Alumni Spotlight: Kristen Luschen
Kristen Luschen, associate professor of education studies at Hampshire College, Amherst, MA., earned a CAS in women’s studies in 1999 and finished her dissertation in cultural foundations of education in 2005. Luschen has enjoyed a long relationship with the School of Education and the Cultural Foundations of Education department in particular, and her experiences as a graduate student in the School of Education continue to inform her academic and professional life.
“I was very excited about the interdisciplinary nature of the Cultural Foundations of Education department,” says Luschen. “I took courses in the School of Education, I took them in sociology, and I took them in women’s studies, so I was able to craft a program that really matched my interests, and I was able to carry that forward in different classes, so that was very exciting.”
Luschen appreciates the support she received from the School. “I was offered a fellowship, and that felt really great. That allowed me to be at Syracuse without having to worry about the financial aspects. At the same time, I was able to work closely with Sari Biklen as my mentor and dissertation advisor, and I was a teaching assistant for Bob Bogdan and Doug Biklen, which were extremely fortunate opportunities. I was brought into an intellectual community, and it was assumed that I was already a functioning member of that community. Sari’s attitude was, ‘OK, you’re doing really interesting things that I’m interested in as well; let’s work together on this.’”
“I fondly remember taking courses with Emily Robertson and Jerry Grant,” says Luschen, who describes the CFE community as small but rich. “I feel like I knew the people very well, and I could have gone to any of them for support.” Luschen says the program was a great place to learn how to teach. “They put a lot of emphasis on the teaching assistantships—not just to have us there as their assistants, but to mentor us into the professoriate.”
At Hampshire, Luschen teaches a course called “Contemporary Issues in Education Reform” in which she conducts research on the impact of the No Child Left Behind act. “What we are trying to figure out is how teachers are experiencing the changes brought on by NCLB. This project is designed to explore what are some of the specific challenges that elementary educators in small schools have with NCLB’s standards and the frameworks in either a good way or a not-so-good way.” (To see a documentary created from the interviews conducted by Luschen and her students, visit www.youtube.com and search under “The Cost of Accountability.”)
“CFE and Hampshire both share an appreciation for(qualitative methodology and politically relevant scholarship, unlike other places where qualitative work is deemed anecdotal. I’ve come to appreciate and know how to navigate Hampshire in many ways because of my experience with CFE and the School of Ed, so it’s been a pleasure.”