Lynch School to partner with ACU
The Lynch School of Education and Human Development has agreed to a series of research collaborations with the seven-campus Australian Catholic University, a pact forged on a trip to the Sydney-based institution last January, Stanton E.F. Wortham, the Charles F. Donovan, S.J. Dean of the Lynch School, has announced.
ACU is Australia’s leading Catholic institution of higher education, ranked in the top two percent of all universities worldwide.
Lynch School Donovan Dean Stanton E.F. Wortham (Lee Pellegrini)
Key areas of overlapping expertise and interest between the two institutions, according to Wortham, include sharing data and comparative studies on Catholic schools; teacher retainment tools; approaches to formative education; and the use of artificial intelligence for student-teacher interaction training.
“We’re starting with seed funding to create faculty-to-faculty research collaborations,” said Wortham, who along with Professor Deoksoon Kim represented the Lynch School at this past winter’s session.
Additionally, the Lynch School shared MyConnects, an online student support information system developed by the school’s City Connects program, with ACU, which will consider adopting it.
Nelson Professor Brian K. Smith
Honorable David S. Nelson Professor Brian K. Smith, the Lynch School associate dean for research, is working with ACU leadership to establish the faculty collaborations.
“We’re happy to be partnering with ACU and confident that teaming up with our faculty colleagues there will lead to research contributions that leverage the strengths of both institutions,” he said.
While in Australia, Wortham and Kim, along with a six-member BC contingent, attended the inaugural Global Researchers Advancing Catholic Education (G.R.A.C.E) Research Colloquium, a three-day convening hosted by Fremantle’s University of Notre Dame, for international and national researchers and practitioners to explore the challenges and opportunities within Catholic education worldwide.
G.R.A.C.E. is an international, research-based partnership between Ireland’s Mary Immaculate College, St. Mary’s in London, Boston College, the International Office of Catholic Education in Rome, and the host.
Roche Center for Catholic Education Executive Director Melodie Wyttenbach
BC Roche Center for Catholic Education Executive Director Melodie Wyttenbach was joined at the conference by Andrew F. Miller, an assistant professor in the Lynch School’s Educational Leadership and Higher Education Department; John Reyes, Roche Center director of research, program evaluation, and innovation; Fr. Gilbert Ezewugu, a Lynch School research assistant; and Tara Frost, a Roche Center instructional leadership coach.
Also present were two Catholic School leaders with whom the Roche Center collaborates: Daniel Roy, superintendent of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., schools, and Patty Lansink, superintendent of the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, schools. Wortham and Wyttenbach delivered closing comments on the insights achieved at the colloquium, and the prospects for the future.