At a spirited BSE reception, Associate Dean Kris Gutiérrez led a celebration of Berkeley award winners—including AREA President-elect Janelle Scott, who was voted to the post by AERA members prior to the annual meeting. Scott will join a line of Berkeley-affiliated AERA presidents, including Gutiérrez and Professor Alan Schoenfeld.
“You can see the threads of her work and her intellectual influence in the work of her advisees and mentees,” said Huriya Jabbar PhD ‘14, MA ‘11, an associate professor at the University of Texas, Austin, who introduced Scott at the reception on April 14. “I’m lucky to be one of those people who has benefited from Janelle’s mentorship, which as she told me when I graduated from Berkeley almost a decade ago, was a mentorship relationship for life.”
Scott said she was honored that AERA members elected her to lead the organization in such critical times.
“I am excited to work with AERA President Tyrone Howard and Past President Rich Milner, along with Executive Director Felice Levine and the AERA staff, to elevate the importance and relevance of educational research for supporting schools, teachers, students, systems, and communities,” she said.
Other AERA award winners included Professor Thomas M. Philip, faculty director of the Berkeley Teacher Education Program (BTEP), who was honored as an AERA Fellow. The BTEP team also won the Innovations in Research on Equity and Social Justice in Teacher Education award from AERA Division K. Associate Professor Patricia Baquedano-López won the Outstanding Mentor Award from Division G.
When they weren’t celebrating, networking, or receiving awards, BSE faculty and graduate students presented research on cross-cutting education topics that included AI, race, math assessment, SEL, bullying, social media, special education, and more.
Among some of the presentations:
- Assistant Dean Rebecca Cheung and Associate Professor Travis J. Bristol spoke on a panel to a highly engaged audience on the topic of “Investigations Into the Working Conditions of Leaders of Color: Illuminating the Truth About Recruitment, Retention, and Turnover.”
- Doctoral student Andy Castro and Philip presented “In Pursuit of Truth in Research on Teachers, Teaching, and Teacher Preparation.”
- Professor Marcia Linn and graduate students highlighted their work at the intersection of AI and pedagogy.
- Doctoral student Haider Ali Bhatti discussed his paper, “Data-Driven Instruction Design.”
- Schoenfeld spoke on a panel of AERA past presidents who offered critical perspectives and wisdom from years in the field.
For a list of BSE talks, visit our BSE @ AERA webpage.
In what is likely a first for the BSE, Bristol—who spoke in multiple sessions and hosted a reception for leaders of color— brought eight Berkeley undergraduate students to the national meeting and supported one of those students in presenting a research paper.
AERA’s annual meeting, which was held April 13-16, 2023, drew approximately 14,000 people and included some 2,600 sessions.
Berkeley’s groundbreaking work shone at the conference, which was dedicated to “consequential research in pursuit of truth”—a theme underscored by the renowned intellectual and leader Dr. Cornel West, the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary.
West kicked off the annual meeting with an uplifting and provocative talk, affirming the importance of joy in struggle while urging the packed audience of more than 1,300 education researchers not to “deodorize the funk of catastrophe” that is visited upon people of color.
“No matter what, never be discouraged. Don’t be surprised by evil or paralyzed by despair,” West said. “They can’t stop all of us.”
