For the first time since the establishment of the Hubert V. Everly Endowed Scholar in Education program, three College of Education (COE) faculty members have been selected for the same year. Associate Professor Stephanie Buelow, Assistant Professor Summer Maunakea, and Assistant Professor Paul Meng are the 2021–22 endowed scholars.
Dean Nathan Murata said, “Every year, the Everly scholar program has brought forth many interesting and relevant projects from our junior faculty. This year, we decided to invite our more senior faculty to also submit proposals. As a result, there were many excellent candidates, and the search committee submitted their top three for consideration. I decided that all three proposals were worthy, valuable, and aligned with our COE strategic initiatives.”
The focus of the scholar program is to promote careers and provide opportunities and resources for scholarly activities that will result in a positive impact on the college, the P–20 educational system, and public and private education throughout Hawaiʻi. Each of the scholars will receive more than $12,000 over two semesters to support their projects.
Buelow, an associate professor of elementary literacy in the COE School of Teacher Education (STE) Elementary program, has been with the COE since 2013. Through her project, Making Curricular Space for a K–6 Literacy Clinic Practicum Experience, she will redesign curriculum in six STE courses in the early education K–6 licensure program. Teacher candidates will engage in targeted experiences that emphasize reading and writing instruction and assessment in all three semesters leading up to the student teaching experience.
“Inspired by the work of my colleague, Dr. Charlotte Frambaugh Kritzer who created a 6–12 Literacy Clinic experience for secondary teacher candidates, I’ve dreamed of creating this experience for Elementary K–6 teacher candidates for years,” Buelow said. “Preparing elementary teachers with the knowledge, skills, and experiences to effectively teach reading and writing is critical and central to my work in the COE.”
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stant professor of Native Hawaiian and Indigenous Education and Leadership, Maunakea joined the COE Department of Curriculum Studies in 2019. Her project, Hoʻōla ʻĀina Pilipili: A College of Education and University Laboratory School ʻĀina-Based Learning Initiative, is focused on the growth of an ʻāina learning center and school-community māla on campus. The scholarship produced from this project will contribute to the literature around Indigenous land-based education, curriculum studies, place-based education, teacher preparation, eco-justice, farm to school, and school-community partnerships.
Maunakea said, “This award is a validation that issues of food sovereignty, social justice, land-based ethics, and healing must be centralized in education. At the same time that we will be revitalizing ʻāina, we will be cultivating learners in ʻāina-based philosophy and pedagogy in order to equip them with the tools to advocate for the well-being of their communities.”
Meng is an assistant professor of early literacy and special education as well as the MEd literacy specialist program coordinator in the COE Department of Special Education. His project, Comprehensively Accelerate Reading Proficiency Equitably: Driving Implementation of Evidence-based Methods (CARPE DIEM), seeks to help students with (or at-risk for) reading disabilities statewide seize the day by establishing an intensive online reading intervention clinic. The clinic will support children from diverse backgrounds to improve their reading proficiency with intensive, evidence-based reading intervention.
“Being selected as a Hubert V. Everly Endowed Scholar in Education will enable me to initiate a new phase in my scholarship,” Meng said. “Having the opportunity to create the CARPE DIEM clinic is a dream come true. The clinic will enable me to conduct my research on an accelerated schedule within the context of serving my community and supporting children from diverse backgrounds.”
Dean Hubert V. Everly was the longest serving dean of the COE (1959–1979). He was also dean of the Teacher’s College before it became the COE. Among his numerous honors, Everly received the endowed scholar position, which was established in his name in 2006, and a COE Lifetime Achievement Award.
