The University of British Columbia (UBC) recently welcomed Assistant Professor of Education, Nermin Vehabovic, as a guest lecturer in its Refugee Education course. Invited by Sofia Noori, assistant professor in UBC’s Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Nermin engaged teacher candidates in examining the role of stories in refugee education through the guiding question, “How do we listen to the stories of others?”

Situated on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people in Vancouver, and connected through the broader traditional territories of Indigenous nations across British Columbia, UBC is recognized as a global center for research and �þ��� and is consistently ranked among the top universities in the world.

Noori’s Refugee Education course prepares teacher candidates to better understand the histories, lived experiences and educational realities of children and youth from refugee backgrounds. The course explores how schools, classrooms, and community partnerships can foster equitable learning environments while strengthening relationships with newcomer families and communities.

Rather than delivering a traditional lecture, Nermin designed an interactive, participatory session grounded in the principles of his scholarship on humanizing  education. He invited teacher candidates to reflect on their own stories before considering how educators can cultivate classrooms where the stories, languages, identities, and ways of knowing of children, youth, and families from refugee backgrounds are genuinely heard and valued.

“My intention was for us to be in community with one another as colleagues and educators,” Nermin said. “I wanted the experience to model the very practices we hope to cultivate in schools—listening, relationality and learning with others rather than simply �þ��� to them.”

Throughout the session, participants explored the importance of unlearning deficit perspectives, assumptions, savior mentalities and monolingual expectations that can limit meaningful engagement with students and families. The discussion emphasized ethical listening as a foundational practice for building culturally sustaining and humanizing classrooms.

Nermin also shared examples from Welcome New Neighbor, the community-engaged initiative he founded through �þ���’s Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education. The program partners teacher candidates with families from refugee backgrounds through home-based literacy experiences that position families’ languages, cultures, and knowledge as educational assets. During the session, he highlighted how the initiative prepares teacher candidates to build reciprocal relationships with multilingual families while reimagining homes as important spaces of learning, belonging, and affirmation.

Drawing on his research, Nermin also discussed the interconnected roles of transnationalism, translanguaging, picturebooks and family literacies in supporting refugee-background children and youth, as well as their families. Participants considered how storytelling can become a vehicle for cultivating belonging, honoring identities and strengthening relationships between schools and communities.

The invitation reflects Nermin’s growing international collaborations in literacy and teacher education, as well as his ongoing scholarship centered on humanizing educational practices and preparing educators to work alongside families across culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

“The class told us about ‘doubled-up homelessness,’ where you’re living with family or others, and you’re living under a roof, but it’s not your home. I had no idea that was a thing,” said Brandon, an elementary education major from Hastings, Michigan.

Now, Brandon is working with Jill McSweeney, assistant director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, and assistant professor of wellness, on a project examining the ways that North Carolina elementary school teachers and homeless liaisons are collaborating to help students experiencing homelessness.

According to Brandon, each North Carolina school district has a homeless education liaison responsible for managing resources, funding and teacher training. Brandon and McSweeney are working with the North Carolina Homeless Education Program to survey and interview teachers across the state to improve the training educators receive on supporting students experiencing homelessness.

“A liaison can be the best liaison in the whole world, and they can’t be with every student in the district supporting their needs every day and seeing their day-to-day life like a teacher does,” Brandon said. “But in North Carolina and nationwide, most teachers are never trained by their liaison just because there’s not enough time. They have no idea about all the funding that is available to them, and instead they’re spending hundreds of dollars every year out of their own pocket to buy food, clothing and hygiene products.”

Brandon will be presenting her work at the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) presentations on July 23 in the Snow Family Grand Atrium. �þ��� apply to the annual research symposium, which usually takes place during the summer before the junior or senior year. It is one of several opportunities for students to showcase �þ��� research, a cornerstone of the Elon education and one of the five Elon Experiences. �þ��� are also able to present scholarly work at the Spring Undergraduate Research Forum.

Working with McSweeney, Brandon says, has been a transformative experience. McSweeney’s research area focuses on college student experiences on campus and in the classroom, along with a broad focus on �þ��� and learning. But Brandon says, despite not focusing specifically on K-12 education, McSweeney was excited to work with her.

“I cannot imagine what my �þ��� experience would be like if Jill McSweeney was not my mentor,” Brandon said. “She taught me how to do research because Teaching Fellows are not only expected to do research, but our course schedules are so rigorous that we can’t take a methods course. So, she was helping me with my research, �þ��� me how to do research, and what research methods were, and also showing me how to navigate higher education as a system.”

As Brandon prepares to graduate next spring, she hopes to continue her education at Elon through the Teach for Alamance program. The Elon scholarship program provides full tuition remission and a small stipend to teacher-candidate graduates of the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education who wish to enroll in Elon’s Master of Education program. This project, she hopes, will also help her future colleagues in the Alamance-Burlington School System.

“I wanted to make sure that I was doing research that would have an impact that reached the people that it was about and not just the academic community,” Brandon said. “I know that I can’t redesign legal systems, and I can’t fix all of the state’s problems that are causing homelessness to happen. I wanted to see what the most is that I could do with �þ��� research to make sure that more students are supported.”

The collaboration framework explored in this article was originally developed for a knowledge-based product development firm by Barker Scott and Manning. The framework outlines three key components of collaboration: collaborative work, relationships, and behaviors.

This scholarly work can be applied through HealthEU initiatives to advance Elon’s strategic goal of cultivating a culture of health and well-being. One of the HealthEU initiatives Räisänen and Butler-Storsved, in collaboration with the Student Health and Wellness Coaching Research Coalition, are currently building is developing a peer health and wellness coaching program for Elon students. This project, supported by Elon Innovates, will create campus work opportunities for students who have completed the Health and Wellness Coach badge program.

Ethical Agency: A Values-First Approach to Academic Development
Deandra Little and David Green
This session explored how academic developers navigate change with trust and ethical practice, balancing new initiatives with limited resources and resistance. Participants reflected on their professional identities and ethical priorities, guided by emerging ethical guidelines for educational developers. The goal was to empower participants to make intentional, sustainable decisions rooted in their core values.

Walking Besides, Not Ahead: A Mentoring Story of Shared Power
Vanessa Drew-Branch
This presentation shared a mentoring model rooted in equity and cultural responsiveness that shifts from faculty-led hierarchy to a collaborative inquiry with students. By empowering students as knowledge producers, the project revealed insights often overlooked by institutions and reshaped how faculty view �þ��� and student engagement. Attendees were invited to rethink mentoring as a space for shared power and student leadership in higher education.

Cultivating Teacher Agency: An Examination of Capstone Projects in a Master of Education Programme
Bronwyn Harris, Nermin Vehabovic, Heidi Hollingsworth and Melaine Rickard
This presentation examined how M.Ed. candidates enacted teacher agency through equity-focused capstone projects, integrating research and reflection to design meaningful K-12 instruction. The projects emphasized student agency, social justice, and community impact, highlighting graduate study’s role in fostering educators who challenge inequities. It showcased how equity-driven curriculum design deepens engagement and supports inclusive education.

Beyond Books – A Game of Life for First Year �þ���’ Academic, Social, and Emotional Development
Margret S. Sigurdardottir, Jill Marie McSweeney, Saffie Hollingsworth and Berglind Eva Benediktsdóttir
Introducing “Beyond Books,” an interactive board game designed to help first-year students navigate academic, social, and emotional challenges. The game provides a safe space to practice real-life decisions, fostering empathy, communication, and self-advocacy. The workshop included gameplay experience, theoretical insights and discussions on adapting the tool to support holistic student transitions.

Expanding Our Understanding of Student Trust Perceptions: A Trust Collaborative Project
Kathryn Sutherland, Ted Murcray, Jill McSweeney, Peter Felten, Rachel Forsyth, Debra Grantham, Laurel Schut, Nancy Chick, Kate Thompson, Saffie Hollingsworth, Neal Blank and Subin Kim
This collaborative project explored student perspectives on trust in university teachers through four dimensions: cognition, affect, values and identity. Participants discussed adapting the trust model across diverse cultural and institutional settings to strengthen relational and inclusive learning environments. The session aimed to build global partnerships for advancing research and practice on teacher-student trust.

Fostering Sense of Belonging in and Through Educational Development
Peter Felten and Gabriela Pleschova
This workshop examined how a strong sense of belonging supports students and staff to thrive amid challenges, while belonging uncertainty can lead to isolation and disempowerment. Drawing on recent research and literature, participants reflected on belonging and explored ways educational developers can foster inclusive academic environments. The interactive session emphasized agency in creating equitable, collaborative spaces for all.

A Framework for Building and Assessing Equity-Centered Peer Mentoring Programs
Olivia Choplin, Krista Craven, Margarita Safronova, Gabriel Kwek Wu-Xin and Diana Gregory
This session introduced a research-based framework for equity-centered peer mentoring in academic support, developed through a comparative study across three countries. Participants engaged with key findings and an assessment tool designed to help institutions build or improve peer mentoring programs. The framework addresses the complex realities of higher education, offering practical ways to support equitable student success.

To kick off the summer, Beyond 12 welcomed 50 rising sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade students to �þ��� for a hands-on exploration of career pathways and interests. Throughout two days, students traveled across campus, participated in interactive learning experiences, and engaged with �þ��� faculty, staff, and community members representing a variety of professional fields.

Each session offered a unique learning experience for the students. During an introduction to cinema and television arts led by Bryan Baker, director of technology, operations and multimedia projects in the School of Communications, students explored the university’s live television studio and viewed student made productions. Participants also gained hands-on experience such as with Elon’s Interprofessional Simulation Center, where Nita Skillman, director of the ISC, and Bethany Fearnow, simulation coordinator, introduced students to using healthcare simulation technology. In addition to exploring careers, students were able to observe different facilities on Elon’s campus. During a sports management session led by Jenn Strawley, director of athletics, participants stepped into the world of collegiate athletics with a visit to the Schar Center, where they got a behind the scenes look at Elon Athletics.

“Spending time with the Beyond 12 program was such a rewarding experience. I appreciated their curiosity and loved their questions,” said Strawley. “I hope that hearing about my journey and learning about career pathways in college athletics opened their minds to new possibilities and inspired them to continue to dream.”

�þ��� also had the opportunity to engage in thoughtful conversations with presenters, asking questions, and gaining deeper insight into different fields.

“I spoke with the students about what finance, corporate finance, and investment really are, and I was genuinely surprised by how interested they were,” said Feng Dong, director of the Reed Finance Center. “Many asked great questions, and even the teachers were engaged. Beyond 12 gives students an early, hands-on look at fields they may not have considered, exactly the kind of exposure that can shape where they go next.”

The program had an equally meaningful impact on the presenters involved. Dr. Janine A. Scott, founder of TriUnity Healthcare Inc., shared her story of overcoming adversity and creating positive change through her work in healthcare, and found herself thinking about the impact of programs such as Beyond 12.

“I really enjoyed myself during my interaction with both the students and staff,” Scott said. “Just hearing what they were doing prior to coming to our session made me wish I was a student again and able to participate.”

Through experiences like these, Beyond 12 is helping students recognize a wide range of opportunities within their reach.

“I remarked to someone that I wish I had the opportunity to attend a program like this back in my day. I truly believe that exposure and representation matters, and that is exactly what these students gained from being part of the Beyond 12 program,” said Scott.

Following the summer session, participating students from Turrentine Middle School and Broadview Middle School will attend monthly Beyond 12 sessions throughout the academic year, where they will continue to focus on career readiness and developing essential life skills. Beyond 12 programming is made possible through the generous support of NC Glaxo Smith Kline.

Their article, titled “Teachers’ Instructional Use of YouTube: A National Survey,” is the first national survey on how U.S. pre-K-12 teachers use YouTube in the classroom. It can be found

The article abstract reads as follows:

“Although YouTube is widely used worldwide, little is known about how pre-K–12 teachers employ it for instructional purposes. This article reports findings from a national survey of U.S. pre-K–12 teachers (N = 393) on their instructional use of YouTube. Nearly three-quarters of respondents reported using the platform as a classroom resource, with almost half doing so at least daily or weekly. On average, teachers devoted 17.9% of instructional time to watching videos, often alongside lectures, group work, and independent practice. These findings underscore YouTube’s important role in supporting instruction and enhancing teachers’ content knowledge.”

The Roberts Academy will use the multisensory Orton-Gillingham approach to reading instruction once it opens in August for third- and fourth-grade students in a temporary location on West Trollinger Avenue.

The academy will expand to grades 1-6 when a new building opens for the 2028-29 academic year on East Haggard Avenue near the university’s Danieley Neighborhood. Each classroom will be capped at 12 students.

“We are excited to have such well-trained, committed teachers join us at Roberts Academy,” said Ann Bullock, dean of the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education. “Their dedication to children and their ability to provide an engaged environment for learning will lead to a remarkable growth in confidence for young students.”

The Roberts Academy is also finalizing the recruitment of part-time teachers to provide enrichment instruction in art, music and physical education. The school is led by Acting Director Alicia S. Tate and Tracy Roof, director of business and school operations.

Established in 2025 through a gift from philanthropists Hal and Marjorie Roberts of Lakeland, Florida, the Roberts Academy at �þ��� will be the fourth in a series of successful university-based private elementary schools the couple established at Vanderbilt University, Mercer University and Florida Southern College.

2026-27 Full-Time Faculty for Roberts Academy at �þ���

Carrie Whitley

With a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in reading education from Appalachian State University, Carrie Whitley brings three years of experience working closely with elementary-aged students in both classroom and tutoring settings.

Throughout her career, Whitley has focused on providing individualized instruction, collecting and analyzing student data, and creating targeted interventions to support diverse learning needs. Her experience in special education at a private school in Raleigh strengthened her ability to collaborate with multidisciplinary teams, to develop meaningful student goals, and to communicate progress with families.

Whitley is Orton-Gillingham trained and has implemented the method with fidelity in both small-group and one-on-one settings. She said she has seen firsthand the impact that explicit, systematic literacy instruction can have on students with dyslexia in developing reading skills, building confidence and instilling a love of learning.

Kaitlyn Leazer ’25

After serving for a year with the Alamance-Burlington School System as teacher of exceptional children, Kaitlyn Leazer brings experience in designing and implementing differentiated instruction, prioritizing strong relationships with families as essential collaborators in each child’s success.

Leazer holds a Bachelor of Arts in elementary and special education and is currently pursuing a Master of Education in innovation from the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education. Leazer said she was drawn to the Roberts Academy for its values and evidence-based practices to meet the individual needs of every learner.

In her year with ABSS, Leazer sought to create classrooms where students felt supported through thoughtful differentiation, intentional data collection and Universal Design for Learning. She developed a system for students to track and chart their own IEP goals, fostering both independence and accountability.

Isabella “Bella” Martino ’26

Isabella “Bella” Martino is a recent �þ��� graduate with dual licensure in K-6 general education and special education, allowing her to serve students across all domains of learning.

During her work as a student teacher, Martino created structured, predictable learning environments for students with unique behavioral and academic needs. She integrated technology into students’ daily routines, leading to increased engagement and improved behavioral outcomes. Martino works in partnership with families and other service providers to holistically meet the needs of students.

Passionate about providing students equal access to the general education curriculum, Martino points to her efforts to align lesson content with grade-level standards whenever possible. She describes herself as driven by a belief that holding students who learn differently to the same social and emotional expectations as their peers is essential to fostering independence and autonomy.

Alongside this infographic, these stories highlight some of the positive impact across campus through community partnerships during the past academic year:

• Elon receives Carnegie classification for community engagement
• Elon recognized for advancing nonpartisan student civic engagement
• Elon creates community through Special Olympics and Elon Athletics partnership
• Turning service into impact: How an Elon alumna is bringing Alamance County together
• Literary Journalism class engages Town of Elon mayor in civic dialogue
• Writing for Impact students secure funding for local nonprofit
• Showing up, growing together: Inside KING/PINK Academy’s power of mentorship
• �þ��� reflect on service, community and connection during Fall Break
• New HealthEU course encourages students to go ‘beyond the Elon bubble’
• Elon empowers staff to make an impact in the community through paid volunteer leave

The Centre for Belonging in Education is a U.K.-based group of researchers and practitioners that advocates for policies and practices to support belonging across educational spaces. The Centre seeks to co-create practical resources, build robust evidence and develop policy recommendations in both the U.K. and the U.S.

Much of Small’s existing scholarship is focused on belonging and mattering in and out of classrooms. In his three year role as founding fellow, Small will deepen this work and examine how educators can facilitate spaces for all students to belong.

The report, , published on June 9, spotlights Elon for meeting the standards set by literacy experts for coverage of the most effective methods of reading instruction. Specifically, this means the program is preparing aspiring teachers in all five components of scientifically based reading instruction, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary, and avoids many instructional practices that research has shown to be ineffective or counterproductive for �þ��� children to read.

A child’s ability to read proficiently in the early grades shapes everything that comes next in school and in life, yet according to , four in ten fourth graders in North Carolina cannot read at a basic level. Teacher preparation is one of the most direct levers available to change that, but only if it is aligned to the research-based instructional methods that have been proven to help most students become successful readers.

Elon’s program in the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education is part of a growing group of teacher preparation programs nationwide, helping transform how future teachers are trained to teach reading.

“Every child deserves a teacher who has been well prepared to teach reading, and every teacher deserves the opportunity to enter the classroom ready to help students succeed,” said NCTQ President Heather Peske. “Across the country, many teacher preparation programs still do not fully align with the science of reading, but �þ��� is demonstrating what strong preparation can look like.”

NCTQ’s methodology is informed by a panel of reading experts, teacher preparation faculty, reading advocates, and measurement experts. To evaluate the quality of preparation being provided, a team of experts at NCTQ analyzed syllabi, including lecture schedules and topics, background reading materials, class assessments, assignments, and opportunities to practice instruction in required literacy courses for elementary teacher candidates at �þ���. 

To earn an “A,” programs needed to demonstrate that coursework for future elementary teachers includes all five core components of scientifically based reading instruction and avoid �þ��� more than three instructional methods that are unsupported by the research on effective reading instruction. To earn an A+, programs needed to exceed those targets and not teach any instructional practices that are unsupported by research.

See NCTQ’s report, , for more information about �þ���’s coverage of the science of reading and to see how �þ��� compares to other programs in North Carolina or across the country.

About NCTQ

The National Council on Teacher Quality: NCTQ is a nonpartisan research and policy organization on a mission to ensure every child has access to an effective teacher and every teacher has the opportunity to be effective. We believe a strong, diverse teacher workforce is critical for providing all students with equitable educational opportunities. Fore more information about NCTQ, visit .