OU Honors JRCoE Faculty and Staff
Members of the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education faculty and staff were honored for their work in 2020-21.
Kirsten Hextrum, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professorship
Kirsten Hextrum is a nationally recognized expert on college athletics. In 2020, her colleagues honored her with the JRCoE Pre-Tenure Faculty Award and the American Educational Research Association SIG 164 Emerging Scholar Award.
Her scholarship spans different spaces and contexts: classrooms, school communities, intellectual traditions, university life and other social contexts. In all of these areas, Hextrum is committed to transforming dehumanizing social orders where they exist in higher education. Specifically, her special interests address how structural inequities within and across social institutions instantiate, and intersect, through sport, college athletics and admission processes.
Hextrum’s research has received national and international acclaim through both mainstream media outlets, including The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, Bloomberg News and National Public Radio, as well as such scholarly publications as the Harvard Educational Review and Studies in Higher Education. Her forthcoming book, Special Admission: How College Sports Recruitment Favors White Suburban Athletes (Rutgers University Press), is positioned to reshape not only scholarship in college athletics but also policy and practices for decades to come.
Hextrum’s teaching pedagogy exposes students to frameworks, questions and experiences that enable them to understand how structural conditions in society, communities and schools reinforce inequitable and unjust social orders. She applies a critical framework to her teaching and advising, and in doing so moves from critique to action, action to study, study to transformation. For many students, this is their first exposure to concepts and frameworks that reveal and explain origins and entrenchment of discriminatory practices across race, gender, identity and economics.
Her service is an extension of her scholarship. She commits her time and talents to addressing issues of diversity, equity and justice within the OU Athletics Department by organizing and facilitating an ongoing racial justice professional development series, as well as hosting equity workshops in the community. Throughout her service, she is an unwavering voice for the well-being of individuals and communities oppressed by unjust conditions.
Kyong-Ah Kwon, Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum, Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, Rainbolt Family Endowed Education Presidential Professorship
Since joining the OU faculty in 2016, Kyong-Ah Kwon has established herself as an essential instructor and mentor for both graduate and undergraduate students. She teaches seven different courses in the early childhood program and the college's graduate program, serving students in Norman and Tulsa. She consistently receives outstanding course evaluations from her students, who comment upon her deep-based subject knowledge, inclusion of hands-on instruction, insightful and collaborative discussion, and sincere guidance and support.
Students describe Kwon as funny and kind and say that she genuinely learns each student’s research or teaching interests and adapts coursework and guidance toward those areas. She uses personal examples from her teaching and life to guide their understanding and connect to their experiences.
Kwon’s research examines parenting, classroom quality, program evaluation and teachers' well-being and their impact on children's development. She has published one book and 36 publications in such premier publications as the Journal of School Psychology, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. She has led several external grants contributing to supporting teachers and improving classroom quality. She leads an innovative multidisciplinary research project (the Happy Teacher Project) on teachers' well-being, which has received national recognition. She was awarded the JRCoE Research/Scholarship Award in 2019.
Professionally, she is serving as co-editor of a special issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and as an editorial board member for both the Early Education and Development Journal and the International Journal of Early Childhood Education.
She was an organizer of “The Constructivist Approach to Learning: Infants to 5th Grade Conference” last year and is a consultant on the Development of the BEST Logic Model Committee for the George Kaiser Family Foundation in Tulsa. She served as a research consultant for the Early Learning Inventory feasibility study for the Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness in Oklahoma City.
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Sally Beach, Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum
30 years of service at OU
Xun Ge, Department of Educational Psychology
20 years of service at OU
Rockey Robbins, Department of Educational Psychology
20 years of service at OU
Wendy Walker, Provost’s Outstanding Academic Advisor Award
The Provost's Outstanding Academic Advisor Award is designed to recognize outstanding contributions made by its academic advisors, both staff and faculty, who have been determined to consistently demonstrate the qualities associated with outstanding academic advising of students.
Wendy Walker, an academic advisor in the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, was selected to receive the Provost’s Outstanding Academic Advisor Award because of the high level of caring and concerns she exhibits toward her advisees as well as colleagues, faculty and others.
Walker joined the JRCoE advising office in August 2012 as a receptionist, and within a year moved into the role of academic advisor. Now in her seventh year as an advisor, she has garnered praise from students and colleagues alike for her willingness to meet with students whenever they need her, including evenings, weekends and holidays. If a student is in crisis for any reason, academic or other, she intervenes on their behalf and alerts necessary university personnel and then works to ensure the student is referred to the proper resources and offices, while maintaining close communications.
Walker’s actions and demeanor exemplify the National Academic Advising Association’s core values of caring, commitment, empowerment, inclusivity, integrity, professionalism and respect. She is truly committed to the inclusive culture within the college, making sure that all of the students feel comfortable participating in all events and activities.
Walker also serves as the college’s liaison with its Fine Arts Music Education students and with the Education Abroad Office. As coordinator of the college’s Global Education Program, she strives to increase summer immersion and semester programs for education students and current teachers. She also assists in the recruitment of international students and has worked with the college’s executive director of development on many projects, including fundraising efforts for St. Monica's School in Uganda. She also was cited for volunteering for a myriad of college and campus events involving alumni, donors, recruitment, prospective students, families, faculty and staff.
Ron McCarty, Distinguished Performance Award
Ron McCarty serves as an IT specialist II in the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education. “In this role, Ron supports the mission and work of the college in myriad ways and is an indispensable member of our team,” said Dean Stacy Reeder, adding that she has witnessed the impact of his dedication and service to the college through support of the dean’s work, as well as his work that interfaces with students, faculty and staff, through the years.
“Ron’s potential for success is certain because he gives his mind and heart to every task at hand. His combination of intelligence, selflessness, generosity, creativity and perseverance, to name just a few traits, are reasons that I recommend Ron for the Staff Merit award,” said Aiyana Henry, associate dean of instructional leadership and academic curriculum.
Gregg Garn, senior associate provost of online education, noted that multiple faculty and staff have said that the Rainbolt College would not be as great a place to work and learn without Ron.
“His forward thinking has saved us time and resources and kept the college’s operations flowing smoothly especially during this pandemic,” commented Kim Goodman, administrator II in the college.
Kim Goodman, Director, Administration and Finance
35 years of service
Trudy Rhodes, Assistant to the Chair, Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum
30 years of service
Sherry Cox, Ph.D., Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Advising
20 years of service