Assistant Professor Aiken teaches leadership courses for Continuing Education students, on topics including curriculum management and staff evaluation. She is also an instructor for the Northeast Kingdom’s Masters in Education cohort program, an off-campus group of students completing their masters with College of Education courses and faculty, facilitated by Continuing Education.
Judith Aiken's research focuses on educational administration, staff evaluation and development, and women as leaders in educational and human services environments. Her work has been published in books such as "Women as School Executives: The Complete Picture," and respected journals including Educational Leadership Review, Journal of School Leadership, Planning and Changing, and Higher Education Perspectives. She has received the Department of Education Technology Task Force Grant as well an Instructional Incentive grant from UVM's Center for Teaching and Learning. From 1997 to 2001, Aiken served as a curriculum reform consultant for UVM's College of Medicine. Her extensive contributions to the Vermont education community include: participating as a member of the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators, working on the Steering Committee for the Vermont Principals' Association, and being a part of the planning team for the Northeast Kingdom School Development Center's Leadership Program. Dr. Aiken is also a member of the Board of Examiners for the National Council for the Accreditation for Teacher Education (NCATE) and sits on a number of editorial review boards.
As a faculty in the Masters/CAS Program in Educational Leadership, Assistant Professor Aiken has been working to respond to the "crisis in school leadership" in Vermont. According to Aiken, "the rapid turnover of school principals as well as the shortage of qualified candidates to fill positions forced us to reexamine our own preparation program goals and to develop new strategies and learning opportunities to support those who aspire to become school principals. We also knew that we wanted to 'grow' leaders for Vermont schools who can make a difference in the lives of Vermont children, youth, and families."
Associate Professor Meyers teaches leadership courses for Continuing Education students, on topics including effectively managing change and organizational change. He is also a researcher in the College of Education and Social Services, focusing on projects for evaluation systems, leadership development and issues of equity and social justice.
With the exception of a four-year leave of absence to serve as the deputy commissions of education for standards and assessment for the State of Vermont, Dr. Meyers has been a faculty member of the College of Education and Social Services since 1978. Dr. Meyers was one of two creators of the Vermont Teacher Corps, serving as its director from 1973 through 1977. Throughout the 1980's, Meyers taught research methods and did research on school effectiveness. The decade of the 1990's saw his research and consulting shift to the fields of assessment and accountability, while he continued to teach research methodology to graduate students at the master’s and doctoral levels. In 1990, Meyers headed a commission to establish the Vermont Assessment system. In 1999, he spent part of a sabbatical year at Oxford University studying school choice in England and preparing for the longer leave from UVM to serve at the State of Vermont. In the fall of 2004, Dr. Meyers returned to teaching and research at UVM with an emphasis on research methodology, organizational change and assessment.
Dr. Meyers is strongly committed to the equity agenda embedded in the new federal law, No Child Left Behind. While he believes that assessment and accountability are only partial solutions to the problems engendered by the unequal distribution of opportunities to learn for all students, he does believe that data based decisions about how to improve instruction and state, district and school level policy to support these changes are vitally important.
Dr. Meyers currently serves on the board of directors for the Association for Effective Schools and regularly participate in activities of the American Educational Research Association and the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science.
Assistant Professor Furney teaches leadership and special education courses for Continuing Education students, on topics including organizational leadership and literacy and mathematics curriculum. She is also a dissertation advisor for the Northeast Kingdom’s Masters in Education cohort program, an off-campus group of students completing their masters with College of Education courses and faculty, facilitated by Continuing Education.
Assistant Professor Furney began her teaching career as a special education teacher at both the elementary and high school levels. In 1986, Furney was hired as a Research Coordinator at the University of Vermont, where she was responsible for the implementation of two federally funded research projects designed to help adolescents with disabilities make successful transitions from high school to adult life. While completing her doctoral degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Vermont, Furney served as the coordinator for three additional federally funded grants and became a Lecturer within the Special Education and Leadership Programs. In 2001, she was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Special Education Program in the College of Education and Social Services at UVM. Assistant Professor Furney teaches courses related to collaborative consultation in schools and communities, special education foundations and law, special education assessment, and leadership. She is a member of Vermont’s Special Education Advisory Board, the Vermont Learning Disabilities Task Force, and the Committee on Families within the Division of Research of the Council for Exceptional Children. Furney serves as a guest editor for Mental Retardation and Exceptional Children, and maintains professional memberships with the Council for Exceptional Children and the American Educational Research Association.
Dr. Furney is committed to exploring the ways in which policies and practices related to children with disabilities and those placed at risk of school failure can be developed, implemented, and evaluated for the purpose of ensuring that our schools and communities are places where all children and families have the opportunity to learn and experience full community participation. Furney believes in the need for schools and communities to engage in dialogue and promote the use of collaborative processes that will promote social justice and the success of all children and families. In her role as a graduate level teacher and advisor, her goal is to help each student identify and maximize the ways in which they can act on their personal passions to make a difference in the world.
Assistant Professor Morris teaches education technology courses for Continuing Education students, including inquiry based learning and technology. She is helping prepare tomorrow’s teachers to use technology in their classroom and curriculum.
Assistant Professor Morris began her teaching career with at-risk middle school students, with a focus on integrating technology in the classroom as early at 1986. Since then, she has continued her emphasis on enhancing teaching with technology and has included future teachers in her audience of learners. In addition to her teaching responsibilities at the University of Vermont, she organizes and develops curriculum, implements and assesses professional development for university faculty. In January 2001, she assumed the position of PT3 Grant Professional Development Coordinator after winning a significant federal grant for the course development and implementation. In this capacity, she was mainly responsible for helping our pre-service teaching faculty integrate and model good use of technology in their teaching. Morris has maintained her teacher license in Vermont and New York, and sits on and/or chairs several committees, including UVM’s Faculty Senate Technology committee, VITAL-Learn Board of Directors, Elementary Education Portfolio Committee, DOE Technology Planning Committee, American Association for Computers in Education (AACE), and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).
Assistant Professor Johnson teaches courses for Continuing Education students, on topics including organizational leadership, organization and human resources development, leadership, diversity and social justice, and staff evaluation. He is also a researcher in the College of Education and Social Services, focusing on projects for education, public policy, leadership, social justice and diversity (race, social class, sexual orientation and gender).
Assistant Professor Johnson served as Director of the University of Vermont’s TRIO programs in his seven years in an administrative role at the University. In this role, he helped shape the lives of UVM students, fostering their growth and development. Taking on the position of a tenure-track faculty with the College of Education and Social Services in 2005 meant leaving the TRIO programs, but he will always value the experience. In addition to his research agenda on public policy, leadership and social justice and diversity, Dr. Johnson serves on the committees of President’s Commission on Racial Diversity, The ALANA Coalition, and the Vermont PBS Community Council.
Sandy Lathem teaches courses for Continuing Education students, on topics including developing literacy and digital storytelling and learning theory, instructional design and technology. She is also program developer on two programs funded by the Vermont Department of Education’s Title IID, Enhancing Education through Technology Competitive Grant Program, and a principal investigator for an additional grant-funded research program. All of these programs propose to enhance education using information technology tools and networks in Vermont in various, important ways.
Assistant Professor Jewiss teaches courses for Continuing Education students, on topics including frameworks for understanding poverty and its impact on education. She is also a researcher with the College of Education and Social Services, focusing on projects for qualitative research, evaluation and organizational learning.
Assistant Professor Jewiss’s research and teaching interests have been informed and inspired by many years of “roll-up-your-sleeves” involvement in the leadership of nonprofit organizations. From 1991 through the spring of 2005, she served on the Board of Directors for the Humane Society of Chittenden County. In 2002, she joined the faculty of the Department of Education as a Research Assistant Professor. Her main focus is program evaluations of various human service, education, and health initiatives. Jewiss specializes in qualitative, participatory, and formative approaches to research and evaluation.
Jewiss is an enthusiastic member of the American Evaluation Association (AEA), an organization that has afforded her the opportunity to interact with and learn from many of the leading methodologists in the fields of qualitative research and evaluation. She regularly presents at AEA’s national conferences and reviews conference proposals for AEA’s Qualitative Methods and Teaching of Evaluation Topical Interest Groups. She also is a book proposal reviewer on research and evaluation methods for Jossey-Bass. Her other activities include: membership in the national advisory panel for the Place-based Education Evaluation Collaborative; participation in an international effort to field-test a new framework for evaluating leadership development programs, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, U.S. Agency for International Development, the Population Leadership Program, and the Public Health Institute; and Design Team Member for the Vermont Research Partnership among UVM, Vermont Department of Education, Vermont Agency of Human Services, and Vermont Association of Regional Partnerships.
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H.W. "Bud" Meyers, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor of Education
Associate Professor Meyers teaches leadership courses for Continuing Education students, on topics including effectively managing change and organizational change. He is also a researcher in the College of Education and Social Services, focusing on projects for evaluation systems, leadership development and issues of equity and social justice. See his bio...