Millman Promising Scholar Award winner will lecture here today and Friday

The Department of Education at Cornell established the Millman Promising Scholar Award in 1996, and each year an awardee is selected after a national search of over 150 schools and colleges of education.

Annette Henry, assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has received the 1998 award.

Henry will be on campus today, Oct. 8, and Friday, Oct. 9. She will give a public address today at 4:30 p.m. in 213 Kennedy Hall titled "Invisible to the Naked Eye: Black Women and Girls in Educational Research." This address will be followed by a reception in 101 Kennedy Hall. On Friday at 12:10 p.m. in 101 Kennedy Hall, the Cornell Education Society will host a seminar by Henry on the concrete issues of doing ethnographic research work and being an assistant professor. Both presentations are open to the public.

Henry earned a B.A. degree in linguistics and French and certification to teach English as a Second Language at Carleton University. She later earned a bachelor's of education degree at the University of Toronto, and she taught French and music in Ontario and English, history and geography in Jamaica. Henry completed her doctorate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto (now OISE/University of Toronto) and is currently at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, where she teaches a range of courses, including undergraduate courses for future teachers and graduate courses in qualitative research. In recognition of her scholarship, she has been awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the National Academy of Education and a Spencer Foundation grant to support her research.

As a researcher, Henry is interested in gender, culture, race, language and equity. She describes her research and writing as focusing on the epistemology and practice of black female teachers, the academic achievement and learning of black female students and the uses of ethnographic research methods, particularly in "minority" settings.

The Millman Promising Scholar Award is named in honor of the late Jason Millman, who was a nationally recognized authority in education measurement and a valued member of the Department of Education at Cornell. The Millman Promising Scholar Award was established to recognize beginning scholars and bring them to campus to enrich the work of Cornell faculty, graduate students and local educational practitioners.