Dear colleagues,

We are in the home stretch of fall semester, 2025!

I am grateful to those of you who attended our Dean's Distinguished Speaker Series lectures with Jungmin Kwon on November 4 and Kara Viesca on December 2. If you missed these events, you can read a recap of Dr. Kwon's presentation here  and Dr. Viesca's here. 

I look forward to seeing you all at our annual CoEdu and Tanner Dance Holiday Luncheon later today. More details below. 

As a reminder, please reach out to the following CoEdu email addresses for support: 

For financial, administrative, and HR questions, email CoEdu.Support@utah.edu. 

For requests to edit the website, please email coedu-websupport@utah.edu.

Warmly,

Frankie Santos Laanan
Dean

On November 4, the College of Education community gathered for our second Dean’s Distinguished Speaker lecture of the 2024-2025 academic year: “Understanding the Transnational Lives and Literacies of Immigrant Children” featuring Jungmin Kwon, assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. The event was generously co-sponsored by the University of Utah Asia Center.

Read more.

Kara Mitchell Viesca, a renowned multilingual teacher-education scholar, delivered the last CoEdu Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Series lecture of 2024: “Co-imagining/Creating Transformative Educational Futures in a Shifting Global Landscape Through Social Design-based Teacher Education Research Collectives.”

Read more.

The Utah Education Network won a Public Media Award for Digital Media in recognition of their work with the Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU) on the innovative science program, Research Quest.

Lynne Zummo, Curator of Learning Sciences at NHMU and Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, and Kirsten Butcher, Associate Dean of Faculty and Student Affairs and Professor of Educational Psychology, are longtime collaborators with NHMU and Research Quest. Congrats!

Lynne Zummo, Curator of Learning Sciences at NHMU and Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, and Claire Son, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology, were selected as SPUR mentors for 2025. Project titles: Lynne Zummo, Education: A Climate of Hope: Investigating learning at an innovative exhibit towards new knowledge, theory, and practice of climate change learning with diverse audiences.

Claire Son, Education: Promoting Vocabulary Learning in Young Children with Interactive Digital Stories.

The prestigious Lieutenant Governor's Public Service Award recognizes individuals who have improved their communities through public service over more than 5 years of continuous commitment.

Lia Olive, Erin Castro's former student and the very first Utah Prison Education Project (UPEP alum), accepted the award on Castro's behalf at the Utah Philanthropy Day awards ceremony on November 7, 2024.   

Watch the captioned video of the award presentation.

A successful collaboration between the Utah State Board of Education (USBE), Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind (USDB), and the University of Utah/Multi-University Consortium, directed by Chris Bischke, Professor of Special Education, brought Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments (TSVIs) together for a day to learn and network!  The summit was held on November 9, 2024 at the USDB OEC Campus. 

Presenters included: Glenna Wright-Gallo,  Dr. Sean Tikkun, and Erika Anderson Ko.

Chenglu Li, Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, has been selected as an inaugural One-U Responsible AI Initiative Fellow. The initiative’s Faculty Engagement and Executive committees recommended seven fellows out of an incredibly competitive applicant pool. 

“I intend to collaborate on research and grant proposals promoting educational equity through AI and organize or contribute to venues to raise awareness of AI’s societal impacts among educators and students,” Li said.

Read more about Li and the other inaugural fellows. 

UITE Director Connor K. Warner has been selected to serve on AACTE's Programmatic Advisory Committee on Research and Dissemination from March 2025-February 2028. 

This committee advises and assists the Association in facilitating, promoting, and disseminating research that adds to the knowledge base for educator preparation, making meaningful contributions to the professional narrative. 

Cynthia Benally, Director of the Working with Native Communities Certificate Program and Assistant Professor of Education, Culture & Society,  and CoE alum Daniel Piper published "Native American language rights in light of Lau: Overlapping policies and possibilities" in the Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education. 

Read more. 

Professor Chris Linder and students featured on Student Affairs Now Podcast

Chris Linder, Director of the Lauren McCluskey Center for Violence Prevention and Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy, was featured with her students on the Student Affairs Now podcast.

They discussed Linder's recent book, Thinking Like An Abolitionist to End Sexual Violence in Higher Education. 

Listen here! 

Are too many kids put in seclusion in Utah schools? It's hard to know.

Aaron Fischer, professor of Educational Psychology, has researched seclusion and worked previously with Utah schools to reduce their use of the tactic. He said he’s seen firsthand how turning to seclusion can sometimes feel like “the easy thing to do” for teachers who feel burned out and under-supported.

“When you use seclusion, it is an immediate response,” he said. “And so it may temporarily feel like it satisfies the needs of the adult. But again, there’s nothing happening for the children that’s productive.” Watch the video and read more. 

‘Meeting real people changes everything’: State prison book club invites authors to meetings

Back in 2019, just three people showed up to the Utah Prison Education Project’s (UPEP) first book club. 

Last month, "the number of people interested in attending this particular meeting could easily have filled the prison chapel." 

UPEP was co-founded by Erin Castro, Associate Dean of College Access & Community Engagement and Associate Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy.

Watch the video and read more. 

Join us for the faculty/staff holiday luncheon!

Monday, December 9

11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. 

Tanner Dance, #4106

We look forward to seeing you there. 

Join us for the first college-wide meeting of 2025!

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

2:30-3 p.m.
Faculty/Staff Connections

3-4 p.m.
College-wide Meeting

SAEC Auditorium

Come for the connections and stay for the updates. 

The upcoming special exhibition Gateway to Himalayan Art from The Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts takes place from Feb. 15-July 27, 2025.

The Rubin is coordinating two virtual workshops and one in-person walk-through to help university faculty envision ways they might connect their course to this exhibition. These are: 

Workshop #2, Training by UofU professors Winston Kyan and Xi Zhang – Friday, December 6, 2024 | 2pm MST

An in-person exhibition walk-through – Thursday, February 13, 2025 | 5pm MST

If you’re interested in receiving recordings of these virtual workshops or attending the walk-through, please email ashley.farmer@umfa.utah.edu.

Are you a faculty or staff member with questions about HR, finance, or administration? 

Please email:  CoEdu.Support@utah.edu! 

By newly centralizing these services, the dean's office aims to ensure that faculty and staff won’t have to navigate institutional systems on their own when in need of assistance.

We are collecting feedback on our social media channels from CoE students! 

Please consider sharing this survey with your undergraduate and graduate spring classes: 

CoE Student Social Media Survey.

1721 CAMPUS CENTER DRIVE, SAEC 3202
SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84112
801-581-8221