Two UW Professors Receive Mary Ellbogen Garland Fellowships

Dec. 18, 2007 -- Two University of Wyoming College of Education faculty members are the recipients of the Mary Ellbogen Garland Early Career Fellowship.

Edward Janak, UW assistant professor of educational studies, and Lydiah Nganga, UW/Casper College Center assistant professor of elementary education, were awarded honors through funds established by the late Wyoming business leader, John P. “Jack” Ellbogen.

He founded the Mary Ellbogen Garland Early Career Fellowship in 2000 in honor of his daughter’s commitment to community service and philanthropy. Income from the fund is used to support one promising junior faculty member through supplementary salary or start-up funding for the recipients’ research and teaching programs.

The Garland Fellowship allows Janak to complete the manuscript of a book based on his doctoral dissertation, a biography of former South Carolina school superintendent John Swearingen. Janak will return to Swearingen’s home state to continue exploring archived sources, which he lacked time to access while a graduate student.

Swearingen’s story is fascinating to Janak because he is an educational historian. Swearingen, a champion of desegregation and equalized funding, and the son of a conservative family, served during a time of rampant racism in the South.

Uncovering his story has been particularly challenging, since many of his official papers have been lost or destroyed, Janak says. He constructed his biography from a variety of sources, including interviews with Swearingen’s son and also from content analysis of annual reports produced during his tenure.

In addition to allowing Janak to complete his book manuscript, the Garland Fellowship helps Janak begin gathering oral histories of rural school teachers and explore the potential for a searchable, digital, online archives of their stories. Engaging education students in identifying subjects and recording interviews is his goal.

Nganga will use funds from the Garland Fellowship to support research on the perceptions of elementary educators toward teaching a global curriculum in social studies lessons.

She will explore such topics as teachers’ background in global studies, their challenges and do they have the support they need to deal with those challenges.

Nganga will gather data using interviews, classroom observations and survey. The Garland Fellowship funds will support her travel, provide a supplemental summer salary, allow for the purchase of supplies needed during data collection and assist with transcription expenses.

Nganga says findings from her research will lead to information about ways to ensure that Wyoming Teacher Education Program graduates have a baseline understanding of global issues and culturally responsive education.

“It also should lead to recommendations for in-service teachers, to enhance their classroom practice and support their efforts to be culturally responsive teachers,” she adds.

Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007