UB Graduate School of Education lecture examines relationship between schools of education and society

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Sam Wineburg, an education professor at Stanford University, will discuss “The Role of a School of Education in a Public Research University” during a talk at 9 a.m. Feb. 29 in Room 210 of the Student Union on the University at Buffalo North Campus.

Sponsored by UB’s Graduate School of Education, the talk and subsequent panel discussion will examine the responsibility schools of education have in the society that supports them. The program is free and open to the public.

Wineburg, the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and History at Stanford and director of the Stanford History Education Group, will discuss who benefits from research done in a university school of education, and who should benefit. Wineburg will approach these questions by weaving together personal experience — including his own disillusionment with the scant impact of his own research — with broader trends about the minimal impact education research has at the national level.

“Given the lower costs of the Internet,” Wineburg says, “what forms might research take so that its impact is felt by people who stand to benefit most: the children, teachers and administrators who toil in our nation’s schools?”

The discussion will be moderated by Stephen Jacobson, UB Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School of Education. The event is sponsored by the Willower Family Lecture Fund.

Jacobson says Wineburg’s talk will address the tensions confronted by schools of education at public research universities — specifically whose mission they should serve: the research/scholarship needs of the academy or the needs of practitioners in the field.

“Obviously these interests are not mutually exclusive,” Jacobson says. “But because of existing reward and promotion structures, faculty members often find themselves pressed to publish only in the most prestigious peer-reviewed journals when, in fact, professional journals are likely to be read by more practitioners and thus have a more immediate impact on what happens in schools. Is it time to reconsider these roles?

“Dr. Wineburg will offer some provocative insights on addressing these competing pressures.”

Respondents in the talk and discussion include Kriner Cash, superintendent of the Buffalo Public Schools, and Jaekyung Lee, dean of UB’s Graduate School of Education.

For more information and to register, contact Monica Washington at 716-645-1350 or mcw22@buffalo.edu.