Lucy Townsend, Professor in the Foundations of Education and Curator of the Blackwell History of Education Society and Research Collections, Northern Illinois University, received a $5,000 grant from the International Society of Educational Biography in support of the Educating Women Project. This project is designed to provide support for the mentorship of young scholars interested in pursuing research on the education of girls and women.
Susan Laird, Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma and Susan Franzosa, Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions, Fairfield University, Connecticut, are collaborating with Townsend on the project.
“Each of us has developed graduate courses on the philosophy and history of women’s education,” Townsend stated, “but we lack sufficient numbers of students to hold the classes. The result is that graduate students sometimes lack sufficient opportunities to develop research on the education of girls and women.”
The Educating Women Project is designed to provide structural support for these young scholars, including a series of conferences, a website to foster continuing mentorship of young scholars by experienced researchers, a two-week institute, and an electronic refereed journal.
According to Townsend, the $5,000 grant will be used to host a summer 2008 conference at Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, located on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago. In addition, the team has acquired a University of Oklahoma grant to support the development and maintenance of the Educating Women website.
The International Society for Educational Biography is an academic society that encourages theory and research on the lives of educational philosophers, teachers, educational reformers, and students. Townsend stated that the participants in the Educating Women Project will be encouraged to present their research at the annual conferences of the ISEB and submit articles for publication in the society’s journal, Vitae Scholasticae.