Jack Dougherty

Last summer I sat down with colleagues at ConnecticutHistory.org to brainstorm ways of partnering together to document African-American and civil rights history in the Hartford region. In this video, students from my Cities, Suburbs, and Schools seminar discuss what they learned about the process of writing for broader audiences through this open-access web publication. So far, essays published by my Trinity students include:

Victoria Smith-Ellison, “Hartford’s Great Migration Through Charles S. Johnson’s Eyes,” ConnecticutHistory.org, February 2013.

Mary Daly, “Race Restrictive Covenants in Property Deeds,” ConnecticutHistory.org, January 2013.

Nicole Sagullo, “How Real Estate Practices Influenced the Hartford Region’s Demographic Makeup,” ConnecticutHistory.org, February 2013.

Amanda Gurren, “Connecticut Takes the Wheel on Education Reform: Project Concern,” ConnecticutHistory.org, April 2013.

Lis (Pennington) Fornaro '07

Lis (Pennington) Fornaro, who graduated with Trinity with a double-major in Educational Studies & Public Policy in 2007, has been accepted and will enroll in the Ph.D. program in Urban Education at Temple University in Philadelphia. Her advisor will be Professor Erin Horvat, a sociologist who studies families, schooling, and inequality. As an undergraduate in my Ed 200: Analyzing Schools and Ed 300: Ed Reform courses, I recall Lis expressing a strong interest in educational equity during her Hartford school placement, a semester abroad in Sweden, and her studies on educational finance and state constitutional law. Through the Cities Suburbs & Schools Project, Lis received Trinity summer funding to do archival and quantitative research that led to her senior research project, “A Political History of School Finance Reform in the Metropolitan Hartford Region, 1945-2005,” which she presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) meeting in Chicago in 2007 (and I sat in the audience, with a big smile on my face). After Trinity, Lis enrolled in the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows program and taught 4th through 8th grade students in special education, inclusion, and ESL classrooms. She spoke with Trinity students (via video conference) as part of our Pathways to Teaching panel in October 2012. Since many Trinity students search for advice about making the transition from undergraduate to graduate school, I asked Lis for permission to share her personal statement from her application, which explains why she and the Temple doctoral program are a good match for one another.

Michael Fultz, my grad school advisor

It’s wonderful to be invited to participate in the 10th annual Educational Policy Studies Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and to deliver this presentation, “Race and Educational History from Milwaukee to Metropolitan Hartford,” designed to illustrate how my research has evolved from my dissertation book to my current study. Great to see my grad school advisor, Michael Fultz, who taught me the value of framing writing around an insightful question about what you don’t know, rather than starting with a thesis on what you already know. It’s also been a pleasure to meet students and faculty who “recently” joined the department (defined as anytime after receiving my doctorate in 1997). Special thanks to all of the event planners, particularly Sara Goldrick-Rab, whose organizational skills and intellectual stamina amazed me, as last night’s lecture was the culminating event in the 10-day ED Talks Wisconsin series, and she live-tweeted nearly all of it, cogently!

Noelle Bessette, Class of 2010

Noelle Bessette (Educational Studies major, Community Action minor, Class of 2010) will return to campus to speak about her career path in public health on Thursday, March 14th, 2013 at 5pm in Trinity’s Career Development Center. While at Trinity, she interned at the Institute for Community Research, sparking her interest in Public Health. Her senior research project in Educational Studies examined “Educating the Public About Ecstasy: Comparing Two Forms of Research Dissemination.” After graduating from Trinity, she moved to New York City to attend Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, where she studied epidemiology, the study of the distribution and causes of disease in human populations.  While studying in New York City, she worked at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the Bureau of Communicable Diseases, doing surveillance of foodborne diseases. Upon graduating with a Masters of Public Health in 2012, she was offered a job as a Surveillance Epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA. Welcome back, Noelle!

We just opened the search for a newly-defined position at Trinity College, Hartford CT:

The Director of Educational Technology. . . will provide vision, leadership and pedagogical support for the College’s teaching and learning environment. The core responsibilities of this new position will be to cultivate strong relationships with the faculty of the college, ensure that projects are aligned with ITS and college goals, and champion new initiatives. The Director will identify project goals, prioritize tasks and coordinate implementation with other IT staff. The Director will participate in planning activities, budgeting, staffing and policy decisions as part of the Information Technology Services management team. The position reports to the Director of Information Technology Services and manages a team of Instructional Technologists and the Learning Space Manager.

Trinity students using laptops during study group

The qualified candidate will have five years’ experience in a related position and understand ways in which technology enhances teaching, learning and scholarship at liberal arts colleges. Must be a good listener and responsive to faculty academic interests. The successful candidate must have a proven track record in building partnerships with constituents, developing quality solutions and always striving for excellence in customer service. The successful candidate must demonstrate initiative, actively explore new technologies, work independently as well as effectively collaborate with the team. Experience managing technical teams and/or leading projects of varying complexity is a plus.

Bachelor’s Degree required, advanced degree is a plus: Leadership Skills; 5+ years of experience in Educational Technology; Strong collaborative working style; Excellent oral and written communication skills; Involvement in professional organizations; Working knowledge of Learning Management Systems such as Moodle.

To apply, see the full job posting. The applications review process will begin in March; search will continue until the position is filled. To learn more about Information Technology Services at Trinity, visit the ITS website

As one of the faculty members on the search committee, I’m reaching out to prospective candidates through my own networks, such as THATCamp, NITLE, ProfHacker, and relationships developed through digital scholarship projects such as Writing History in the Digital Age and On The Line. Furthermore, as co-chair of Trinity’s Information Technology in Education Committee (ITEC), I can attest that we have a good working relationship between IT professionals and faculty, who regularly collaborate to offer workshops, course development grants, and a new discussion group to experience and evaluate digital courses and their implications for liberal arts learning. Our Director of ITS, Sue Aber, created this position to build on our strengths and expand for the future.

Trinity is one of the few nationally-recognized liberal arts colleges located in a capital city, and urban and global initiatives are one way that we define our institutional mission. As a small, residential liberal arts college, with a student/faculty ratio of about 10:1, we cultivate rich learning opportunities for undergraduates. This position has the potential to develop working relationships with other campuses, including nearby Wesleyan University and Connecticut College (members of our CTW library consortium), and institutions in the Five College Consortium (Amherst/Northampton, MA is 45 minutes to the north) and New Haven, CT (45 minutes to the south). Hartford is located halfway between Boston and New York City (each 2 hours away), and is known to some as the Mason-Dixon line of the Red Sox vs. Yankees baseball rivalry.