Message from the Dean

Dear GSE Alumni and Friends,

This issue of Learn is devoted to what we call “access in action.” Through its pages, we share with you how our faculty, students and alumni are working to make education, knowledge and opportunity more accessible, usable and equitable for all. Across the pages that follow, you’ll see the many different ways the Graduate School of Education is reimagining what it means to open doors.

At the heart of this issue is the transformation of Research Laboratory High School into Buffalo’s first university-assisted community school (UACS). This initiative, made possible through a partnership between GSE and Buffalo Public Schools, represents more than an institutional collaboration: It’s a shared commitment to a new kind of public education. Our UACS will integrate problem-based learning, computer science education and wraparound supports, connecting high school students to the resources of a research university while strengthening the surrounding community. It is, in many ways, a living example of our mission.

This issue amplifies the impact of GSE. You’ll meet Hannah Bogdan (EdD ’23), founder of the Buffalo Toy Library, whose work promotes equitable play and early learning for all children. You’ll read about faculty members Amanda Nickerson and Stephanie Fredrick, whose new book offers parents and educators practical tools for helping young people navigate the complex world of social media and cyberbullying. EdD student Nick Kennedy is using digital humanities to recover the stories of Black women whose contributions to U.S. history have too often been overlooked. And Professor Chris Hoadley’s new open-source textbook makes computer science education more inclusive and adaptable for teachers and learners everywhere.

Together, these stories show what it means to turn knowledge into action. Whether through research, teaching or community engagement, our work is animated by the belief that knowledge should not be confined just to classrooms or academic journals. It should be something that empowers others to ask better questions, to solve real problems, to create a more just and inclusive future.

As we share these stories with you, we also celebrate the generosity that makes them possible. From the transformational Czarnecki Family Gift advancing literacy instruction and CLaRI’s mission, to the countless contributions of time, talent and care from our alumni and friends.

Thank you for being part of this community and for believing, as we do, that education can and must be a public good. We hope you find inspiration in these pages.

Warm regards,

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.