Student Quotes
Anna Allocco,
Spencer Research Grant Recipient 2003-2004, Spencer Fellow 2004-2005
"Doctoral students don’t typically learn about how research happens,
instead we read accounts of results. This does not adequately prepare us for
the research process itself. The Seminar has helped make the process more transparent.
Whether it is discussing how to narrow a topic, or considering the ethical dilemmas
in a certain data collection strategy, I have gained important insight regarding
how to organize my own work. Finally, the Seminar has provided me with a structure
for working on my dissertation. Previously, my research interests did not have
a “home” in the University. It was a challenge to find support and
interest in Education. I now have a community of professionals and scholars
to work alongside. This sense of community has proved immeasurably helpful for
me."
Judy Carson,
Spencer Fellow 2003-2004
"Participating in the Spencer Program has influenced my thinking about
education in general and in specific ways related to my dissertation project.
The historians in the group have broadened my interest in and appreciation for
an historical perspective on education and the techniques of historical research.
Also, the focus on the anniversary of Brown v Board of Education has renewed
my interest in the complex relationship between issues of quality and integration.
Attending the recent university-wide lecture on Brown followed by a facilitated
discussion at the Spencer meeting created a rich experience. The recent meetings
have deepened my thinking about what “learning” is and meaningful
indicators of learning that I can apply to my own study. I have enjoyed being
part of the Spencer Program and look forward to the meetings. Having a connection
to a “learning community” that is concerned about issues in education
has made a significant contribution to my progress on my dissertation project.
Being part of the Spencer Program has helped me move forward with my dissertation
proposal in several ways. The meetings played a significant role in facilitating
interactions with my dissertation committee members."
Beth Cousens,
Spencer Research Grant Recipient 2003-2004
"Participation in Spencer has given me a few great things: exposure to
many people who think about education in different ways, the requirement that
I think out my research ideas, different resources - books and ideas, and a
regular time during which I am forced to think about issues of general education.
I needed immersion in a broad educational community, and the Seminar has given
me this. From this I now have an expanded language with which to discuss general
education."
Kathleen Drennan,
Spencer Research Grant Recipient 2002-2003, Spencer Fellow 2003-2004
"The Spencer seminar has had a tremendous influence on the way I think
about education, broadly defined, and how I approach my own research on lower-income
students in higher education. I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting lately
because I have moved tenuously into the fieldwork and data collection phase
of my dissertation project. What I have gained most from the Spencer seminar
this semester is a sense of peace with my own research project. I have lost
most of the self-doubt that marked the first stages of the process and have
begun to realize the value of my project, as well as my ability to undertake
a large, independent study of this sort. Last year, as I listened to my colleagues
present their in-depth, highly theoretical theses, I was filled with doubt about
the quality and rigor of my own study. This year, however, I have found a new
appreciation for the relevance my project has for contemporary issues and problems.
The seminar has helped me clarify what I want to say about what I consider a
tremendously important but still woefully understudied aspect of American higher
education."
Melissa de Graaf,
Spencer Research Grant Recipient 2003-2004
"Taking part in the Spencer seminar has been a very positive experience
for me, and has affected my thinking and research in a number of ways. It has
broadened my views on education and educational possibilities in ways I had
never imagined. Simply by attempting to define what education is in the seminar
has both broadened my way of thinking and sharpened my thoughts and ideas on
the nature of education."
Jackie Horne,
Spencer Research Grant Recipient 2003-2003
"I feel that I’ve gained valuable insights about the problems, the
challenges, the current hot topics and the neglected but still vital issues
facing education researchers today. The conversations that we have, even when
they begin in reaction to graduate student research, are typically on a much
higher level than I initially expected — on the level of ideas, theories,
philosophies. Though each participant has his or her own perspective, his or
her own disciplinary and personal biases, each seminar member is impassioned
about the world of education; being a witness to such passion, such commitment,
is awe-inspiring to one just at the beginnings of her career."
Tania M. Mireles,
Spencer Fellow 2003-04, Spencer Research Grant Recipient 2002-03
"As a participant in the Spencer Interdisciplinary Seminar, I have found
that my work has progressed markedly, and the experience of hearing the multitude
of perspectives in the seminar has led me to explore questions from new angles.
This has enriched my thinking, and I can only imagine that this experience will
have an even more important impact as I enter into the research and analysis
phase of my dissertation process. I struggle with a number of contradictions
in my work, and I believe the Seminar has challenged me to address these contradictions,
thereby increasing the quality of my research and its application to educational
systems."
Hilary Moss,
Spencer Fellow 2002-2003
"I have been incredibly fortunate to participate in the Spencer Seminar.
From the first week, the seminar has been instrumental in helping me to refine
key concepts in my research and exposing me to the larger community of education
researchers. Not only did the seminar improve my understanding of concepts critical
to my work (not the least of which is the ability to “define” education),
it helped to give me a fuller professional and intellectual identity. I have
researched education from the beginning of my graduate school career, but locked
within the strict confines of a history department, I had never viewed myself
as anything other than a historian. This seminar encouraged me to realize that
I was part the “education” community as well. In other words, the
Seminar has greatly expanded my professional horizons. Before this year, I never
considered applying for jobs outside traditional history departments or inside
Schools of Education. Now, various trajectories seem appealing."
Jason Opal,
Spencer Research Grant Recipient 2002-2003
"At the end of the first semester, I presented my dissertation to the Seminar
as a forty-five minute talk. This was, for starters, a great prep for my job
interviews. Secondly, the talk forced me to describe my findings and interpretations
in ways that I would not to "card-carrying" historians. For this seminar,
I spoke broadly about changes in the informal and formal educational experiences
of my seven figures. In return, scholars from diverse backgrounds related my
project to a study of Israeli households in the 1950s; to new work on the nature
of the life-course and its relation to life outcomes for ordinary people; and
to issues of religion and faith in schooling that I would never have heard of
otherwise. In addition to this kind of direct aid to my project, I've also benefited
in a broader sense from the other presentations. One can easily become stuck
in the epistemological conventions of a discipline--especially while writing
a dissertation. Listening to sociologists, secondary-school teachers, educational
policy makers, and anthropologists discuss their projects helps counter that
kind of academic provincialism."
Sandy Resnick,
Spencer Fellow 2002-2003
"I was anticipating a seminar of talented, focused students who would have
very different disciplinary backgrounds from me. (This has been the case.) From
them, I expected to learn how education was viewed through different paradigms,
and to glean some useful ideas in broad strokes. I hoped also to become more
adept at discussing “across boundaries.” I cannot speak to my discussion
skills, but I can say that I have found so much that is directly useful to my
work and my development. I can break this learning into four categories: new
resources, new tools, common themes across paradigms, and new avenues of thought.
These often overlapped."
Susie Tanchel,
Spencer Fellow 2002-2003
"Preparing my presentation for the Spencer seminar was very beneficial
for my dissertation in two particular ways. Firstly, I had to figure out how
to explain complex biblical ideas to people who were outside of my discipline
in succinct, but detailed and interesting manner. Secondly, my presentation
afforded me the opportunity to discuss my research into the teaching of Bible
in a public setting for the first time. This compelled me to think and write
about how to integrate the secondary literature I had read on general education
with my own research."
Emily Straus,
Spencer Fellow 2003-2004
"I found presenting my project [in the Seminar] particularly helpful. It
was wonderful to find another forum in which I would present my project as a
whole. It is a rare opportunity to get a room full of people willing to sit
through a presentation of an entire dissertation topic. It is even more rare
to fine a group of people willing to think actively and intelligently about
that topic. While the Spencer seminar is comprised of people from different
disciplines, people ask probing question and offer valuable feedback. While
the members of the Spencer seminar are all academics with a common interest
in education, only a few are historians. I found that it was extremely helpful
to figure out how to present my work to non-historians. I was forced to make
my work accessible to the educated layperson and eliminate disciplinary jargon."
Dorota Wojtas,
Spencer Research Grant Recipient 2002-2003
"On a personal note, the seminar has inspired me to take a fresh look at
myself in the capacity of a teacher. Although this does not translate into any
immediate results, I have gained a better understanding of the forces involved
in the act of teaching. For instance, before attending the Seminar I focused
mostly on the classroom community itself and my role in it. Currently, I would
be more inclined to think about the social ramifications of the interactions
that take place on a classroom level."