Program Components
The four components of the Spencer program are:
- Graduate Student Fellowships and Research Grants.
There are three full fellowships and five research mini-grants in each year of the three-year grant period. Students who received full stipends are able to concentrate on their research during the grant year. Students who receive the smaller research grants can use the funds to cover costs related to their research. All students receiving Spencer funds attend the biweekly meetings of the Interdisciplinary Seminar throughout the academic year.
- Faculty Research Grants and Education Mentors.
Four faculty members from arts and sciences departments, professional schools and/or the Education Program at Brandeis serve as core faculty. They participate in the Interdisciplinary Seminar and advise the co-Directors.
- Spencer Interdisciplinary Seminar.
The Interdisciplinary Seminar is the heart of the program and the major vehicle for realizing its purposes. Here students and faculty explore the pluralistic worlds of education research, learn to talk productively across disciplinary boundaries, consider the value of historical, theoretical and applied perspectives and the implications of basic research for deepening understandings of educational processes, contexts, policy and practices. In the fall semester, both students and faculty present their current research and receive feedback. The spring semester is framed around common problems and methodological issues, as well as preparing for Spencer-sponsored conferences and events. Each year, the program has sponsored conferences and events that are open to the public in order to facilitate and contribute to a serious dialogue about education in the broader Brandeis community. For example, in March 2004 we highlighted the 50th anniversary of the historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision, and used the seminar to discuss educational research that examined the intersection of education and schooling with issues of race, class, gender, access and equity. In February 2006, Lee S. Shulman, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, gave a public lecture on “Professing the Liberal Arts: The Essential Tension Between Liberal and Professional Studies in American Higher Education.”
- Documentation Study.
During the first 3-year cycle of the program we documented the program and its effects on students and faculty. We interviewed participants and collected periodic self-assessments and reflective writing. We taped each session of the Interdisciplinary Seminar and analyzed the recurrent themes in our conversations. We also documented each of our public events and conferences in order to analyze the conversations about education in the broader community and to discover who is participating. In this way, we hope to learn what parts of the program are most helpful and why and how the program has influenced participants’ thinking, professional identity and research.
