Research Centers, Institutes and Projects
 Hassinger Endowed Chair of Culture, Community and Collaboration
The Hassinger Endowed Chair was established in 1996 to reward distinguished professors who would advance and foster education through teaching and administration, at any educational level. The chair honors the life work of Paula Hassinger, who had a distinguished career as an educator, ranging from Chapman University to American elementary schools in Japan and South America. The chair further pays tribute to her husband, Jack, also a career educator and administrator who supported numerous teaching efforts in the latter stages of his career in China.
As a practitioner and follower of Paulo Freire, Dr. SooHoo brings clear democratic and critical synthesis to ethical and democratic practices into both formal and informal educational environments. Dr. SooHoo’s association with Paulo Freire is particularly meaningful in her role as Hassinger Chair since Paula Hassinger was herself an advocate of Freire’s, and contributed to Chapman University’s recognition of Freire by donating a bronze bust of Freire to the campus.
Evolution Education Research Center
Advancing the teaching and learning of biological evolution through research.
Kathleen Muth Reading and Learning Center
(including other literacy projects)
Paulo Freire Democratic Project
 Paulo Freire has written that educators need to be clear about what he calls their ontological vocation. The Paulo Freire Democratic Project's (PFDP) vocation, broadly stated is to bring to bear a synthesis of progressive/critical and ethical/democratic practices upon both formal and informal educational contexts. To accomplish this mission, PFDP gathers together a number of constituencies from all levels of education to promote the full democratic, intellectual and critical development of students, teachers, administrators, parents and other community.
Characterizing Bone Health in Orange County Residents
Because the integrity of one's bones is an important feature to health and longevity, the Science Teaching and Research (STAR) Institute at Chapman University has initiated part one of a three part study that evaluates bone health and develop specific dietary and pharmaceutical interventions for persons at risk for osteoporosis, osteopenia and other bone-loss pathologies.
A Study of Successful Approaches to Minority Faculty Retention in U.S. Schools of Education
This is a nationwide study of how schools of education might better recruit, develop and support their U.S. faculty of color and shield them, in particular, from intentional or unintentional racism. The purpose of this preliminary study is to ask the deans of 70 schools of education across the U.S. to describe cases where their U.S. minority faculty have successfully navigated the tenure process and to communicate the factors they feel should be included in a larger study to follow. While the larger follow-up study would lead to a model or models demonstrating how schools of education might better recruit and develop U.S. faculty of color, and in particular protect them from racism, input from deans will only be sought in this initial phase of the research as a kind of feasibility study and first cut at giving the deans an opportunity to provide direct input into the potential parameters of that larger study. Research team members include: Dr. Greg Tanaka (UCLA and Pacific Oaks College ), Kris Gutierrez (UCLA), Adrienne Ann Mullen ( East Los Angeles College ), Beverly Cross ( Memphis State University ), Suzanne SooHoo ( Chapman University ), Cindy Cruz ( Cornell University ), ReGena Booze ( Pacific Oaks College ), Olga Winbush ( Pacific Oaks College ), and Tim Sundeen ( Pacific Oaks College ).
A National and International Perspective of Social Justice
National:
The College of Educational Studies is committed to the development of critical scholarship and skillful leadership that inspires and respects individuals, serves communities, enriches diversity, and ensures a socially just society. Social justice is central to the mission of the College of Educational Studies because education is a powerful tool in understanding and responding to social inequities. Chapman’s teacher education, masters in education and doctoral program have a commitment to a vision of social justice.
Faculty members are interested in how a select number of schools define their socially just mission, how the mission is implemented, and what areas of scholarship distinguish their programs. After canvassing the programs at recent meetings of the American Education Research Association (AERA) Social Justice SIGs, it has been found that about a dozen universities refer to social justice education in their mission statements. From this, the field has been narrowed down to 2-3 programs that are highly regarded for their support of well-known, highly visible scholars and faculty publications that are widely used in the field.
The faculty plans to visit each of these three campuses for a period of not less than a week to interview faculty and observe classroom and fieldwork. The results of these interviews will be synthesized into a publication that will inform the new doctoral course syllabus on social justice.
International:
The College of Educational Studies (CES) has recently entered into a partnership with a premier research institution, University of Waikato in New Zealand . Faculty have had the opportunity to meet and interact with some faculty members and two deans on two occasions. They have been enthusiastic about a future relationship and have encouraged both faculties to identify mutual research interests.
CES Faculty member Suzanne Soohoo’s intention is to develop a mutual collaborative research agenda with our New Zealand partners. Her previous work has established her reputation in the area of participatory/action research. A review of the literature reveals a significant amount of action research conducted by New Zealanders. Outside of Britain and Australia , New Zealand is the land of action research!
Special Interest Sites
Quality Education as a Civil Right
The goal of the Quality Education as a Civil Right (QECR) movement is to create a national dialogue about the enormous inequities in educational opportunities for the children and youth of our nation and, if possible, to create a groundswell of public opinion in support of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a high-quality school experience to every American child.
Global Education Yellow Pages
This electronic directory of global education resources for K-12 teachers contains nearly 1,000 entries (many of which link to additional sources). These resources are organized into categories shown in the Table of Contents. Information about the resources was obtained from a questionnaire distributed to educational service providers and from a search of the Internet.
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