Department News

April 2012

This year's Annual Conference on Equity and Social Justice at SUNY New Paltz saw two presentations from CFE-ers. Derek Ford presented my "Educating Ourselves as Others: Toward a Pedagogy of Dependency and Vulnerability" with co-author Michelle Kurta, of Pacifica Graduate Institute. Jermaine Soto presented his paper, "Understanding and Defining 'Community' in Urban Public School/Community Relationships: Engaging Multiple Perspectives from a Central New York Latino Community.

December 2011

Congratulations to CFE's Qing Li who successfully defended her dissertation entitled "Chinese American Women, Identity and Education: A Qualtative Study." 

CFE's Michelle Maher co-organized the Growing Up Policed conference on December 1st. Michelle also presented a paper entitled "Institutional Conversations: Resisting the Criminalization of Youth, Sexuality, and Race." 

November 2011

Congratulations to Jagdish Chander who has successfully defended his dissertation! Dr. Chander's dissertation is entitled "Movement of the Organized Blind in India: From Passive Recipients of Services to Active Advocates of their Rights." 

Congratuations to CFE grad students Derek Ford and Wendy Nastasi on their publications in 2011 Educational Change: The Journal of the New York State Foundations of Education Association. Check out Derek's, "Racing Class, or Classing Race? A Review of 'Critical Race Theory: A Marxist Response'" and Wendy's "Book Review: Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing" at Educational Change.

CFE Emerita Professor Joan Burstyn has recently published, with Gershon Vincow, Searching for God: Study Partners Explore Contemporary Jewish Texts (iUniverse, 2011). Dr. Burstyn also serves as a member of the Advisory Board of Women Transcending Boundaries (WTB), whose 9/11 activities were reported in the New York Times and NPR.

Congratulations to Karen Stearns, CFE Ph.D alum, who was recently named Coordinator of Adolescence English Education at SUNY Cortland! Dr. Stearns was also awarded the New York Stat English Council Educator of the Year Award at the NYSEC conference in October, 2011.

On November 11-12, the Center on Human Policy, Law and Disability Studies celebrated its 40th Anniversary! The celebration was marked by a two-day conference highlighting the Center's many past and on-going contributions to the field of disability studies and inclusive education. Congratulations to all those who have been involved with the Center over the past 40 years.

The Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee has won a 2011 Orange Circle Award! This University honor "recognizes altruistic members of the Syracuse University community who have done extraordinary things in the service of others." Congratulations to all BCCC Members, past and present!

CFE faculty Gretchen Lopez gave a talk entitled "Dialogue Matters: Listening to and Learning from College and High School Students" at Mount Holyoke College, MA. Dr. Lopez is currently on research leave as a Research Associate in Residence at the Five Colleges Women's Studies Research Center located at Mount Holyoke. She will return to us for the Spring 2012 semester!

This year's American Educational Studies Association Conference saw a number of presentations from CFE students and faculty. QuERI (The Queering Education Research Institute) presented a panel called "Teacher's Experiences of Gender and Queerness in School Spaces." The panel included papers by CFE doctoral student Melissa Smith and Dr. Elizabethe Payne. CFE Chair Dr. Barbara Applebaum gave a paper titled "On the Meaning and Necessity of Vigilance in Social Justice Education" and another titled " 'Yes, but...:' Intersectionality, Privilege, and Complicity."

CFE professor Elizabethe Payne gave a presentation at Cornell Law School on LGBTQ in-school harassment and the on-going legal and policy initiatives in New York State.

CFE's newest faculty member, Mario Perez, presented a paper at the History of Education Society's annual conference in Chicago. His paper was titled, "Aberrant Destinations: Immigration Policy and the Threat of Mexican Students during the Progressive Era.” Dr. Perez also chaired a session called, "Hegemonic Positioning Through Language, Segregation, and Exile."

October 2011

CFE's Dené Granger has published "A tribute to my dyslexic body, as I travel in the form of a ghost" in Democratizing Pedagogy: The Challenge of Special Education. 

Heidi Pitzer, doctoral candidate in CFE, presented a paper at "What and how do teachers learn from experience?" a research symposium at the University of Oxford, UK. Her paper is titled "The Authority of Experience, Teach for America, and Deficit Discourse."

Professor Beth Ferri's has been busy! Dr. Ferri's recent publications include "Disability Life Writing and the Politics of Knowing." Teachers College Record. 113(10). 2267–2282; "Broadening our horizons: Toward a plurality of methodologies in learning disabilities research." Learning Disability Quarterly, 35(1), 107-121 with D.J. Connor and D. Gallagher; "Dis/Ability." In N. Lesko & S. Talburt (Eds.). Youth Studies: Keywords and Movements. (pp.). New York: Routledge; and, with Jessica Bacon, "Beyond Inclusion: Disability Studies in Early Childhood Teacher Education." Promoting Social Justice For Young Children: Educating the Young Child. Dr. Ferri's forthcoming publications will appear in the International Journal of Inclusive Education and the Learning Disability Quarterly. Cancel

CFE's Michelle Maher, doctoral candidate, presented a resolution titled "Standards of Cultural Competency in the Juvenile Justice System for the Welfare of American Indian and Alaska Native Youth" at the 68th Annual Convention of the National Congress of American Indians in Portland Oregon.  

Jeff Brune gave an invited talk, "Blind Like Me: John Howard Griffen, Disability, and the Fluidity of Identity in Modern America" at Shippensburg University in October. His talk, and a brown-bag discussion that he led called "What Every Historian Should Know about Disability History (and What They Lose by Ignoring the Field)" were part of Shippensburg University's efforts to incorporate more disability into their history courses. Dr. Brune is a 2011-2012 Fellow in the Center of Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies here at Syracuse University and an Assistant Professor of History at Gallaudet University.

Congratulations to doctoral student Andrew Bennett on the publication of his " 'Freedom herself is very agile, very co-dependent, and a lovely person:' The School Identities of High School Aged Youth with Communication Differences" in the Disability Studies Quarterly 31, no. 4.

CFE's Derek Ford presented his paper, "Potentialities of the (un)occupation: a historical-materialist analysis" at Brock University's recent event: Occupying Wall Street -- Anti-Capitalist Discontent in the Belly of the Beast?

September 2011

Barbara Applebaum's recently published Being White, Being Good: White Complicity, White Moral Responsibility, and Social Justice Pedagogy has received an American Educational Studies Association 2011 Critics Choice Book Award. The award recognizes and promotes scholarship that is outstanding in its field.

Elizabethe Payne, faculty in CFE, and Melissa Smith, CFE doctoral student, have published "The Reduction of Stigma in Schools: A New Professional Development Model for Empowering Educators to Support LGBTQ Students" in the Journal of LGBT Youth.

Recent CFE graduate Dr. Paul Buckley has been appointed Assistant Dean of Students at Dartmouth College.

Summer 2011

Congratulations to CFE Professor Steven Taylor who was presented with the Presidential Award of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in June, 2011 at its annual meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Crista Gray, doctoral candidate in CFE, presented "Diversity: (Re)focusing on intersectional identities" at the International Conference on Education at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya. Her presentation discussed her research challenging the notion that students of color do not gain positive learning experiences from courses that educate students on social justice issues. While in Kenya, Crista worked with the organization Life Bloom International to help develop ways for folks in the U.S. to support their efforts in re-training female sex workers into other professions.

Steven Taylor gave the keynote address at the Nordic Network on Disability Research in Reykjavik, Iceland. His presentation was entitled “The repeated cycle of exposes and reforms of institutions in the U.S.”

CFE's Adina Mulliken participated in a panel presentation at the American Library Association Annual Conference in June. Her panel presentation, "The Right to Read: Increasing Access to Information for People with Print Disabilities," discussed reference services for blind users in an academic library.

CFE doctoral student Dené Granger presented her paper "Re-writing the rude politics of Westcott nation" at the 2011 New York State Foundations of Education Conference.