Dawn Bonker
Twelve faculty members and six Ph.D. students from the College of Educational Studies welcomed five faculty members, the associate dean, and the coordinator of international programs from the School of Education from the University of Waikato in New Zealand for three days of talks, May 23-25, at Chapman University.
The educators shared research interests, formed study groups and made concrete plans for collaborative work. Roger Moltzen, deputy dean of the Waikato SOE, said the symposium was a great success.
“There is no doubt that these two faculties are a good fit, both philosophically and on a personal level—I could tell that on the first day,” Moltzen said.
Chapman officials concurred.
“Everybody really seemed to enjoy each other, and they laughed a lot while still getting a lot done,” said Barbara Tye, Ed.D., adjunct faculty, and event coordinator. “They’re all looking forward to getting on with the research projects they mapped out, and—all in good time—to publishing and presenting papers on them at professional conferences.”
The symposium was the culmination of more than four years of exploratory work, including visits by several CES faculty members to Waikato and of several Waikato SOE faculty members to Chapman in the years since 2007. The two universities signed a Memo of Intent to Collaborate in 2008, and Suzanne SooHoo, Ph.D., professor, and Ken Tye, Ed.D., professor emeritus, met with Dean Alister Jones at Waikato in 2009 to begin discussing the possibility of a symposium. Both universities look forward to developing student exchanges. As a start, Moltzen made a commitment to send two Ph.D. students from Waikato to the Emerging Scholars Conference to be hosted by Chapman CES this September.
