Message from the Vice-President

I am very excited to begin my term as vice president of Division C:  Learning and Instruction. I have been a member of this Division since 1985 when I started graduate school. The division has meant a lot to me over the years as I grew as both a scholar and a member of the larger educational research community. I have enjoyed getting to know and being involved with people in other divisions and SIGs, but Division C created an intellectual home for me that made the experience of attending the conference more meaningful. I also experienced formal and informal mentoring from Division C members that helped me throughout my career.

Division C is dedicated to mentoring graduate students and early career scholars and that is something that I am very proud to be a part of.  As I hope you know, we have pre-conference seminars for graduate students and new faculty. We also have two awards for graduate students, including an Outstanding Poster Award, and an Early Career Award. Many members of Division C who benefitted from these mentoring experiences go onto be a mentor for others. That, to me, is what our division is about.

All of AERA is gearing up for the centennial celebration that will mainly take place in Washington D.C. in conjunction with the 2016 annual meeting. The theme is “Public Scholarship to Educate Diverse Democracies.” I am very excited to see the outstanding proposals that have been generated by our members and what our program committee will do with those proposals. I was so happy that Krista Muis agreed to be my first Program Chair. She has put together an amazing team who I look forward to working with over the upcoming year. We are assisted by Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia, who will continue serving as Secretary for one more year. Also continuing is Christine Greenhow who has graciously agreed to serve another year as our first chair of the new Communications Committee. Please let me know if you are interested in following Christine in that important position.

I want to end this message by giving thanks to the past two VPs whose work I will be building on. As VP, Gale Sinatra advocated for the division having a communications committee and an early career award. Karen Murphy did a wonderful job of revitalizing the International Research & Scholarship Committee and she spearheaded the revision of a handbook for the division that had been drafted but not completed. It will be completed before the next meeting. Both Gale and Karen have been incredibly helpful to me, as I have begun the process of learning this new position.

I look forward to seeing you all in Washington D.C. next April. If you have questions, concerns, or suggestions, please do contact me.

Barbara A. Greene, Ph.D.
Department of Educational Psychology
University of Oklahoma
[email protected]