Home- College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
- Dr. James Paul
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. James Paul
LB: Richard Pride? Upward Bound?
JP: Yes. This was a large faculty in the College of Education, so the four or five faculty members who came in Special Education kind of stood out in the College, and Brenda’s agenda influenced the curriculum with respect to diversity issues in the College. I think nationally if you ask someone at San Jose State, or University of Oregon, or Boston College in special education what’s going with South Florida, this is one of the things they would mention.
Brenda was only part of the story. Daphne Thomas, who is now Chair of the department, has been another major part of the story of diversity in the College. She has done a wonderful job chairing the department, recruiting and mentoring minority students, and providing excellent leadership in making the department what it is today.
Another issue I think people would recognize us for is our commitment to providing a deeper and broader foundation for research preparation. In some ways, if you step outside of the conventional boundaries, if you’re doing something other than positivist work in research, then you run the risk of being labeled something that’s not so desirable. One of the undesirable labels, unfortunately, is “postmodern.” Some have said I’m a postmodernist. I’m not, although I have a lot of respect for postmodern thought. Some people say that’s dead now, but post-structuralism certainly isn’t dead. But the thing is you have to be this or you have to be that, you can’t be both things. I think one of the things that people recognize us for is having a broader approach to inquiry in helping students respect different traditions and having a critical understanding of their own approach.
LB: I haven’t seen any figures for special education, but I would venture to estimate that a majority of the teachers in special education in the surrounding counties are graduates of the USF undergraduate program or teachers who have come back for graduate study. Does the department have any figures on that or just estimates?
JP: I’m sure they do. I don’t. There have been a lot. We have a lot of teachers now in the field who are prepared here, and our doctoral students have been very successful in going to outstanding places in major research universities such as Ohio State University and the University of Indiana. There have been a lot of successful students.
LB: The figures on grants secured by the Department of Special Education are quite high. I know you and I have talked about the federal government’s role in supporting special education. While it was quite good in many ways, there are some built-in inherent dangers of the federal government leading the preparation of teachers, of who’s prepared and how they’re prepared.
JP: Yes.
LB: You have any thoughts on the funding competitions that were made available for special education over the years?
JP: They have been very good to us, and we have had many training grants funded at the undergraduate, master’s degree, and doctoral levels. It is certainly true that, since the ‘60s with the big influx of federal money in to universities, professors tend to go after resources that are available and that certainly have an impact on programs. It has varied so much over time and from the earliest times when you and I were both getting federal grants to support our teacher preparation programs. From that time until now, the philosophies have changed, the actors have changed, and the peer review process has changed a lot. I would say one of the biggest things that concern me right now in that context is the heavy hand of the federal government in defining research. Up until 2000, there was a fairly diverse conversation about research and the kind of research you can do. Since 2000, that has been narrowed very considerably. The emphasis is on evidence for practice. On the surface one could ask what’s wrong with that. It’s a good idea, but the way evidence is defined and then the kind of research that you can do that comes from that definition is limiting. The focus is very much on field trials and experimental research. In education we need to know a lot of things that you can’t really know from experimental research. We need experimental research, but we need a lot more than that. The government’s disinterest now in funding research that isn’t experimental in nature concerns me a lot.
LB: Well, you’ve already told me some of the things you feel good about relative to your career here at USF that happened within the department, but are there any others that we haven’t talked about that you think would stand out within the College and the University? I don’t want to leave a stone unturned here.
JP: I would like to add that we have had and have so many really good people in the Department of Special Education who made it what it is today. Betty Epanchin did some terrific things here working with local schools. She got funding for some of her collaborative work with schools and she is a national leader. She just went up to be the Associate Dean at UNC at Greensboro. Betty’s collaborative work with Hillsborough, Pasco, and Polk county schools coupled with her publications and her leadership nationally as president of TED, the Teacher Education Division of CEC, was part of the story of the department’s development since 1989.
There are so many people who have done so much. Honestly, I feel privileged to have been a part of and to still be a part of all of this. I have worked with and learned from an extraordinary group of people, some of whom, unfortunately, we lost over time, like Kofi Marfo, whom we lost to the Children’s Center and the Educational Psychology program. I know I’ve left people out, but I certainly don’t mean to.
LB: What about the, I know the gifted education program was founded by Dr. Dorothy Sisk. I’m not sure if Dorothy was here when you arrived, but then Hilda Rosselli took over the program.