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News Briefs

Nine young adults wearing attendee lanyards stand in a row inside a room. Most are dressed in business casual or formal attire, and a large display screen behind them reads "PROJECT: FACTS."

Kensington Health Sciences students at the Ethnography in Education Research Forum.

Fighting Misinformation with FACTS

Earlier this year, Penn GSE began engaging with the Agency for Specialized Educational Institutions (ASEI), a government education organization in Uzbekistan, to explore training opportunities for school counselors. The Counseling for Uzbek Schools Program, led by Associate Director of the Global Possibility Network (GPN) Andrew Babson, draws on a developmental model created by Professor of Practice Mike Nakkula.

His Possibility Development Model is a five-step framework that supports individuals in identifying interests, setting goals, and following through on plans over time. It is designed to reduce barriers and guide adolescents on their path to adulthood. The program is expected to introduce the model to both high-potential students and school counselors from Uzbekistan, with a focus on supporting transitions from school to college and career.

Nakkula and Babson met with the ASEI team in Washington, D.C., in February. The collaboration will launch with a seven-day, on-campus program, starting July 25.

A person walks past a massive rust-colored memorial wall covered in text, featuring the words "TO FREEDOM" at the top and a curved black section with a dedicatory inscription under a clear blue sky.

The National Monument to Freedom at the Legacy Sites in Alabama.

Lessons From Montgomery

As part of the Wallace Foundation–funded Equity-Centered Pipeline Initiative (ECPI), Penn GSE brought school leadership teams from eight districts across the U.S. to Montgomery, Alabama, in March, for what many described as the project’s most powerful learning experience to date. The trip was part of an ongoing professional learning community curated by Catalyst @ Penn GSE and the Center for School Study Councils (CSSC).

Designed to expand leaders’ understanding of systems thinking, well-being, and grounded decision-making, the convening centered on immersive visits to the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. Thanks to Constance Clayton Professor of Urban Education Howard Stevenson and his brother, Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson, participants received rare access and guidance throughout the experience.

“The convening in Montgomery was a transformative moment, synthesizing the three years of leadership learning cultivated through the ECPI Professional Learning Community,” said CSSC Director Tim Foxx, who helped shape and facilitate it.

“The trip and its itinerary were critical because they reminded us that our experiences as school leaders and as individuals are part of something much larger than ourselves,” said attendee Calvin Hooks, principal of Washington, D.C.’s Hyde-Addison Elementary. “As leaders, we have the responsibility to honor the sacrifices of the past by ensuring that the opportunities available today are expanded for the generations who follow. Experiences like this deepen our sense of purpose and remind us that leadership is not only about managing schools, but about shaping a more just and hopeful future for our students and communities.”

Learn more: penng.se/alabama

A woman with long hair wearing a dark blazer speaks into a microphone at a table, gesturing with one hand while holding a document. A presentation screen is visible in the background.

A. Brooks Bowden testifying at the Pennsylvania House Education Committee hearing.

From Research to the Rotunda: A. Brooks Bowden Testifies in Harrisburg

In February, Associate Professor A. Brooks Bowden, GED’07, testified at a Pennsylvania House Education Committee hearing on K–12 school funding in the wake of the 2023 court ruling that declared the Commonwealth’s education-funding system unconstitutional. Director of the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education, Bowden shared findings from the center’s 2024 report, The Benefits of Adequacy, evaluating the educational and economic impacts of the Basic Education Funding Commission’s adequacy proposal.

According to Bowden, states that successfully improved student outcomes did so by fully phasing in funding reforms and maintaining them over many years. “Outcomes grow as students experience more years of adequately funded schooling,” she said in written testimony. “This reflects the cumulative nature of how education investments work.”

Full implementation of Pennsylvania’s adequacy plan, she testified, could support hiring thousands of teachers and counselors, narrow funding disparities ruled unconstitutional by the courts, and ultimately generate economic benefits that exceed costs through a stronger workforce and higher lifetime earnings.

In The Classroom

Course title: “The College and University Presidency”
Taught by: Professor of Practice Julie Wollman

Description:
This course for master’s and doctoral students explores the role of the most senior campus leader, with attention to the various types of nonprofit colleges and universities in the U.S. It examines and demystifies how presidents are selected, how they successfully navigate the nuances of their multifaceted roles, their decision-making processes, the weighty challenges of their position, and how to work effectively with a president while serving in any campus role.

Says Wollman:
“Having had experience as a tenured full professor, a dean, a provost, and a president of two institutions, I was well-positioned to develop the course, which is grounded in research and theory but also enhanced by practical knowledge. I have found it to be a really fun course to teach because it allows us to delve into and unpack all aspects of universities as organizations, is a window into understanding what’s happening in institutions at any given time, including all the pressures bearing on them internally and externally, and allows us to pull back the curtain on a generally not-well-understood but very important role. It serves as a broad look at higher education issues through the lens of the presidency. As well, the study of senior leadership has implications for leadership at all levels, which is very practical for students who work in or will soon work in higher education.”

Student reaction:
“Dr. Wollman truly brought an extraordinary depth of real-world experience to the classroom,” said Natalie Kauffman, program coordinator for the McNulty Leadership Program at Wharton, who took the class in the spring. “The course was truly unique in how she blended the theory we were reading with her lived experience as a [former] college president. We didn’t just read about shared governance and search processes, but we discussed the human tension behind institutional decisions.”

“In The Classroom” is a new series on the Penn GSE website exploring the School’s unique curricular options.

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT

Partnering for Possibility in Uzbekistan

A woman in a blue blazer and a bearded man with glasses smile while holding open a blue box to display an ornate, colorful decorative award.

ASEI Director Sevara Shakirova and GPN Associate Director Andrew Babson at Penn Washington.

Nakkula and Babson met with the ASEI team in Washington, D.C., in February. The collaboration will launch with a seven-day, on-campus program, starting July 25.

Connections Across Continents: Penn GSE and Tsinghua

Last December, Dean Katharine Strunk signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Tsinghua University in Beijing, the top-ranked university in China. The partnership is already taking shape: Penn GSE Associate Professor Shiyan Jiang was invited to speak at Tsinghua’s Education Futures Forum in April, and doctoral student Catherine Zhang will spend the summer there conducting research on youth leadership. Dean Strunk will return to China in October.

A man and a woman sit at a table holding up signed agreement documents for Tsinghua University and UPenn Graduate School of Education, with two smiling women standing behind them.

Dean Katharine Strunk (right) at the MOU signing with Tsinghua University.

Katrina Struloeff Earns Fulbright Specialist Award to Partner in Sierra Leone

A smiling man in a light-colored shirt and a smiling woman with a side braid wearing a blue pinstripe blazer pose together for a portrait.

Honourable Chief Minister of Sierra Leone David Moinina Sengeh and Katrina Struloeff at Central University’s graduation.

Katrina Struloeff, director of growth and impact at Catalyst @ Penn GSE, was selected for the Fulbright Specialist Program and matched with Sierra Leone’s Central University—an honor that will help support the launch of the university’s first postgraduate programs. A scholar-practitioner whose work blends educational leadership, research design, and innovation, Struloeff spent two weeks in Sierra Leone in February jump-starting efforts to establish foundational academic policies and lay the groundwork for a budding research culture at the seven-year-old tech and innovation university.

The assignment reflects the Fulbright Specialist model’s mission: short, high-impact collaborations that pair U.S. expertise with global needs. Struloeff began her work by listening. “They did such a great job of welcoming me and engaging with me,” she said of her campus collaborators, including Chancellor Muckson Sesay. “They were really open and hungry for suggestions.”

As she prepares for her second two-week visit in August, she envisions ongoing exchanges that support curriculum design, research development, and educational leadership across borders, strengthening both Penn GSE’s and Central University’s global connections and impact.

Learn more: penng.se/fulbright-sl

Education Entrepreneurship Alumni Launch China EdTech Leadership Network

Two smiling women wearing event lanyards gesture toward a blue Penn GSE backdrop reading "Penn China Education/EdTech Leadership Network." One woman wears a pink pantsuit, and the other wears a brown blazer.

Members of the China EdTech Leadership Network (from left) Sophia Liu, GED’25, and Sylvia He, GED’20, GRD’25, at the GET Conference in Beijing.

Penn GSE alumni are helping facilitate community across borders with the launch of the China EdTech Leadership Network, an alumni run community designed to connect education innovators working across China, the U.S., and beyond. The network formally debuted at the 2025 Global Education Technology (GET) Conference in Beijing, reflecting years of organic alumni relationship building and a growing demand for cross border collaboration.

Led by Education Entrepreneurship alumni Rose Xue, GED’18, and Sophia Liu, GED’25, the initiative offers a structured platform for resource sharing, mentorship, and ongoing professional exchange among Penn GSE graduates working in the region’s fast evolving education and edtech sectors. “There were so many Penn GSE alumni working in education and edtech in China, but they were not connected,” Liu said. “We needed a space to share resources, mentor students, and collaborate across organizations.”

Learn more: penng.se/chinanetwork

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