Category: News

The Environment Initiative at the University of Oregon has named Sarah Stapleton, an assistant professor in the College of Education, as its faculty fellow for spring 2022, as part of a new program funded by the Office of the Provost.

The Environment Initiative Faculty Fellows Program aims to enhance transdisciplinary research and advance the Initiative’s strategic priorities. Faculty fellows will receive a course buyout to complete a project that contributes to the goals of the initiative, which include leveraging environmental research and teaching toward social and environmental justice.

Cara DiMarco had many roles in the Lane County community — therapist, councilor, teacher, book author, curriculum developer, friend and mentor, to name a few.

DiMarco was born and raised in Springfield, and attended the University of Oregon. She earned a master’s degree in journalism in 1986, a master’s in counseling psychology in 1988, and a doctorate in counseling psychology in 1992. She became a licensed psychologist in Oregon and had a private practice in Eugene for more than 30 years.

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Schools aren’t just where kids go to learn reading, math, science and history. The social skills they learn – like how to build and maintain relationships with peers – are also critical. This is particularly true as schools grapple with the aftereffects of school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The article is authored by Research Associate Professor Mark Van Ryzin.

In Oregon, school districts filled 29 openings for school superintendents this year.

Just eight were women. Of those, only three got contracts for more than a year. 

Krista Parent is a director at the school administrators group and a member of the Oregon Commission for Women. She said the outdated comments and scrutiny women superintendents face were among the most jarring findings from the surveys conducted as part of the study.​

Merrill believes newcomer programs, like Las Sierras, are ideal for immigrant students who come to the country in high school. Ilana Umansky, an assistant professor at the University of Oregon who studies the impact of policy decisions on ELs, agrees.

Umansky said newcomer academies are best suited for students who are older and could even age out of the public school system before they achieve academic English proficiency.

A Yakama Nation elder and language teacher who was the University of Oregon’s oldest-ever graduate will reach a major milestone next week.

“I never dreamed that I would live this long,” said Virginia Beavert, who turns 100 on Nov. 30. Beavert, who is also known as Tuxámshish, earned a doctorate in linguistics from the UO at age 90 and has remained active in teaching and mentorship at the UO’s Northwest Indian Language Institute and the Sapsikwala teacher education program.

While literacy is often seen as a cornerstone to scholastic achievement, and many parents devote a lot of time and energy into nurturing their small child’s love of reading, studies show that mathematical reasoning ability may be even more crucial as a building block for success in school and beyond. That’s why experts say more attention should be paid to early numeracy in childhood.

“Math, early numeracy, has definitely played a back seat to efforts to support early literacy development,” said Ben Clarke, an associate professor at the University of Oregon and an expert in math instruction. “But the same rationale that led to investments in a preventive framework in early literacy are present in mathematics. The relationship between early and later math is actually stronger than that of early to later literacy.”

Logan Grasseth, assistant director of student services for the Bethel School District in Eugene, Ore., graduated from the University of Oregon’s Sapsik’ʷałá master’s program in 2014. In the second of a four-part video series, he discusses the impact the program has had on him and his community, and his dream of working for his tribe’s education department.

Valorie Spearman, dean of students at Creekside Community High School in Tigard, Ore., graduated from the University of Oregon’s Sapsik’ʷałá master’s program in 2004. Since then, she’s continued to work in the field, while returning to mentor students in the graduate program. In her current role as teacher and dean, she’s been able to show students that being Native and being an educator can go hand-in-hand.

Growing up, Tyler Sumpter never considered becoming a teacher. She lived on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation but attended public schools just outside of her community in Sparks, Nev., where just 2 percent of the student population is Native and Alaska Native. Her teachers did not look like her.

Finally making that connection with teachers in the college setting helped Sumpter realize that she wanted to be a teacher—the kind she wished she’d had as a K-12 student. With that goal in mind, she applied and was accepted to the University of Oregon’s Sapsik’ʷałá Teacher Education master’s program.