For the past two years, CEHD Career Services has collaborated with the International School of Sweden (IES Sweden) to recruit CEHD teacher candidates to work at their 17 schools throughout Sweden. Representatives from IES Sweden have come to campus in the spring to interview teacher candidates, and several UMN students have received job offers. Robin Kirk Johansson, a principal with IES Sweden, says they are impressed with the UMN teacher licensure program because of its emphasis on learning communities and the teacher candidates' full-year placement in schools. Success stories of some of the students who have been hired at IES Sweden are posted on the Career Services blog.

Since 2010, Nate Whittaker, an academic adviser in CEHD's TRiO student support services, has taught a global seminar in South Africa over winter break. Students learn about social justice firsthand by participating in service learning at South African youth organizations. Each year Whittaker publishes a book of photographs and narratives documenting the students' experiences. The 2012-13 book is now available, and Whittaker has created a website for the students' digital stories.

Along with service learning and excursions in and around Cape Town, the course incorporates significant time for reflection through evening talking-circles, journals, and a class blog. Feedback from students has been consistently positive, with many expressing that the trip is a life-changing experience.

Details on the 2013-14 seminar are posted on the Learning Abroad Center website.

CEHD Student Services adviser Nate Whittaker has been awarded the University's 2013 Josie R. Johnson Human Rights and Social Justice Award. The award recognizes University faculty, staff, and students who are creating respectful and inclusive living, learning, and working environments.

Whittaker has a long history of working with and advocating for low-income, underrepresented, and disabled people regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. He helped develop a new first-year orientation course for TRiO programs, facilitates a global seminar exploring social change in South Africa, and is a community activist fighting for educational access of all people.

He will be honored at a reception on May 7 at the Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center (UROC) in North Minneapolis. This is the second year in a row that the award has been given to a CEHD Student Services professional.

Maria Sera, professor at the Institute of Child Development, discussed recent research on the benefits of talking with young children and babies on Fox 9's news. Early exposure to spoken language can help children's later educational achievement, researchers have found. Sera encourages parents to talk to their children, face to face, even if they didn't do so when the child was very young. "There's a misconception that there's this magical window that closes at the age of three," she said, "I don't think the evidence suggests that at all." The interview was aired on the Fox 9 News at 9.

CEHD Alumni Relations is proud to highlight 23 outstanding alumni who have achieved early distinction in their careers, demonstrated outstanding leadership, or shown exceptional volunteer service in their communities.

The CEHD 23: Rising Alumni are emerging leaders from diverse professions who improve lives through the psychological, physical, and social development of children, youth, and adults. Their work includes efforts to close the achievement gap, understand the developing brain, and build family resilience.

The alums share good advice for young professionals and speak fondly on how college faculty and staff have positively influenced their careers. See all the profiles.

North of Sixty° is a new collaborative program of the Learning Technologies Media Lab working with schools in regions north of 60 degrees latitude to tell their Arctic climate stories. Partner schools and communities in the Arctic regions, located in Finland, Norway, Russia, Canada, and the United States, are creating videos and other content online to share on the North of Sixty° website.

The project team, led by professor Aaron Doering, left on April 10 for an expedition, traveling over 100 miles on skis, pulling pulks between two remote Inuit communities in Arctic Canada and visiting schools and community centers along the way. Expedition leader Doering emphasized that while education is the goal, safety is also of utmost importance to the team, which had been practicing training runs with full gear on the ice in Minnesota.

See more in this KSTP story and video, Star Tribune article, Minnesota Public Radio story, and Minnesota Daily feature.

CEHD Alumni Relations, along with the CEHD Alumni Society, have highlighted twenty-three outstanding alums as part of the CEHD 23: Rising Alumni initiative. Representing all of CEHD's eight academic departments, these alumni have achieved early distinction in their careers, demonstrated outstanding leadership, or shown exceptional volunteer service in their communities.

Of the twenty three alumni recognized, three are graduates from the School of Kinesiology: Jack Brewer, Alex McKinney, and Angela Ruggiero.

Thomas Stoffregen, Ph.D., professor in the School of Kinesiology, along with doctoral candidate Yi-Chou Chen, alumni Fu-Chen Chen, Ph.D., and Taiwanese colleagues, are to publish in, Gait and Posture. Their contribution is titled, "Cognitive and postural precursors of motion sickness in adolescent boxers."

Dr. Nicole LaVoi, teaching faculty in the School of Kinesiology and associate director of the Tucker Center, comments on the controversies surrounding Brittney Griner in the article, "What Brittney Griner says about us."

"We disparage female athletes so we don't have to make room for them," notes LaVoi. "People can't just say, 'Wow, Brittney Griner is a great athlete.' We need to have a caveat: 'She plays like a guy, she looks like a guy, she must be a guy.' These qualifiers marginalize what Brittney has done and serve to keep the current pecking order in place, whereby men's sports are more valued, more culturally relevant -- the norm."

Griner, center for Baylor University's women's basketball team, has won numerous awards throughout her basketball career and continues to break collegiate records. For more on Griner and her statistics read here.

Thomas Stoffregen, Ph.D., professor in the School of Kinesiology, will be participating at a free exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts (MIA) entitled, "Superimpostor."

Minnesota artists, David Bowen and Brett Smith, create kinetic sculptures through the use of computer imaging and cinematic illusions. Stoffregen will comment on this exhibit Thursday, March 21, at 7:00 p.m.