Professor Regina Cortina is conducting research on “Women Leaders in Latin American Higher Education” with a team of two PhD students, Sara Pan Algarra and Jonathan Beltran. We are examining how women’s careers, their concentration in certain fields of study, and their access to knowledge production and leadership positions in the universities compare across Mexico, Chile, and Colombia. Our aim is to understand barriers faced by women in the higher levels of research, knowledge production, and leadership positions. We will accomplish this by comparing gender hierarchies in women’s access to leadership positions in academia and their concentration in traditional feminized occupations. We will also analyze how research funding is distributed by national councils in each of the three countries to show the dynamics of gender disparities in research funding. This research initiative is funded in part by the Institute of Latin American Studies, Columbia University.

Dr. Mary Mendenhall and several master's/doctoral students and a recent graduate (Nuralhoda Elsaid; Sarah Etzel, M.A. '24; Whitney Hough; Kemigisha Richardson; and Tiffany Tryon) have been working in collaboration with Education Action in Crisis, a South Sudanese NGO, on a new study examining teacher compensation policies and practices in South Sudan. The study has been commissioned by Education International, a global federation of teachers' unions. The study will both document and analyze the challenges and opportunities for paying teachers working in crisis settings with a livable wage, while also feeding into global discussions about creating an emergency fund for teachers in crisis contexts. 

Dr. Prem Phyak worked as an expert to support the National Action Plan (NAP) preparation team to develop Nepal’s action plan and logical framework for the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2023). The team comprised the representatives from Indigenous Commission, Language Commission, Universities and UNESCO Nepal.  The NAP is submitted to Mr. Badri Prasad Pandey, the minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation for approval of the government.

Dr. Phyak organized, in collaboration with the Federation of Nepalese Indigenous Journalists (FoNIJ)-Jhapa and facilitated a one-day workshop on the Role of Indigenous Youth for Multilingualism and Indigenous Knowledge in Education. The workshop was attended by forty Indigenous youth and ten journalists. Additionally, Dr. Phyak led a four-month teacher mentoring scheme (May-August 2024) on Participatory Action Research (PAR) for Diversity and Social Justice in Education. Twenty in-service teachers from public schools of Nepal were mentored to design and carry out PAR on multilingual education, critical pedagogies and land-/place-based education. Dr. Phyak also presented papers at Sociolinguistics Symposium (SS25); Association of Language Awareness (ALA); Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal & the Himalaya; and International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA).

Professor Gita Steiner-Khamsi returns to the program energized after having spent time as visiting professor at the University of Iceland (3 months, funded by Fulbright), 6 weeks at the Graduate School of Education at Stanford, and the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies at Kobe University (6 weeks, funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science), The collaborative research projects led to a podcast on FreshED and three articles, published in comparative education policy journals.

Professor Garnett Russell has been collaborating on a final policy report on “Transitional Justice and Education in Colombia: The Perspective of Youth” with Dr. Paula Mantilla Blanco (PhD ‘24), Dr. Daniela Romero Amaya and several current students and alumni, including Sara Pan Algarra, Leonardo Arevalo Rojas, Victoria Jones, Paola Abril, and Angela Sanchez MA ‘24. Findings will be shared with the Ministry of Education, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, and other governmental and non-governmental organizations in Colombia.

In addition, Prof. Russell traveled to Costa Rica with Amine Mechaal (Director of Global Engagement and current MA Student) and Jazmin Guardado (International Projects and Partnerships Manager and current MA Student) to establish a new study abroad course on “Education, Conflict, and Peacebuilding,” which will be held during the January 2025 term at the University for Peace in San José, Costa Rica.

Professor Cortina, Professor Mendenhall, Professor Phyak, Professor Steiner-Khamsi and Professor Russell look forward to returning to campus this month to greet returning students and welcome the new cohort.