2022-23 Trustee Professor: Dr. Cara Furman
UMF Trustee Professorship Symposium is a day to honor the value of scholarly and creative endeavor at UMF. Toward that end, we have chosen Symposium as an opportunity, not only to showcase the work of our students, but also to bestow the university’s most prestigious award for scholarship to a faculty member. The Trustee Professorship is given each year to one UMF faculty member in recognition of her/his distinguished record of scholarly or creative work. The Trustee Professor receives a cash stipend, a professional development allowance, and a half-time reassignment for an academic year in order to focus on a scholarly or creative project. Each year at Symposium we invite the current Trustee Professor to deliver a public presentation.
Cara E. Furman, PhD, is the 2022-23 Trustee Professor for the University of Maine at Farmington. A former public elementary school teacher and an associate professor of literacy education, she is co-author of Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice: Cultivating Practical Wisdom to Create Democratic Schools. She is passionate about teacher development as it intersects with inquiry, asset based inclusive teaching, and progressive literacy practices and can be reached at cara.furman@maine.edu
TRUSTEE TALK
Dr. Cara Furman, Emery Center, 12:00 – 12:55
Title: Cultivating Classrooms that Belong to Everyone:
Teaching from an Ethical Center
What does it mean to teach effectively and ethically? How are new teachers inducted into and supported in this work? This talk builds on a multi-year study of new teachers to first address how teachers live commitments to classrooms of belonging in daily decision-making and actions. It then zooms in on how teachers can live and fight for a culture of belonging amidst schools where it is not supported.
After the Trustee talk, the Walter Sargent Undergraduate Research Mentorship recipient for 2023-24 will be announced.