Message from the Dean

Portrait of Suzanne Rosenblith.

Dear GSE Friends and Alumni,

The 2023-24 academic year has gotten off to a strong start. We kicked off the year by welcoming our new students—GSE enrollment continues to grow. Currently, our enrollment stands at 1,550 students. This is a 23% growth in the last six years! As part of our continued effort to broaden our individual and collective understandings around racial equity and education, we held our second biannual Teach-In for Racial Justice. This year, we welcomed three outstanding and thought-provoking scholars: Dr. Sherri Ann Charleston, Dr. Crystal Fleming and Dr. Anneliese Singh to campus for daylong lectures and conversations around race and educational equity.

Our featured story in this edition focuses on the growth, enhancement and changes made to our PhD programs. As part of a university-wide emphasis on PhD excellence, GSE faculty were asked to examine their programs to ensure that the curricula, co-curricular experiences and mentorship were student-centered and organized in such a manner as to ensure excellence. At the same time, recognizing the need to ensure that financial support was adequate to better meet our PhD students’ needs, we worked to increase the stipends associated with our assistantships. As you will see in the pages that follow, this exercise, while challenging, has paid off many times over with the recruitment of 23 outstanding PhD students.

This issue also introduces you to some of our outstanding faculty. You will have the opportunity to read about Dr. John Strong’s impactful literacy research and understand why he is considered an emerging scholar in the field. In addition, Dr. Africa Hands will share her insights into navigating the job market as a BIPOC person. Dr. Sarah A. Robert's impact as an international gender expert will be featured in this edition as well. She was recently one of 15 gender experts worldwide invited by the United Nations to review and provide feedback on "Gender Equality in a Changing Climate," a flagship report for UN Women. You will also have an opportunity to learn a little bit about our eight new faculty. They are truly outstanding and fantastic additions to GSE.

GSE’s Teacher Residency Program continues to expand and extend its work. With two new federal grants awarded, UBTR has continued its relationship with the Buffalo Public Schools and extended its work into other districts in Western New York.

As you read through this issue, I hope you are as impressed as I am with the many ways GSE faculty and students approach meaningful problems broadly related to educational equity. As a mission-driven academic unit, we strive to make sure that our teaching and research, outreach and engagement live up to our collective vision.

Take good care,

Rosenblith signature.
Suzanne Rosenblith

Land Acknowledgment Statement

“Great Lakes, No Clouds” Image of North America’s five Great Lakes courtesy of US NASA Earth Observatory.

A pledge to peaceably share and care for North America’s five Great Lakes

We would like to acknowledge the land on which the University at Buffalo operates, which is the territory of the Seneca Nation, a member of the Haudenosaunee/Six Nations Confederacy. This territory is covered by The Dish with One Spoon Treaty of Peace and Friendship, a pledge to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. It is also covered by the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, between the United States Government and the Six Nations Confederacy, which further affirmed Haudenosaunee land rights and sovereignty in the State of New York. Today, this region is still the home to the Haudenosaunee people, and we are grateful for the opportunity to live, work and share ideas in this territory.