Education research leader to head new institute

Thursday, December 13, 2012
Education research leader to head new institute

The inaugural head of the University's new Institute of Education is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Oklahoma who has more than 20 years of academic leadership at several United States universities.

Professor Patricia Hardré earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in English from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, and a PhD in Instructional Design and Technology from the University of Iowa. She specialised in cognition and instruction, motivation for learning and performance, and educational measurement and evaluation.

Vice-Chancellor Steve Maharey says the development of the Institute of Education within the college of Humanities and Social Sciences, with its focus on graduate and postgraduate qualifications and research, signals a significant advance for Massey and for the New Zealand teaching profession.

"What we have created is modelled on what is increasingly being acknowledged as best practice around the world and it is vital that it has energetic and visionary leadership from the outset," Mr Maharey says.

Professor Susan Mumm, who heads the college, says Professor Hardré brings exactly the right mix of skills and experience, including the ability to integrate research and practice, and proven leadership. "Her experience in supporting the growth of research excellence with faculty will assist the institute in reaching its goal of leadership in the area of education research," Professor Mumm says.

Born in Los Angeles, Professor Hardré traces her heritage to the Blackfoot and Cherokee tribes of North America. She has four adult children and three grandchildren.

Her research emphasis has also been on rural education, for which she won a top national honour for her contribution, and she has won the University of Oklahoma's highest award for her career record of educational research. She has been the Associate Dean for Graduate Programmes and Research at the University of Oklahoma’s Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education since 2009. She has held national international leadership roles in professional organisations including the American Educational Research Association, the National Rural Education Association and the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation.

Professor Hardré has served as an investigator and evaluator on multiple national and multi-national grant-funded programmes, including programmes funded by the United States-based National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. She has served as a proposal reviewer for the foundation, and as an advisory board member and consultant to five different regional educational laboratories, and the National Research Centre for Rural Education Support. In October this year she designed and delivered her university's all-campus development seminar on educational grant writing for faculty and graduate students.

In community service, she volunteers as a designer-developer for the American Red Cross, as a neighbourhood fundraising volunteer with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, as evaluator and consultant to the Santa Fe South Elementary Charter School, and as an advisory board member for the Indigenous Cultural Preservation Project. She also serves as faculty representative to the university’s American Indian Students Advocacy Council.

She has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles, books and book chapters in education and related fields, including faculty development, engineering education, medical education and community-based health education.

She has presented at conferences of the American Educational Research Association, the National Rural Education Association, the Association for Educational Communications and Technology and the National Council on Measurement in Education. She also keynoted the International Symposium for Innovation in Rural Education in Armidale, Australia, in 2009.

She was an invited scholar to India’s International Roundtable of Academic Institutions last year, and has conducted active research in India, Taiwan, Kenya, Tanzania, and Haiti.

Professor Hardré will join Massey in late May or June. Associate Professor Sally Hansen will be acting institute director until then.

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