008 2018 ric nursing. On the graduate level, Mezey has worked with the AACN to develop web-based resources and cases studies to help faculty introduce mandated changes that will require nurs- ing schools to merge their adult and gerontological programs on, The Cam p The J ohn s on, & J ohn s on s our c e: w ’ into combined advanced practice programs. constituting the largest segment of the health “This should markedly increase the numbers of advanced care industry.

‘did you kno you ‘did practice nurses who can care for older adults,” she says.

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 53 E. John Rosenwald Jr. is not only a master Not Very fundraiser, but also a fount of wisdom and a force of Tall, nature who can prod institutions to But Bigger reinvent themselves Than Life By Joe Levine

selling the sizzle For Rosenwald, it’s about making donors’ mouths water.

54 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday

ack in 2009, E. John Rosenwald could build a new major called Save the World. Wouldn’t that Jr. brought a proposal for a new have been great?” academic concentration to the Rosenwald shakes his head. “I’m a disciple of [legendary new president of Dartmouth Col- advertising guru] David Ogilvy, and one of his favorite say- lege, Jim Yong Kim. ings that I’ve adopted is, ‘You don’t sell the steak, you sell the “[Kim] was a biomedical re- sizzle.’ If I say ‘steak,’ you picture cold, red-and-white pieces searcher who spent his life sav- of meat at the butcher’s. But if I say ‘sizzling steak,’ your ing the world – working on mouth waters. And that’s really the major challenge in philan- drug-resistant tuberculosis, HIV/ thropy, because people are getting sick and tired of routine AIDS and river blindness,” says asks – a new tennis court or swimming pool, or to endow Rosenwald, alumnus and Chair- money for financial aid. Those are all very good things, but man Emeritus of Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees. “So my idea the trick is to come up with something really compelling and was that we’d have a central building, with wings for the study different. How do I make potential donors’ mouths water?” Bof terrorism, the environment, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, develop- At 82, Rosenwald is an indefatigable five-foot-five dynamo ing seeds to grow food in areas without water, and so forth. We who puts in full days as Vice Chairman Emeritus of JPMor- gan Chase. He then heads off to the many business meetings, galas, dinners and other events that fill the calendar of a man whose valued advice, support and leadership have landed him on boards – and frequently at the head of capital cam- paigns – of an astonishing number of major organizations. These range from the Central Park Conservancy and the En- vironmental Defense Fund to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and NYU Langone Medical Center, to Teachers College. Rosenwald likes to joke that the grueling pace has worn him down. A slate in his office that is engraved with his say- ings proclaims, “When I started out in this business, I was six-foot-three with long blond hair.” Yet he seems clearly en- ergized by all of his nonprofit board work, which has prompt- ed fellow board members to regard him as a fount of wisdom, an impact player and a primal force of nature. “He’s not very tall, but he’s larger than life,” says Sue Ann Weinberg, a friend since the two were teenagers and his fel- low trustee on TC’s board, where Rosenwald, who joined in 2002, oversees the committee on development. “Having him on your team says to anyone who knows him that you’re go- did you know? ing to be successful. And a lot of people know him.” Rosenwald is widely recognized as a master fundraiser. In Fundraisers for schools, colleges and 2000, The New York Times reported that he had generated universities in the more than $2 billion for good causes, using the 10 principles United States he calls “Rosie’s Rules.” (A sampling: “Nobody is insulted by estimate that giving to being asked for too much.” Another: “The sale begins when education grew the customer says no.”) At the same time, Rosenwald also possesses a skill per- haps even more valued when money is tight and the com-

il for for Coun c il s our c e: w ’ 4.9% petition for philanthropic dollars is fierce: the ability to prod last academic year. institutions to think differently about what they do. “I’ve been with John on numerous occasions when he’s spoken They predict further to boards, and when they say, ‘Well, we need more money,’ he typ- t ion growth of ically asks them, ‘Why? What are you going to do with it? What’s the end route?’” says fellow TC board member Jim Benkard, who of E du c a of . ‘did you kno you ‘did L e w i s . U xem an is a senior partner at the law firm Davis, Polk & Wardwell. “He’s an investment banker, so he thinks in that linear way. And more her V t her 5.9% often than not, he ends up telling his board colleagues, ‘You’re y H ea y and Su pp or t and for the current academic year that not shooting high enough,’ because he believes that you should

h b ogra p h began July 1. always be in capital campaign mode. You never stop.” t selling the sizzle For Rosenwald, it’s about making donors’ mouths water. c emen t A dvan Pho Rosenwald himself puts the matter in starker terms. “I was

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 55 once quoted in a special issue of Forbes magazine, next to you’re forced to look back and say, ‘I must credit my college Disraeli, saying that the difference between the for-profit and in some part for my success.’ On top of that, I tell people, non-profit worlds is that in business, everything is dog-eat- ‘Even paying full tuition covered only a quarter of the cost dog, and in philanthropy, it’s just the opposite.” of your education. The rest comes from annual giving and He grins. “Change is constant, and you need to be flexible. the endowment, and goddammit, you have a responsibility The most dangerous words are ‘We’ve been doing business to take care of those who come after you.’” this way for many years, so there’s no need to change.’ That Rosenwald has been hugely successful in business. He mindset is cancer in both the nonprofit and business worlds, capped his 54 years at Bear, Sterns & Company by serving because sooner or later, economics are going to get you. Take as Co-president and Vice Chairman of the firm. Now Vice the automobile industry. Chairmen come and go, boards of Chairman Emeritus of JPMorgan, he always has made phi- directors come and go, but the United Auto Workers – the lanthropy an equal priority. tenured faculty of General Motors – is always there. Man- “So many of my colleagues say, ‘I don’t mind giving money, agement and unions sometimes don’t get along very well, but don’t ask me to ask someone else to give,’” he says. “I’m good but every three years they have had to sit down in a room at that, and I started early. Hey, someone has to do this stuff.” together and draw up a new contract. Sometimes there was He served as class agent for his Dartmouth cohort and a strike, sometimes not, but eventually a deal was cut, and headed the alumni fund, a number of capital campaigns and immediately thereafter the board of directors – let’s call them then the Board of Trustees. He joined the board of NYU the board of trustees – got together and raised the tuition, Medical Center at the invitation of billionaire philanthropist or in this case the price of cars, to cover the cost of the new Laurence Tisch. From there, the demand for his services contract. And that was the way business was done until the grew, and his dance card became so full that when Teachers late ’80s, when an alarm went off: ‘Hey, imports have taken College first came asking, he said no. 55 percent of the American auto market.’” “One of my closest friends is [former New York State Sen- Rosenwald sees an analogous trend in American higher ator] Roy Goodman, whose wife, Barbara, was then Chair of education, where the Ivy League institutions keep raising the board of TC. She invited me to lunch and breakfast with their tuition year after year. [then-TC President] Arthur Levine, I don’t know how many “For years the Ivies have said, ‘Hey, we get 10 applicants times. I kept saying, ‘I have too many things on my plate.’ for every available opening, our kids get into the best gradu- “Finally one day, I said to Arthur, ‘I’m angry at the state- ate schools – we’ve been doing business this way for many ment you keep making that no major urban public school system in the U.S. has ever been fixed.’ And I promised him that “Philanthropy is with the first board I retired from, I’d join TC’s.” the rent we pay for the space Indeed, Rosenwald believes that the College’s ability to lead the way in we occupy.”— E. John Rosenwald Jr. fixing urban schools is the “sizzle” that will make it an inevitable choice for philanthropists who care about the years and there’s no need to change,’” he says. “But they can’t nation’s future. He served on the search committee that chose keep doing that, because there’s new competition out there. Levine’s successor, Susan Fuhrman, and is a huge admirer of When you read about Nobels being given out, the Univer- Fuhrman for her work in launching a public elementary school sity of Texas and the University of Washington are right up under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania when she there with Harvard, Yale and Princeton. And there’s distance was dean of Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Recently, he learning, too. So, standing still just doesn’t work.” gave $1 million in support of the new Teachers College Com- Rosenwald himself was educated at elite private institu- munity School created under Fuhrman’s leadership. In doing so, tions – Deerfield Academy, Dartmouth, and then Dartmouth’s he was enacting the first and most important of Rosie’s Rules Amos Tuck School of Business. His passion for philanthropy – “Don’t ask anyone to do anything you haven’t done yourself.” stems first and foremost from a clear-eyed recognition of just Yet Rosenwald was clearly engaged on a broader level, as well. how much these educational institutions have contributed to “Giving our students real experience, on the ground, where they his own success. can learn the goods, the bads and the uglies of teaching, is so “My father never had a lot of money – it was a struggle for important,” he says. “When I visited there, I saw a teacher ask him to get us through school and college – but both my par- a six-year-old, ‘How much is eight plus seven?’ And when the ents were involved in charity work,” he says. “I saw the joy my kid said ‘fifteen,’ the teacher, instead of just congratulating him, mom got from serving on the board of Mount Sinai, or that said, ‘How do you know?’ And he said, ‘Well, I know that eight my dad got at the 92nd Street Y. So my philosophy – philan- plus eight equals sixteen, so eight plus seven is one less.’ So the thropy is the rent we pay for the space we occupy – comes whole business of learning how kids learn, in addition to how to from them. But if you attend an institution like Dartmouth, teach, is very exciting.” TC

56 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday Alumni news

At GRADUATION ONCE MORE Members of the Alumni Council, from left: Marion Boultbee Ed.D. ’96, Fred Brodzinski Ed.D. ’91, Tara Niraula Ed.D. ’02, Adam Vane M.A. ’01, Peter Moock Ph.D. ’73, David Hoff M.Ed. ’73, Kathy Morin Ed.D. ’85, Patrick McGuire Ed.D. ’94, Diane Sunshine M.A. ’66

Your Alumni Council Wants You! . merha b . (Re)Connect Alumni to Teachers College. Nominate yourself or a fellow alum who is passionate about TC and would like to serve y alejandra t alejandra y a three-year term as a volunteer on the Alumni Council to shape h b ogra p h t future alumni programming. www.tc.edu/alumni/GetInvolved p ho

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 57 teachers college ALUMNI ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE alumni association

The Teachers College Alumni Association is led by the Alumni Dear Fellow Alumni, Council, which consists of 35 members who represent all 90,000 At TC, fall is all about new beginnings. A new academic year brings new students, new graduates. The Council partners with classes and a fresh slate of plans for the year the Department of Development ahead. This year your Alumni Association’s and External Affairs to advance the Council is gearing up to celebrate 125 years goals of the College by providing of Teachers College and hoping this milestone alumni with opportunities to remain will further connect you to the TC community. We hope you reflect upon your time at TC with involved in the life of the College nostalgia and that you will share your fondest through social activities, volunteer memories with us. Join us at one of the many efforts and financial support. events scheduled for the coming months to

continue the learning process you began as a TC student and to ex- pand your network of like-minded peers. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE I also invite you to join us in shaping the programming for this mile- stone year and future years. You can participate by applying to join the president Alumni Council or by volunteering to serve as an Affiliate Member. If Adam Vane you are interested in learning more about either of these roles, visit www.tc.edu/alumni or contact the Office of Alumni Relations at president-elect [email protected] or 212-678-3215. Patrick McGuire Stay tuned as we roll out an exciting lineup of events that will ex- tend across the country. Academic Festival 2013 – on April 13 – will of course be the marquee celebration for alumni and the greater TC STANDING COMMITTEE community. So mark your calendars to be back on campus for Festival, CO-CHAIRS when the Alumni Association will also honor our Distinguished Alumni as part of the festivities. You can find more information about how to nominate someone for 2014 on page 59. awards & recognition committee We will be asking you – the Alumni Association – to play a large role in Diana Newman the coming year’s events because, after all, you are such a large part of Mitchell Thompson what makes Teachers College great. We hope that throughout 2013, you will connect virtually by sharing your stories and memories from international outreach committee TC either online or via social media. We also hope to launch a yearlong service project, for which we will track all of your volunteer efforts on Marion Boultbee, Fred Brodzinski the alumni website to showcase TC’s impact in communities across the globe. nominating committee Susan Diamond, Patrick McGuire Please send any suggestions you have to Rosella Garcia, Director of Alumni Relations, at [email protected]. programs & resources committee Thanks for all of your contributions. I look forward to connecting with Peter Dillon, Jeffrey Putman you at one of our events this year.

Sincerely, members-at-large Maritza Macdonald, Maryalice Mazzara, Tara Niraula

historian Adam Vane, James J. Shields President, Teachers College Alumni Association Meet the full Alumni Council www.tc.edu/alumni/councilmembers

y adam vane adam c our t e s y

58 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday alumni news

Distinguished Alumni & Early Career Awards TC alumni have a long-standing history of making their mark on the world. Do you know a graduate who has made an impact in his or her community and is worthy of this distinction? Awards are presented annually at Academic Festival by the Alumni Association. For more 2012 AWARD WINNERS Shown with TC President Susan Fuhrman (second from right) are, information or to nominate from left: Lucille Joel (Ed.D. ’70), Professor, Rutgers College of Nursing; Betty Perez-Rivera someone today for the 2014 (Ed.D. ’03), Director of the East Harlem Asthma Center of Excellence; John King Distinguished Alumni and Early (Ed.D. ’08), New York State Commissioner of Education; the internationally recognized consultant Robert Schaffer (Ed.D. ’52); Harold Noah (Ph.D. ’64), TC Professor Emeritus and Career Awards, visit former Dean; and Kevin Jennings (M.A. ’94), CEO of the non-profit Be the Change. www.tc.edu/alumni/ DAANominationForm

Events

A Technology Show-And-Tell Current TC student Michael Ticknor (right) and adjunct faculty member Nabeel Ahmad (Ed.D. ’09) demonstrated IBM’s learning analytics system at an event held this past July at the company’s offices in midtown Manhattan.

A Screening for “The 99” Cosponsored by TC’s Maxine Greene Society and the Office of Alumni Relations, Isaac Solotaroff screened his documentary oyo furlong; furlong; p oyo annemarie : Wham! Bam! Islam!, in California in September. The film is about the making of lef t ella gar c ia ro s ella LE W I S; o p the comic book series “The 99,” created by TC alumnus Naif Al-Mutawa (who was UXEM also on hand). Below: Solotaroff with VAN Elizabeth Pouso-Jorgenson (M.A. ’98) T HER e from t from c k w i s e c lo HEA

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 59 60 fall/ Update your information andshare your story. “firsts” thatconstitutetheCollege’s legacyandcontinue anchor the125thanniversary celebrationoncampus. Academic Festival willexplore themanytrailblazing winter 2012 Our fifthannualsignature homecoming event will Celebrating a T Celebrating www.tc.edu/alumni/update ALL ALUMNI CALLING ALL www.tc .edu/tctoday for T for to shapeitsfuture. omorrow radition

www.tc.edu/alumni/connect Connect toTC Alumni The d APRIL 13 for more information aboutthe announcement ofthisyear’s • Distinguished Alumni and • Breakout Sessions • Fun for learners of all ages Early Career A academic departments all 10oftheCollege’s and facultywhorepresent featuring alumni,students V isit speakers andsessions ay will SA Stay tunedfor the Keynote Speaker! www.tc.edu/festival VE THEDATE: include wards :

tc file photos class notes

ARTS AND their son, Etienne, on May writing a series of elemen- tion in July 2012 at Barry HUMANITIES 4, 2012. He weighed 7 lbs. tary school textbooks for University in Miami Shores, 14 oz. and was 20.5 inches Behrman House Publishers. FL. Alschuler has ac- applied linguistics long. The Estradas are cur- The books are Our Commu- cepted a position at Virginia Mirta Martes-Rivera rently living in Columbia, nity http://www.behrman- Intermont College as BSW (M.A. ’87) teaches as a MD. house.com/sample-pages/ Program Coordinator seasonal instructor at building-jewish-identity-1 & Assistant Professor of the University of Puerto tesol and Sacred Time http://www. Social Work. Rico-Rio Piedras campus. Diana Berkowitz (M.A. behrmanhouse.com/sample- After her time at TC, she ’76, M.E. ’80, M. Phil. ’86, pages/building-jewish- Ara Brown (M.E. ’02, attended the Harvard Ph.D. ‘86) has been Direc- identity-2. M.A. ’03) recently earned Graduate School of Educa- tor of the CUNY Language his Doctorate of Education tion, where she took a Immersion Program at in Education Leadership course with Noam Chom- Queensborough Commu- BEHAVIORAL from the University of Penn- sky. She has taught in both nity College (CUNY) since SCIENCES sylvania. the higher education sys- 1999. She was recently tem and the public schools named Director of the new neuroscience & Alan Gurman (M.A. in several states. She also CUNY Start Program at education ’70, Ph.D. ’71) retired as writes for Puerto Rico’s the College. Diana also Evelyn Arana (M.S. ’09) Emeritus Professor from leading newspapers. oversees the coordination began a Ph.D. program in the Department of Psychia- of the college’s ESL and Public Health at Drexel try, University of Wiscon- art and art education GED programs for Con- University in September sin Medical School. He is Betty Kipniss MacDon- tinuing Education. 2012. now Clinical Professor of ald (M.A. ’60) writes art Psychology in the Clini- reviews for The Journal of the Kent Doehr McLeod physiology cal Psychology Doctoral Print World about exhibits at (M.A. ’00) began the next Robert Cavalier (Ph.D. Program at the university the National Gallery of Art, phase in his ESL/EFL ca- ’61) has constructed a new and Clinical Professor of the National Portrait Gallery reer at EARTH University evidenced-based method Psychology/Teaching Fac- and other major venues in in Costa Rica in July 2012. for faculty development and ulty at The Family Institute the Washington, D.C. area. evaluation. This innova- at Northwestern Univer- She is also a printmaker who Robert Fredericks (M.A. tive system supports local sity in Evanston, IL. This creates etchings, monotypes, ’89) has lived and worked faculty culture in allowing coming academic year, he and watercolors. Her work in Oaxaca de Juarez, instructors to test their as- will also serve as a Visit- is included in collections Mexico for the past 20 sumptions about teaching ing Professor of Psychiatry around the world. years. He provides transla- and write their own survey at the Harvard Medical tions for the publication items for student feedback. School/Cambridge Health Richard Risio (M.A. ’99) is Horizontes. His article For more information, Alliance. teaching Art, LGBT Studies Ciudades Inteligentes y visit www.instructorperfor- and Urban Agriculture at el Destino Humano was mance.com. guidance City-As-School High School featured in the most recent Robert Harcourt (M.A. in New York City’s West issue of Boletin Horizontes ’61) has been at the Insti- Village. (http://horizontes18.com/ COUNSELING & tute of American Indian boletin/boletin-horizontes- CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY Arts (IAIA) for 47 years. teaching of english numero-8/). The Institute celebrated its Karen (Booker) Estrada counseling psychology 50th Anniversary over the (M.A. ’08) and her hus- social studies Mari Alschuler (M.A. ’87, summer. Harcourt serves band, Erick, are delighted education M.E. ’88) completed a Ph.D. on the IAIA Foundation to announce the birth of Judy Dick (M.E. ’09) is in Leadership & Educa- Board of Directors.

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 61 class notes

Education Worldwide. School. He spends much of York City’s Chinatown and to CURRICULUM & She serves as a consultant his time in Montreal, where overseas students via Skype. TEACHING with Credo Higher Educa- his family is located, but tion, Ann Duffield and also works with families special education early childhood Colleagues, and the Amer- around the globe. He writes: Joan (Mulcahy) Thom- education ican Bilingual Preschools “It’s a very exciting time!” spon (M.A. ’59) mar- Lorna Edmundson in Nanjing, China. At the ried Colonel John Carl (M.E. ’71, Ed.D. ’75) is United Nations, Edmund- Margaret Terry Orr (M.A. Thompson on Valentine’s drawing on her 40 years of son represents the Geor- ’77, M.E. ’77, M.Phil. ’79, Day 2011. She served the experience in leadership gian Women’s Business Ph.D. ’79) co-authored United States in Japan roles at six colleges and Association. She remains Preparing Principals for a and Germany, setting up universities in her new active in the International Changing World: Lessons special education and work as a consultant, as- Women’s Forum and Delta From Effective School Leader- speech therapy classes for sisting college presidents Kappa Gamma Society ship Programs. the dependent children of in solving strategic prob- International. She writes: the military. She also es- lems and internationaliz- “Teachers College gave me tablished hearing testing at ing campuses. Edmundson a great education.” Health and base hospitals. While over- recently returned from Behavior Studies seas, Thompson hosted her Hong Kong and Nanjing, educational own radio and TV shows China, where she made administration applied educational and acted in and directed presentations on campus Edward de Villafranca psychology plays. She has written the internationalization at (M.A. ’03) has started his Caroline A. Carroll (M.A. story of her training days two universities and at the own business after more ’73) teaches English privately at the Lexington School conference of Women’s than 17 years at the Peddie to Chinese children in New for the Deaf, which she

“ I am so proud to be able to support the legacy of the Genishi Family Scholarship Fund because I relied on scholarships from my college days onward. I know how important such support is. My estate plans include a gift to the Family Fund.” — Prof. Celia Genishi, Curriculum & Teaching Genishi Family Scholarship Fund and Grace Dodge Society member since 2001

For more information on gift annuities, bequests or other planned gifts, please contact: Louis Lo Ré Director of Planned Giving 212-678-3037 or email: [email protected]

62 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday attended at the same time authored Unveiling Secrets she was studying at TC. of War in the Peruvian Andes (University of Chicago Press, 2011). Human Development Mathematics, developmental Science and psychology Technology Jacqueline Esmez (M.A. ’90) is in the process of writ- computing in ing a children’s book. education Mary Larkin (M.A. ’84) has Richard DiCecio (M.E. ’80, been awarded the Southern M.A. ’66) is Treasurer and Indiana Review’s Mary C. Past President of the Co- Mohr Editor’s Prize for Fic- lumbia University-Teachers tion. Larkin has been nomi- College chapter of Phi Delta nated for the Pushcart Prize Kappa. and the AWP Intro Journals Award. She is the recipient of Edith S. Marks (M.A. ’70) Hollins University’s Andrew entered the Board of Educa- James Purdy Award for tion as a teacher and retired outstanding fiction and is a 17 years later, having risen Fellow of the Virginia Center to the position of Supervisor for the Creative Arts. of Trainers in Special Edu- Need we say more? cation. Upon retiring, she science education wrote Coping with Glaucoma Ngozi N. Osuagwu (Ed.D. Supporting our students and providing and two years later followed ’87) just concluded a Presi- financial aid is Teachers College’s highest with Glaucoma: Patient to Pa- dential Visitation Panel on funding priority. At a time of rising tient. Marks is known world- Repositioning Colleges of wide as a patient-expert on Education in Nigeria (with academic costs, decreasing access to student glaucoma, having appeared a view to improve cur- loans and a heightened need for exceptional on radio and television. She riculum and instruction). She educators in our communities, scholarship also writes fiction, including would like to collaborate on support is essential. the novel Ground Cover. She improving teacher skills “to has served on the Board of cope with the 21st Century With your help, the very best the West Side Community learner.” students can continue to attend Garden in Manhattan. At 88, Marks is still active and Teachers College and make a serving as Co-chair of the Organization and positive difference in the world. Glaucoma Support and Leadership Education Group. Make your gift to the TC Fund today. adult education guided intensive study Please make a secure donation online at International & Douglas Scherer (Ed.D. www.tc.edu/donate or contact Colleen Tabor, Transcultural ’10) has written Using Reflec- Associate Director of the TC Fund, at Studies tive Learning in Information 212-876-4067. Technology Crisis Resolution, anthropology a chapter that will appear in Olga González (M.A. Contemporary Perspectives on ’96, M.Phil. ’96, Ph.D. ’06) Technological Innovation, Man-

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 63 class notes in memoriam

agement and Policy, Volume 2. Core: Accelerating Achieve- The work echoes his latest ment (Heinemann 2012) research interest in mindful- (http://www.amazon.com/ ness and reflective learning in Pathways-Common-Core- real-time crisis management. Accelerating-Achievement/ He presented his dissertation- dp/0325043558/ref=sr). based paper, Doing the Right Thing: Executive Mentors and higher and Caring Leader Development, postsecondary at the 2010 Academy of education Management annual meeting. Huda Bibi (Ed.D. ’90) es- Ernst Z. Shirley S. In 2011, he launched the tablished a non-profit, non- Rothkopf Passow voicesofthecliff.com podcast, governmental organization an ongoing series of inter- whose mission is to develop Ernst Z. Rothkopf, Shirley S. Passow, views about the leadership the abilities of children and Cleveland E. Dodge wife of the late TC journey, with an emphasis on youth so they may succeed. Professor of Emeritus Professor authentic, sustainable, and For more information, visit Education Emeritus, A. Harry Passow and socially conscious leadership. www.taaheel.net. died in July at age mother of two TC 87. Rothkopf, who graduates, died in Scherer is in the process of had fled Nazi- May. Shirley Passow finding a broader venue to (M.A. Anne Pruitt-Logan occupied Austria briefly taught distribute and share these ’50, Ed.D. ’64) has pub- as a boy, worked at English in Erie interviews. Meanwhile, he is lished, Faithful to the Task at the U.S. Air Force County, New York, completing his eighth year as Hand: The Life of Lucy Diggs Personnel and and subsequently a Vice President at Citigroup, Slowe (State University of Training Research became an where he leads a technology New York Press, 2012). Center, where urban planner and team for a global clientele. he helped invent then an attorney Scherer welcomes discus- inquiry in education teaching machines who rose to become sion on all of these topics at administrative and programmed Deputy Attorney [email protected]. practice instruction. He General of New Roger Wayne Keller subsequently Jersey. Passow, who education leadership (Ed.D. ’07) was featured in headed the Learning with her husband Christopher Lehman the October 2012 issue of and Instructional was dedicated to (M.E. ’07) co-authored Architect magazine under Research improving race Pathways to the Common the AIA Voices section. Department at relations, generously

; ; Bell Labs, studying supported TC’s

au st “mathagenic” Annual Fund and

on activities that a scholarship t a promoted students’ established in her ability to process husband’s honor. a st eri c a y instructive stimuli. With her son, ean F J ean of c our t e s y o s ;

t At TC, Rothkopf alumnus Michael h b ogra p h t explored the ways Passow, she was

file p ho file that people learn also a member of from written text the College’s Grace ; tc o s ; t and championed the Dodge Society. Tight-knit in Tokyo TC alumni gathered in Tokyo in idea of a national

October to meet Thomas James, Provost and Dean of the College. p ho file Alumni Relations is partnering with James to launch a Provost on the programming ; tc o s ;

Road Series this year. Alumni pictured here prove the bonds to t language, with a TC and each other are quite strong – even from half a world away. uniform interface (Left to Right) Stacey Vye (M.A. ’02), Arthur Nguyen (M.A. ’11), file p ho file for different data, ky family; Pho family; rigrod s ky of c our t e s y o s ; t Jennie Roloff Rothman (M.A. ’10), Mayu Kate (M.A. ’12), tc : for teachers of core Eddie Sanchez (M.A. ’12), Linamaria Arroyave Valdivia (M.A. ’12), subjects.

Robert Morel (M.A. ’12) and Jennifer Toyoshima (M.A. ’11). p ho file lejandra T. M erhe b T. A lejandra tc from lef t from

64 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday in memoriam

Carroll F. Irvin Jane Seymour Ulysses Johnson Faust Franck Rigrodsky Byas TC alumnus and TC alumnus Irvin Jane Franck, director Professor Emeritus Ulysses Byas (M.A. former faculty Faust, a highly for 25 years of Seymour Rigrodsky, ’52), a nationally member Carroll accomplished what was then TC’s who served as chair recognized F. Johnson, who novelist and short Milbank Memorial of TC’s Department champion for black presided over the story writer who Library, died in May of Speech schools, passed integration of the also served as an at age 91. Franck Pathology, Language away in early August White Plains, New influential college significantly added and Audiology, at age 88. Byas York, school district guidance counselor to the library’s passed away earlier twice dropped out – the first U.S. in Long Island’s depth and influence, this year. He was of high school school system to schools, passed purchasing 82. Rigrodsky, in Georgia but voluntarily institute a away in July at the resources for who received his eventually earned a racial desegregation age of 88. Among the library’s art bachelor’s and master’s degree at plan – died in Faust’s best-known collection and master’s degrees TC and a doctorate October at age 99. works are his establishing its from Brooklyn from the University Johnson, who 1965 short story Special Collections College and of Massachusetts– attended a one- collection, Roar Lion Department. his Ph.D. from Amherst. In 1957, room school in Roar (which drew its Franck presided Purdue University, as principal of an Georgia, was a title from Columbia over the installation was steadfastly all-black school in nationally revered University’s fight of the library’s first committed Gainseville, Georgia, figure whose 1964 song), and the computers in 1985, to helping he convinced the integration plan novels The Steagle led the first inventory developmentally white public that served as a model (1966), Willy of the library’s entire disabled children black schools for desegregation Remembers (1971) collection, and and adults. He needed more efforts nationwide. and John Dandy forged a partnership served as a funding and better As an adviser to (1994). Faust that established consultant to several resources. Later, as school districts loved working with seven Internet institutions and superintendent in across the country, students and said information centers veterans hospitals Macon, Georgia, he Johnson devised that the experience in Kosovo. in New York City. was among the first a process that had a great impact In 1994, Franck Prior to joining TC’s African-Americans ensured community on his writing. He established the faculty, he taught to head a racially members a voice earned two master’s Julie Louise Franck at the Vineland mixed district. He in superintendent degrees and a Fellowship, an Training School in later served as hiring decisions. doctorate from TC. endowed fellowship New Jersey and superintendent During the 1960s in special education the University of of schools in and ’70s, he also named for her Connecticut at Roosevelt, New York, spoke widely on how daughter, a TC Storrs. where a school was to handle student alumna who had named for him. unrest, particularly passed away the year — Rebecca Chad and in response to racial before at age 37. Heather Smitelli issues.

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 65 alumni focus A Very Patient Advocate

By the time her fifth child, lead to the passage of the Edu- Joseph, was born in 1963, Ruth cation for All Handicapped Chil- Christ Sullivan (M.A. ’53) was dren Act (Public Law 94-142) in an experienced public health 1975, but children with autism nurse who’d run children’s health were not protected under the workshops in rural Louisiana. Act. Sullivan continued to lobby, She knew what kids were like organizing parents to go to D.C. – enough to know that Joseph “We had a breakfast one time was different. where we invited all the legisla- An extremely agile and bright tors on important committees,” child, he began rocking at 18 she recalls, “and we made sure months old. He also stopped to seat them all next to kids talking, screamed all night long and their mothers, so they could and avoided eye contact. “I had see what autism was.” Finally, seen just about any disability you in 1991, the Individuals with can think of,” Sullivan explains. Disabilities Education Act was “What I was seeing didn’t fit with passed, specifically guaranteeing anything I had ever seen or heard children with autism the right to of.” When none of the doctors an education. in her area could enlighten her, Still, it wasn’t until the movie Sullivan took her son to a monthly Rain Man came out in 1988, star- clinic held by an out-of-town psy- ring Dustin Hoffman, that autism chiatrist who was up on current really penetrated the national research. He spoke the words that consciousness. Hoffman inter- changed her life: viewed Ruth and Joseph Sullivan “Your child is autistic.” Raising a child with autism as he prepared for his role as an The term “parent activist” adult with the disorder. Sullivan, didn’t yet exist, but Sullivan was hard, but getting ever alert to opportunity, sug- quickly became one. As she met gested that the movie open in with psychiatrists and read the the nation to understand the Huntington, and Hoffman agreed. literature, she discovered that disorder really required Huntington’s Autism Services medical wisdom blamed autism Center, which Sullivan founded, on “refrigerator” mothers who used proceeds from the opening did not love their children. Infu- Ruth Christ Sullivan to purchase the first of 13 group riated, she reached out to other to take the long view homes for autistic adults. parents of autistic children, in Joseph Sullivan now lives in 1965 cofounding the Autism one of those homes and holds a Society of America (now known By Emily Rosenbaum part-time job. Ruth Sullivan, now as the National Society for Au- 88, retired five years ago after a tistic Children/Autism Society of America). career that included founding several local and state chapters Her efforts were sorely needed. Children with autism gener- of the National Society for Autistic Children as well as the ally were not welcome in the public schools, which balked at organization’s National Information and Referral Service. She the expense of providing one-on-one attention. “They stayed also led the creation of the National Association of Residen- at home, and they were hidden,” Sullivan says. “Either they tial Providers for Adults With Autism and assisted in found- were in an institution, or the family took care of them – mean- ing the National Autism Society of Argentina. Somehow, she ing the women, of course, for the most part.” In fact, place- also found time to launch and direct the center in Huntington, ments were so scarce that when the Sullivans found a school providing three counties with an increasingly broad range of in Huntington, West Virginia, offering classes for kids with educational and support services. autism, they moved there from upstate New York. Two years ago, Sullivan received TC’s Distinguished Finding a program for her son only made Sullivan more Alumna Award – the latest in a series of well-deserved honors. aware of the vast unmet need nationwide. “There was nothing She takes walks, goes to movies and tries to sleep late when- in the law that said schools had to take kids with autism. I ever she isn’t fielding calls from worried parents or interested knew I had to start at the federal law level.” journalists. “There were a lot of hard times and very little When Sullivan began lobbying with the Autism Society of sleep. I’ve been trying to make up for it,” she says. That, and s ullivan ri c hard y America, the organization had so little money that she once straightening up around the house. “Most people my age have h b ogra p h

camped out at the airport until she could hitch a ride on a already done their 25 years of cleaning closets, but I’m just t

private plane headed east to Washington. Her work helped getting to it.” TC Pho

66 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday alumni focus Putting Her Best Foot Forward

Last year, moments performance. Yet these before the first big show of trials only fanned the their recent monthlong tour group’s creative spark. of Central Asia, the dancers In Kyrgyzstan, for in- of New York’s Seán Curran stance, the company met Company received an omi- a local troupe who gave nous warning. them a stirring perfor- “We were told that the mance, accompanied by future of modern perform- traditional instruments, ing arts in Turkmenistan that moved them to tears was on our shoulders,” – and to start planning a says Elizabeth Coker Girón future collaboration be- (M.A. ’10), the company’s tween the two groups. associate artistic director “This kind of tour is and a current TC doctoral what makes us work,” student in Motor Learning Girón says. She cites the and Control. great German choreog- The caution, from U.S. rapher Pina Bausch, who embassy staff hosting the would sketch new pieces company in Ashgabat, sparked by locations where Turkmenistan’s capital, was her company toured. “It’s no exaggeration. the most inspiring experi- In 2001, the country’s ence.” eccentric dictator, Sapar- At TC, Girón’s doctoral murat Niyazov, had banned encore! Seán Curran takes his bows in Turkmenistan, research in motor learn- ballet, opera and other acknowledging Girón (in green). ing concerns another way arts deemed inconsis- in which the imagination tent with national values. shapes movement and Though Niyazov died in dance – this time at the 2006, there had not been As both a dancer and microscopic level of motor a single modern dance a scientist, neurons. performance in the country Working with Assistant prior to the Seán Curran Professor of Movement Company’s State Depart- Elizabeth Coker Girón Sciences and Learning ment–sponsored tour. explores the ties between imagination Tara McIsaac, Girón stud- Raising the stakes ies motor imagery – the further, the current presi- and movement process through which hu- dent would be watching mans visualize themselves the show via a live feed. By Siddhartha Mitter making a movement A massive portrait of him without actually making it. would hang behind the It’s an important subject dancers as they performed. in sports research, Girón “Of course, that wasn’t in our stage set!” says Girón. says, with relevance to dance as well. Yet despite the pressure and the odd setting, the perfor- “I’m interested in how motor imagery changes the way mance turned out a greater success than Girón had allowed people actually move,” she says. herself to hope for. While many of her colleagues form their research questions “After the show people were screaming and crying,” she says. by working with clinical populations, Girón says she finds her “They were asking for autographs. People were asking us to sign ideas in the studio, interviewing numerous dancers to better their bodies!” understand how motor imagery feeds back into performance in The response, from a public starved for new performance, the dance setting. was testament to the power of dance to spark emotions. It “Dancers are so smart,” she says. “They have a very sys- underscored the ties between movement and imagination – a tematic way of thinking. I think it comes from the way they are relationship that Girón explores as both a dancer and a scientist. trained.” In Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the Seán For Girón, who once thought she’d become a physical Curran Company faced an arduous travel schedule and poor therapist, the emerging field of dance science is allowing her working conditions. Theaters were old, and some stages were to fulfill her dream: “I get to be an academic and still be in irón G irón Coker E li z a b e t h of c our t e s y even pocked with holes. One dancer broke his foot in the final the studio.” TC

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 67 alumni focus

A Fencer with an Edge

For many Olympic athletes, the young and less battle-tested than toughest challenge is to avoid being many other teams, having won only intimidated by the competition. a couple of medals in international Maya Lawrence (M.A. ’05) competition during the run-up to had to fight her impulse to go the Olympics. Lawrence – at 32, the make friends. second-oldest member of the team “I found myself wanting to float – was a steadying influence. around and meet as many people “There are some athletes out from different countries as pos- there, in fencing specifically, who sible, but I had to remember to keep don’t handle the bad times as well my focus,” recalls Lawrence, who as she has,” says Michael Aufrich- helped lead the U.S. women’s tig, the head men’s and women’s fencing team to a first-ever bronze fencing coach at Columbia and medal in London this past summer. Chairman of the New York Athletic Education may partly explain that Club. “When something goes cosmopolitan outlook. Lawrence, wrong, she doesn’t complain, and who fences épée, grew up in she doesn’t find excuses. She just ethnically diverse Teaneck, New tackles it.” Jersey, the daughter of a father As it turned out, Lawrence who was a sports referee and needed to summon all her internal a mother who was an art teach- resources. During the individual er (and also a TC alumna). After competition, she drew a first- majoring in political science round bye and won her first match at Princeton and receiving her in the second round against Mara master’s degree in TESOL (the Navarria of Italy, but then lost to teaching of English to speakers Her familiarity another Italian, Rossella Fiamingo. of other languages) from TC, “It was hard to bounce back from she worked as a language as- with other that,” she admits. “I had to con- sistant in a high school and taught vince myself that, even though I English to businesspeople. cultures helped Olympian wasn’t happy, it was still the best Around that time, Lawrence, who result I had ever achieved.” didn’t start fencing until she was Maya Lawrence Then came the team competi- 15 – significantly later than most tion, and after losing to Korea, the Olympians – was also rising rapidly in London eventual silver medalist, the Ameri- in the women’s épée rankings, cans found themselves facing Rus- and she needed to train at least By Jeanne Jackson-DeVoe sia, a perennial power. Motivated by four hours a day. With a sponsorship their presumptive underdog status, from the U.S. Lawrence and her teammates pulled Fencing Association and the New York Athletic Club, she moved out a victory. “No one expected us to get a medal, so it was really to Paris, where her coach, Daniel Levavasseur, runs an organiza- great to come out and show them we could do it,” she says. “Up tion called Escrime Sans Frontières, or Fencing on the podium, I felt it was just as special for us as it was for the Without Borders. other two teams.” Lawrence says her TC degree has helped her not only support After a vacation in the south of France, Lawrence was back

herself as an English teacher abroad but also make the jump to training by September. Still, she took a break to visit the White Commi tt ee living in a foreign country. House, where, with other Olympic athletes, she met President “If you’re not used to being in a foreign environment, it can Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President be quite overwhelming,” she says. “I wasn’t scared to go, and the Joseph Biden. fact that I had previously been surrounded by people from many Might another Olympics be in store? All Lawrence knows is p i c O lym U .S. ) countries of the world is one reason why.” that she would like to compete internationally for at least another In Paris, Lawrence trained with top fencers from Brazil, year. Her goal is to achieve a solid result at the 2013 World Venezuela, Tunisia, Australia, Italy and Cameroon. In the sum- Championships in Budapest next summer. s e t (in F en c ing; mers, Levavasseur also invites international teams, including the “I feel that all fencers, and probably all athletes, can’t really let

Swedes, the Chinese (who took gold in London), the Koreans and go until they’ve accomplished a lot of the things they want to,” U S A / the Russians, to take part in his training camps. Lawrence says. “I feel like I could keep going until my body gives a s That experience, along with having twice recovered from out. You have to be kind of obsessive and manic to be an athlete. anterior cruciate ligament injuries, gave Lawrence an extra tough- Letting that go and doing something else can be difficult because ness that served her well in London. The American team was you have to find out how to replace it.” TC J oman t N i c ole

68 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday alumni focus

Running the Numbers

As a marathon enthusiast to health issues. Her adviser and – she’s completed six – Sonali mentor at TC, Charles Basch, Rajan (Ed.D. ’10) can personally Richard March Hoe Professor of attest that she focuses better at Health Education, has worked work after a solid morning run. for years to coordinate efforts But as a behavioral scientist with to improve students’ health as a a particular interest in helping means of overcoming the minor- at-risk youth, Rajan, a TC alumna ity achievement gap (see the who recently returned to the Col- story on page 32). lege as Assistant Professor in the “My research interests really Department of Health and Be- emerged in working with Chuck,” havior Sciences, is in constant says Rajan. “We have programs search of harder evidence con- that target so many issues in necting the physiological and schools, but the question of how the behavioral. to do it feasibly, which is some- “I like statistics,” says Rajan, thing he has focused on, is just who uses numbers to help deter- as important as the programs mine which kinds of health and themselves.” behavioral interventions are most Following her student days at likely to succeed. “We have many TC, Rajan completed a postdoc- school-based programs and toral fellowship at the National services – very good programs Development and Research and services – that only target, Institutes. There she began for example, drug prevention. working with Noelle Leonard, a There’s nothing wrong with senior research scientist at the that, but realistically we can’t be Center for Drug Use and HIV implementing 12 programs in New TC faculty member Research at New York Univer- a day. We need to be address- sity’s College of Nursing, using ing the overall quality of health specially designed wristbands to among our kids in a very syner- Sonali Rajan monitor stress levels in adoles- gistic way.” cent mothers at risk for a range Rajan coauthored the middle employs statistics to identify of parenting issues. When the school curriculum for Girls programs that address wearer sweats, the wristband on the Run International, an collects data and sends it to a after-school program that uses overall health in a synergistic way smartphone that then forwards this kind of synergistic model. it both to the researchers and Volunteer coaches guide young By Emily Rosenbaum to the mothers themselves. girls, ages 8-13, through a This immediate feedback about series of lessons about health- their stress levels is intended to related issues such as nutri- prompt the young mothers to tion and bullying, while also getting their feet moving. In use stress-reduction techniques they’ve previously learned designing the curriculum, Rajan also developed a formative in 10-week group sessions. evaluation to help predict instructor adherence to different Rajan explains that she and Leonard’s research team are lessons, then used those results to improve the curriculum looking to employ interventions that are even more immedi- for the following year. She sees this kind of data-driven re- ate. “We’re testing out a series of them – a text message search as essential to designing curricula and improving the that has a calming message, a video with a peer saying efficacy of health education programs and other behavioral something encouraging, a picture of their baby sleeping to interventions. remind them that this will pass.” “We have all these programs, but we’re not making Much of Rajan’s future work will focus on evaluating the enough headway” against the societal issues they’re de- feasibility and efficacy of school-based programs that educate signed to address, she says. By using statistical data to teens on noncognitive skills, such as making choices. “The pa- inform the development of programs that will address key thologies underlying risky decisions that youth make each day noncognitive skills (such as decision-making or social and – and how they make them –are very similar across the board,” emotional coping mechanisms) in a variety of contexts, Rajan she explains, “whether they choose to overeat or undereat or hopes to increase the quality of health, particularly among engage in substance use or to not use condoms. At the end children and early adolescent youth. of the day, they’re learning to make decisions, and they’re y of Sonali R ajan Sonali of Cour t e s y It’s no accident that Rajan takes a synergistic approach learning how to navigate their world.” TC

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 69 alumni focus Helping All Women to Have It All

People considering new program that emphasizes lead- jobs often look for clues that ership and college preparation. their prospective employer In the latter job, which she shares their values. held for a decade, Lee says For Danielle Moss Lee she learned the importance of (Ed. D. ’06), who recently young people organizing their became Chief Executive Officer own events, such as college or of the YWCA of the City of green career fairs, as a way of New York, the writing was developing leadership skills. literally on the wall. “Danielle is someone who That would be the motto of really has the management the 154-year-old institution, skills and understanding and which is the country’s oldest the connections and networks,” YWCA: “Eliminating racism and says Marcia Sells, Chair of the empowering women.” YWCA Board. “For some people empower- Lee, who has a 16-year- ing women means only helping old daughter, says her goal at disadvantaged women, but I the YWCA is to reach out to think there are so many areas women “from all walks of life” where women are underrepre- to address issues like fair pay sented, despite the fact that and access to health care. She girls are going to college more,” cites a recent, much-debated Lee says. “There are still salary article in The Atlantic, “Why disparities, there are still op- Women Still Can’t Have It All,” portunity disparities.” by Anne-Marie Slaughter, a Lee, 43, comes naturally to political scientist at Princeton. her sense of mission. Her “I think what we’ve failed to do grandmother grew up in as a country is to ask the ques- poverty and worked as a tion of who defines what ‘it all’ domestic at the age of eight. is,” she says. “Any time women Later, she worked three jobs start talking about work-life to support her children and balance, people hear ‘weak- buy her own home. ness,’ ‘lack of professionalism,’ Lee herself is the daugh- As the new leader ‘not ambitious enough.’” ter of a photographer and a of the nation’s oldest YWCA, The YWCA offers after- research librarian who once school programs for children taught in the New York City and high school students and a schools. She attended Swarth- Danielle Moss Lee variety of programs for women, more College and earned such as computer training, child her doctorate in Educational is reaching out to care and workforce develop- Leadership at Teachers College, overcome disparities for women ment. Lee also wants to involve where she recently joined the more young women in leader- College’s 125th Anniversary at all levels ship and to encourage girls to Steering Committee. She cred- pursue STEM careers. She its the College with making By Jeanne Jackson-DeVoe believes that any effort to her a “huge advocate of public connect with young people education,” adding that “just must employ social media such getting to see the systemic as Facebook, and that the challenges in public education was really eye-opening.” She creation of youth councils or youth advisory groups can help

believes teachers, and public education in general, are the with outreach, both to parents and children. lee current focus of an attack that is “just a distraction that pre- “When I was at HEAF, we worked with an immigrant family vents us from looking at systemic inequality.” that was reluctant to let their daughter leave home and go to After beginning her career as an assistant principal at the Yale,” she recalls. “We spent a lot of time talking with the fam- Grace Lutheran School in the Bronx, Lee held a number of ily, and finally they decided to let her go. She graduated with leadership positions at nonprofits, including Assistant Executive honors and went on to medical school. So making a difference Director of the Morningside Alliance and President and CEO of requires learning to listen as much as you talk, and to strike a the Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAF), an after-school balance. It’s a dialogue, not a monologue.” TC mo ss danielle of c our t e s y

70 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday alumni focus

Up on the Roof

Just behind the security “Yesterday we came out desk at the Alfred E. Smith and harvested the lettuce,” public school campus in Wight says, pointing to a the South Bronx, a doorway row of vegetable planters. opens onto a vivid expanse “We ate salad from the roof of well-tended plants. for our last staff meeting.” It’s a green roof, a Nearby sat a water feature of environmentally pump, a solar panel friendly design that offers charging its battery. A natural cooling to the weather station measured low-lying building below. solar radiation, tempera- The roof provides a host ture, humidity and wind of educational benefits speed. Another device for Nathaniel Wight compared water runoff (M.S. ’05) and his students from the main area, with in the year-old Bronx De- its 27 varieties of sedum sign and Construction – a plant adept at retain- Academy (BDCA), one of ing water – with runoff three high schools at the from a control zone. Smith campus. “In this city, if it rains One hot afternoon this more than one-tenth of an past June, Wight and Noel inch, there’s sewer over- Cruz, who had just finished flow,” Wight says. “All that his freshman year, showed gray water gets dumped in off a research project that the river. Here, 95 percent Cruz and his classmate Alumnus of the water hitting this Elton Hollingsworth had roof is being retained.” presented with Wight the Nate Wight Working with nature previous month at the comes naturally to Wight, World Renewable Energy and his students are creating an who grew up in the Pacific Forum in Denver. Both 14 environmental literacy lab Northwest on one of the at the time, Cruz and Hol- San Juan Islands, where lingsworth were the only atop their school in the South Bronx there was a one-room pri- high school students at the mary school and no paved meeting, which included roads. Island residents By Siddhartha Mitter scientists from 54 coun- participated in sustainable tries and was keynoted agriculture and aquacul- by U.S. Energy Secretary ture practices. Initially Steven Chu. Cruz had never been in an airplane before. they used diesel generators, but later solar panels and wind “Noel and Elton did the whole presentation,” says Wight, turbines, to meet energy demand. who earned his TC degree in speech/language pathology and “We lived off the land,” Wight says. “Now people always then a master’s degree in engineering from Columbia. “They’re laugh – ‘What are you doing here in the big city?’ Part of the the primary investigators.” excitement is to bring awareness of ecological systems to For their presentation project, Cruz and Hollingsworth built the city.” four scale models of rooftops, two of them green and two Cruz, who was born and raised amid the urban bustle of with gravel alone. One of each type also featured solar panels. the Bronx, says his parents taught him from childhood to think The boys were comparing the different setups, alone and in environmentally. combination, which Cruz says have different consequences for “My parents have shown me a lot about technology, cooling, the efficiency of the solar panels, and the biodiversity taught me a lot about being green. I told them I want to be and health of the vegetation on the green roof. an architect and aerospace engineer, and they’re guiding Along with the full-size green roof and the scale models, me in that direction. They told me the thing now is Wight and his students have created an entire program of sustainable building.”

e Wigh t t e experiments and installations at the site. Their work has been BDCA is a new kind of building trades school, where stu- supported by grants from several organizations, including a dents prepare not only for the best jobs in their field, but also Jaffe Service Learning Grant that Wight, who served as a for higher education. Wight, who is leading development of the Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, obtained science curriculum, gestures at the roof. “The two shouldn’t y of N a of Cour t e s y through TC’s Peace Corps Fellows program. be exclusive.” TC

www.tc.edu/tctoday fall/winter 2012 71 alumni focus Looking Kids in the Eye, Every Day

“Imagine a loud rap at your Defense Fund before moving to door at five a.m., and an un- Arizona to live with Betty in 1985. abashed woman saying, ‘Wake up, “I was involved in cases to dis- I’m driving you to school today so mantle state segregation of public you stop ditching class!’” education,” Jean Fairfax says. “But Speaking at a memorial service Betty was a counselor, dealing with in 2010, Tiffany Griego Crowe was specific students. Betty had to look recalling her former teacher the kids in the eye every day.” Betty Fairfax. In encouraging students to A pioneering African American achieve in the face of inequity, educator and counselor in the Betty Fairfax could point to her Phoenix, Arizona, public schools own example. The daughter of from the segregated 1950s until a social worker and a Cleveland her retirement in 2006, Fairfax got water department employee, involved in the small details of her she excelled in high school in students’ lives. the 1930s, athletically as well as “Betty believed in home visits,” academically. says her sister, Jean Fairfax, a At Washburn University in Kan- longtime civil rights activist. “She sas, she was not allowed to eat in would spend nights, weekends, the cafeteria with white students. holidays going to see students in She finished her undergraduate troubled areas. Her goal was to degree back in Ohio, at Kent State, make students responsible for the and started teaching in 1940 in preparation of their own careers, the Cleveland public schools. She and she expected accountability moved to Arizona when Phoenix’s from them – as well as from school black schools recruited for teachers and district officials.” with master’s degrees. Fairfax was a celebrated figure By supporting the professional in Phoenix, where she began as development of students who work a science and physical educa- Educator, counselor and on minority education issues, the tion teacher at all-black Carver Fairfax Fund at TC – initially set up High School in 1950 and, after philanthropist as a challenge grant, with a 3-to-1 desegregation, became counselor match by the college – has been and Dean of Students at Central Betty Fairfax doing its part to foster greater High School. She earned numer- student accountability. ous civic awards, and in 2007 the believed in involving herself TC doctoral candidate Travis Phoenix school district named a Bristol, who has received two new high school after her, the first in students’ lives Fairfax grants in the last three time it had ever so honored one years, says he used one grant to of its employees. By Siddhartha Mitter cover transportation and sup- Fairfax was also a philanthropist plies for a research project at who offered grants to encourage the jail on Rikers Island, studying students to persevere. In 1987 the strategies teachers use to engage two Fairfax sisters promised 92 eighth-graders $1,000 for each incarcerated youth and help them learn. “That experience stays year of college if they finished high school. They made the same with me to this day,” Bristol says. “It makes me realize the commitment to the 500-strong first class at theBetty H. Fairfax urgency of my work.” High School. The second grant covered part of Bristol’s costs to attend And at TC, where Betty Fairfax came for additional stud- and present at the 2011 meeting of the American Educational ies in the 1940s after earning her master’s in education from Research Association in New Orleans, as it did for others. That’s Western Reserve University in Ohio, the Betty Fairfax Profes- a benefit Jean Fairfax believes is especially important. “When sional Development Fund has, since 2003, made several several TC students are able to attend these important meetings

hundred small grants, typically around $500 each. The grants and then come back to campus fresh from that experience, it has airfax help minority students and others cover such things as re- to make a real impact on the College,” she says. search costs and dissemination. Through the fund, scores of TC students also have received Equity in education was a life mission for both sisters, says some of the motivational strength that Betty Fairfax gave to so Jean Fairfax, who spent many years as an organizer with the many students in Arizona over the years – a gift that she distilled

American Friends Service Committee and the NAACP Legal in her trademark phrase: “Now make me proud!” TC F J ean of Cour t e s y

72 fall/winter 2012 www.tc.edu/tctoday

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Old Doors, New Era To coincide with its 125th anniversary celebration, TC is restoring the 80-year-old exterior entrance doors to Russell Hall. The work has ex- posed a medallion and shield that says “Teachers College – Incorporated 1892. (Founded in 1887, TC reincorporated under its current name five years later.) The medallion is inlaid with a tree – perhaps the tree of life, a symbol of in- terconnection and knowledge. LE W I S UXEM VAN T HER HEA Y B OGRA P H T P HO