Category Archives: Alumni
Through the eyes of Natalie Cabral in the Special Education department.
Natalie Cabral (Credential 2017, MA 2019) has been an educator for nearly 10 years. She is currently an Education Specialist with the Santa Clara Unified School District. This academic year has brought several new experiences for Natalie as she moved from a resource position to take on her own Special Education classroom, and joined Lurie College as a Lecturer in the Special Education department. Learn about Natalie Cabral and her experience
- What are some of your highlights from your time in the Special Education program
What I appreciated about the program is that anytime I had a tricky case or something I needed feedback on, I loved that I was able to collaborate with my peers who were also doing similar work. And to collaborate with my professors, thought-partnering so I didn’t feel like I was on such an island.
Dr. Simpson and I made a really great connection and she supported me throughout the process. I really appreciated the thoughtfulness that my professors put into their classes. - Could you share about your journey with us from Journalism to Special Ed?
I definitely fell into it! I started out as a paraprofessional and the following year I had a principal who said I really think you’d be great in this role, why don’t you try it out. I fell in love with the children, I love the smaller group size, the idea of being able to individualize my work and help on a deeper level, and provide closer attention to my students. - What are some things that you would tell current students who are considering teaching to help them decide?
In education, there are so many options to slide in and out of different roles. With a Special Education credential, you have more options to do this. This helps to prevent burnout too – started out with Resource and took a lot away from that experience. - Logistics – what are some tips for balancing the paperwork side of things?
Being organized and proactive is key! If you know you have a challenging case, prep for that IEP a month or two in advance, reach out to your team in advance. Once you get into a routine of being proactive, it makes life so much easier and you go into those meetings with much greater confidence – and you’re ready to share, think through, and problem solve with the team. - What advice would you give to new teachers who are trying to navigate the professional space?
Be collaborative and curious – ask questions of other teachers. Bridge the silos between general education and special education, that collaboration is so critical. Don’t be afraid to speak up with suggestions or advocating for new ideas. I set very professional standards and I’m flexible with the needs of the general education teachers I’m collaborating with.
Welcome to the Fall 2022 Semester
Welcome to the Fall 2022 semester at SJSU’s Lurie College of Education. We are so excited to be back on campus this fall and very much look forward to connecting with you in person. Our faculty, staff, and student leaders have been working hard to prepare engaging and meaningful experiences that are designed to support you on your educational journey this fall.
Watch the video to find clues to some FREE SWAG located in the Lurie Building! The Hunt begins on Tuesday the 30th of August. Be sure to follow us on Instagram @sjsulurie to locate more FREE swag and to share your journey with us!
The Education Trust-West’s 2022-23 FIERCE Student Fellowship Application
The Education Trust-West is excited to share that their application for the FIERCE Student Fellowship is now open! Ed Trust-West seeks eight students of color for the inaugural cohort of FIERCE Fellows for the 2022-2023 academic year.
The fellowship is a leadership opportunity for undergraduate community college and university students attending California public institutions. Fellows will build their leadership and advocacy skills to push for educational equity in their communities, particularly related to how state and federal COVID recovery funds are being used in California to pursue educational justice.
During their cohort year, students in FIERCE will attend bimonthly convenings that will feature advocacy training and issue briefings on various pressing issues in education policy led by professionals, researchers, and advocates in the field. All fellows will receive $2,500 in stipends for their participation. Click here for more information about the fellowship.
We encourage students with varying levels of advocacy experience to apply. The priority deadline for interested applicants is Wednesday, September 21, 2022. Please share with your network and any student who might benefit from this opportunity! If you have any questions about the FIERCE Student Fellowship, please contact Clara Medina at cmedina@edtrustwest.org.
Stay Cool Lurie College!
We hope you’re having a great summer! The Lurie College Dean’s Office is still open from 9 to 4:30pm everyday! We are excited to see you in the Fall! Enjoy the break!
Join CSU Long Beach at the Educators Summit
San Jose State is partnering with the Northern California Hub and CSU Long Beach to host an interdisciplinary panel on youth experiencing homelessness, child welfare, & juvenile justice featuring the speakers above! Join them on July 29th from 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM at CSU Long Beach, virtual options are also available. RSVP here! If you have a proposal for a speaker, please fill out this form here!
Join our End of the Semester Kickback
Students, faculty, staff, and alumni are invited to this end-of-semester celebration with food, music, prizes, and games! This will be a great opportunity to connect and relax after a busy semester. Graduating students will especially be encouraged to attend and to take pictures with faculty and their classmates with commencement one week away. Please be sure to confirm your attendance on this invitation. If you have any dietary restrictions, let us know at luriecollege@sjsu.edu. Thank you!
Learn about Communicating With Your Child About Tough Stuff
Talking to our children can be so hard sometimes! Join the Healthy Development Clinic about Communicating With Your Child About Tough Stuff. They will be hosting these workshops on February 28th, March 1st in Spanish, and March 2nd in Vietnamese.
Join the workshop here!
Attend our Intersectional Disability Studies Speaker Series
Join our Intersectional Disbaility Studies Speaker Series on Monday, March 14 from 4-5pm on Zoom! Learn from 12-year old Helena Lourdes Donato-Sapp, self-declared “Black Girl Scholar”‘ who uses her art and voice for social, economic, and environmental justice. To learn more about Helena Lourdes Donato-Sapp click here!
Register for the event here.
Join the Lurie College Discord!
Join the Lurie College Discord! Chat with current, former, and future students of SJSU’s Lurie College of Education!
Be able to connect and collaborate with one another! You can also participate in or host fun voice or video calls with anyone who wants to join!
Join our Lurie College Discord at bit.ly/lurie-discord
Join the First Club Meeting for ESAN
The Early Childhood Student-Alumni Network is having its first meeting of Soring 2022. Come and learn about ESAN’s plans for student engagement this semester on February 16 at 4-4:30. Click here to join the zoom!
Join the Institute of Emancipatory Education Workshop
Join the Institute of Emancipatory Education in their Pedagogies of Community Cultural Wealth Workshop Series. Join Dr. Lori D. Patton with Drs. Rivers, Farmer-Hinton, Lewis, Haynes, Jenkins, and High School Scholar Dallas Watson as they speak on Black Women Scholars Deconstructing What it Means to Educate and Be Educated in Urban Educational Environments. It will be on Wednesday, February 9th at 4 PM on Zoom. Click here to register.
Lurie College Alumni Named Superintendent of the Year
Congratulations to EdD Leadership Program alumni and Portola Valley School District Superintendent Roberta Zarea, who was recently named Superintendent of the Year for San Mateo and San Francisco counties!
“Superintendent Zarea leads the District with integrity, passion, and fortitude. Zarea is beloved by her colleagues and by her partners in the community.” the press release on the Portola Valley School District website states. Read the full press release at pvsd.net/news/whats_new/superintendent_of_the_year.
Photo by Magali Gauthier.
Join the Lurie College Discord!
Join the Lurie College Discord! Chat with current, former, and future students of SJSU’s Lurie College of Education!
Be able to connect and collaborate with one another! You can also participate in or host fun voice or video calls with anyone who wants to join!
Join our Lurie College Discord at bit.ly/lurie-discord
Watch Our EdD Leadership Alumni’s Documentary
According to a popular study, 95% of adolescents own a cell phone and 45% are online almost constantly. When Cellphones Come To School, a new very timely, informative and provocative one hour documentary from high school teacher and EdD Leadership Program alumni Anne Tran, shows what happens when these phones predictably end up in classrooms and the impact on learning that results. Featuring interviews with a diverse range of students, teachers and experts, When Cellphones Come To School, highlights both positive and negative outcomes and points the way toward creating a better understanding of the national debate around the role cellphones might and do play in classroom education settings.
Read our 2020-2021 Lurie College Impact Report
As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, our SJSU Lurie College of Education is positioned to lead. Our faculty, staff, and students have done remarkable work during this past year. We’ve grown enrollments in our traditional programs and launched exciting new programs that extend our reach to new student populations. We’ve strengthened our commitment to educational equity and racial justice by investing resources in bold emancipatory initiatives and tackling structural challenges within the college. We’ve amplified the impact of faculty-led research by strengthening our community partnerships and growing our media engagement. These achievements position Lurie College to lead our regional P-20 educational ecosystem and to be a model nationally of what it means to be a truly transformative college of education.
Read our 2020-2021 Impact Report above or at sjsu.edu/education/about.
Lurie College Leading Ethnic Studies Efforts
With California becoming the first state in the United States to make the completion of an ethnic studies course a requirement for high school graduation, Lurie College has already been leading in this area and preparing educators in our college to teach ethnic studies at the secondary level. Watch the video below to earn more about 3 of our Lurie College students – Julia Duggs, Jenna Kunz, and Angelica Lopez – who had Ethnic Studies Teacher Residencies during the 2020-2021 academic year. Julia also copresented “Freedom Dreaming: Ethnic Studies Teaching in the Secondary Grades” and Teacher Education faculty Wanda Watson copresented “Bringing Our Humanity to the TK-5 Classroom Through an Ethnic Studies Stance” as part of the Summer 2021 Lurie College K-12 Teaching Academy.
Lurie College Faculty and Students Featured on Visions of Education Podcast
Shoutout to Child and Adolescent Development faculty Ellen Middaugh and recent alumni Kristen Huey, Kristina Smith, and George Franco, who were recently featured on the Visions of Education podcast to discuss the research project they are involved in, which centers around young people’s engagement with news through social media.
Transforming the Way We Teach
How can pursuing an education help you find your voice — and how can you use your voice to transform others?
San José State’s Connie L. Lurie College of Education is subverting the hierarchies embedded in higher education, primarily “systemic racism that has historically prevented full inclusion and equity for our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) students, staff, and faculty,” one initiative at a time. Starting in 2018, Dean Heather Lattimer invited students, staff and faculty to participate in a year-long strategic planning process to brainstorm innovative ways to disrupt education. How could each department, from Teacher Education to Communicative Disorders and Sciences, create an environment that promoted inclusivity, diversity and anti-racist thought?
The first step? Listening. Listening to our teachers, undergraduates, graduate students and staff as well as educators working in the field, researchers and policymakers. Listening to lecturers like Marcella McCollum, ’05 MA Speech Pathology, ’22 EdD, who not only volunteered to serve on the strategic planning committee but also proposed a minor in Transformative Leadership in partnership with Rebeca Burciaga, professor of educational leadership and Chicana and Chicano Studies.
“We need to think about changing paradigms,” says McCollum. “We cannot just offer a class or textbook that tells you how to overcome the challenges that exist in our current educational systems as they are designed. We want students to question why things are the way they are. We want them to have the tools, so they can push back when something looks unjust.”
Throughout the year-long process, the strategic planning committee interviewed students, gathered research and collaborated to update the college mission. The committee created an identity statement and formed four strategic pillars — community engagement, cultural sustainability, holistic approaches and interdisciplinary collaboration — which unites the college’s work across departments. Faculty, staff and students were then invited to submit grant proposals for endeavors that aligned with those pillars.
Luz Nicacio, ’21 Child and Adolescent Development, provided key insight as the only undergraduate on the committee who helped review grant proposals, provide feedback to those submitting ideas and select those that would be awarded funding.
“I saw how influential my voice was in deciding the college’s direction,” she says. “Being on the committee showed me that my college values the opinions of its students and does care about us.”
Read the full story from Julia Halprin Jackson on the SJSU Transform website.
Lurie College Alumni Featured on CSU Website
Congratulations to Teacher Education alumni Erin Enguero, who was one of four CSU alumni featured on the CSU website as part of their ‘Cheers to the Class of 4 Million’ series!
Advice for graduates: “There are a lot of people … [who] pursued one thing, and it turned out not actually being where they end up. That’s something important to tell students, because you’re stressing so much about, ‘What am I going to major in? What school am I going to go to?’ And really, I think it’s a matter of keeping your mind open and being OK with where you end up.”
When Erin Enguero started her kinesiology degree at San José State, she was on track to graduate and head into physical therapy school. And she did just that in 2016—though after one semester of PT school, she realized it wasn’t what she wanted to do and left the program.
“That was really hard for me because I was so used to having this to-do list, and suddenly I didn’t know what was next,” she says. “There’s a part of me that looks back that wonders what would have happened if I spent a gap year trying to gather things up and reflect where I am in my life instead of rushing ahead. And now that I’ve gone through everything, I think it’s a good thing to give oneself time to think about what they’re doing.”
During a year and half of figuring out her next step, Enguero applied to a job as a gymnastics coach for children with special needs and later an assistant children’s librarian. Through these experiences, she realized her desire to work with children and began taking early childhood classes at a local community college. In 2019, she returned to SJSU to earn her master’s in education and a teaching credential.
“I knew SJSU had a focus on social justice and equity, which is really important to me,” she says. “Having grown up with hearing loss and learning to be an advocate for myself and others, returning back to my alma mater was like finding that missing piece in the puzzle.”
While the program included two semesters of student teaching, Enguero extended her time student teaching to work with her supervisors and mentors on solutions to help her adapt to the classroom environment. Following her December 2020 graduation, she’s been applying to positions in elementary and middle schools.
“I decided to go into teaching hoping I could help kids think more about what it means to be an empathetic citizen, someone who can be successful, who could use their talents and abilities in a way that best reflects who they are and what they could do for themselves and, one day, their community,” Enguero says.
Educators of Impact | Karin Jeffrey
Shoutout to Karin Jeffrey, who was recently nominated as a Lurie College Educator of Impact, which recognizes SJSU alumni who are teachers, counselors, therapists, school, or community leaders and have made a transformative difference in the lives of children, families, and communities.
“Professor Jeffery has been one of the most welcoming, helpful, & understanding professors I had thus far in the college career! She truly cares about her students academic, professional, & emotional well-being.”
Student Spotlight: Neng Xiong
“I’ve learned about the importance of a good support system from friends, family, colleagues and faculty. As attending college during a pandemic can feel emotionally and academically defeating and isolating, having people you can turn to for support during these difficult times can make the experience easier.”
Congratulations to two-time Lurie College alumni Neng Xiong, who was featured by SJSU as an extraordinary graduate! Read the feature at bit.ly/2S7TtZn
Watch the Book Boat’s New Episode: David & Kevin
SJSU Lurie College of Education alumni Alejandra Valencia (MA/Multiple Subject Credential Program) and Jocelyn Rodriguez (MA/Multiple Subject Credential Program) are back with their next episode of season two of their podcast, The Book Boat! In this episode, featured guests and former classmates David and Kevin discuss their final projects from their master’s program – which researched how a teacher’s gender influenced their interactions and relationships with their students at the elementary level – discuss their experiences as new teachers in the field, and share some of their recent favorite books.
Get connected to future episodes and content on YouTube, Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Instagram, or Facebook.
Watch Our Student Success Center Alumni Panels
Our Student Success Center reconnected with Lurie College alumni during the spring semester to learn about their academic, professional, and personal insights. Watch the recordings of the panels below!
Counselor Education, Child & Adolescent Development, and Multiple Subject Credential Program
Featured alumni in this panel include:
- Nicole Ellis – Counselor Education (2019), current counselor at Piedmont Hills High School
- Lily Soto – Child & Adolescent Development (2018), Multiple Subject Credential/MA in Education (2019), current 1st grade teacher at Mattos Elementary School
Child and Adolescent Development and Speech Language Pathology
Featured alumni in this panel include:
- Karina Rivera – Child & Adolescent Development (2018), currently pursuing Child Life Specialist MA at Central Washington University
- Alison Pentland – Speech Language Pathology (2014), AAC specialist and SJSU lecturer
Communicative Disorders and Sciences
Featured alumni in this panel include:
- Melissa Flores (2015)
- Iris Garcia (2015 and 2019)
Watch the Lurie College Spring 2021 Graduation Celebration
Congratulations to all of our Spring 2021 SJSU Lurie College of Education graduates who earned their bachelors, masters, credentials, or doctorates! Watch the recording of our Graduation Celebration above.
- 0:00 – Welcome to the Lurie College Graduation Celebration
- 7:29 – Remarks from Dean Heather Lattimer and Marcos Pizarro, video recognition of Lurie College graduates
- 20:58 – Remarks from Janeth Canseco (MA, Counselor Education Department)
- 27:22 – Remarks from Charline Tenorio (MA, Communicative Disorders and Sciences Department)
- 37:40 – Slides from our Spring 2021 graduates
SJSU has also created a website to recognize all of the Spring 2021 graduates for the entire university. Visit the SJSU Commencement website to access the recognition websites.