CPED Member Spotlight
University of South Carolina

By: Yasha Jones Becton

1.  What did it mean to you and your program to host a CPED convening?

Hosting the #CPED19 October Convening was quite a rewarding experience. It provided our program with the opportunity to spotlight our emerging work on activism. It also provided a platform for showcasing our students, their dissertations and the activist roles that they are currently playing in their school communities.

2.  How did the convening’s theme fit with your program and work?

The convening’s theme of "Interaction & Activism in the Education Doctorate: Creating Lasting Impact" was an excellent fit for our Curriculum Studies EdD program. In our February program-level retreat, we brainstormed as a faculty a number of possible themes for the #CPED19 October Convening if we were designated as the official host. The theme that we all agreed upon was a theme centered around activism and the work that our students are equipped to engage in upon graduating from the program.

Allowing for more critical reflection of the overall program. The convening further served as an impetus for us to think more deeply about our work as well as an opportunity to see our work from a different perspective. It further provided an opportunity for us to collect data from other programs. Additionally, the focus on activism resonated with our current students and recent graduates. This focus inspired them to think more deeply about serving as agents of change, thus empowering them as professionals in their field.

3.  What has CPED and its Framework meant to you and your program?

CPED and its Framework served as the foundation for the program’s redesign in 2014. The framework further serves as a blueprint for continuous improvement that ensures program objectives are well-aligned with the CPED Guiding Principles and Design Concepts. Additionally, the CPED consortium provides a sense of community and an opportunity to glean various strategies, ideas, and tools from other CPED affiliates. Membership in the CPED organization supports our commitment to developing our students’ understanding of equity pedagogies and issues of social justice in diverse communities.

4.  How does your program meet the needs of scholarly practitioners?

Our program is designed for the scholarly practitioner who wants to develop an in-depth understanding of social justice in diverse communities and desires to use equity pedagogies to address problems of practice in educational settings. Our program develops and supports a community of scholarly practitioners and invites them to collaborate with key stakeholders in laboratories of practice using research methodologies and applied theories to conduct a Dissertation in Practice (DiP) as a tool for change.

We directly address the need for the scholarly practitioner to further expand their awareness regarding issues of social justice, multicultural education, and efforts to develop inclusive practices and policies in their local context.

We further advocate that students need to be empowered to use the knowledge they acquire and generate to transform curriculum, instruction, and policy. 

5.  Anything else you would like to share with us?

We would like to highlight a student who graduated in December 2019.

Stacy Payne is the winner of the 2019 CREATE (Consortium for Research on Education Assessment & Teaching Effectiveness) Emerging Researcher Award for her dissertation research, tentatively titled, "Opening Eyes to What They Don't Know: Talking About Race with White Pre-Service Teachers."

The CREATE Achilles-Harper-Swenson Emerging Researcher Award is an opportunity for doctoral students to present their work to a panel of judges, receive beneficial feedback, and compete for this distinguished title. You can learn more about the award here.

Stacy is the Middle Level Program Director in Counseling, Leadership, and Educational Studies, Riley W. College of Education, at Winthrop University. Her dissertation advisor is Dr. Leigh D'Amico.