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Graduate School News |
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Scholarship to honor Professor James Wallace
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To recognize his 24 years of teaching teachers at Lewis & Clark College, the Graduate School of Professional Studies has established the James M. Wallace Scholarship Fund. This marks the first time the graduate school has named a scholarship after a professor. "I already miss him," said Jay Casbon, dean of the graduate school, at a gathering in September to honor Wallace. Associates speak of Wallace's passion for good schools, his wisdom and his insight. They laugh about his sense of humor and joke about his green-pen editing of their work and his standard comment, "omit needless words," from The Elements of Style. His books include Liberal Journalism and American Education and Ethical and Social Issues in Education, co-edited with Celeste Brody, associate professor of education, an outgrowth of a core course they team-taught. "The experience reaffirmed the sense of community we were developing within the graduate school," Brody says. Wallace grew up in a 20-room house with three generations of family in a small New Hampshire town where he saw democracy in action at town hall meetings. Those years played a major role in shaping his philosophy. Throughout his career, Wallace has worked to develop education that helps build democratic cooperation. A progressive educator and a devotee of John Dewey, he has strived to reform public education to better respond to children's needs and to socio-economic changes. Wallace helped to start two public alternative schools in Portland. The Metropolitan Learning Center, for kindergarten through 12th grade, is one of the longest-lived public progressive schools in the nation. Adams High School was the other effort. "It was the right school in the wrong place at the wrong time," Wallace comments. Wallace is using his retirement to write and edit several books: a collection of H.L. Mencken's writings on education; a biography of Angelo Patri, the head of inner-city New York City schools from 1908 to 1944; and Twins in a Two-Room Schoolhouse, the story of Wallace's mother and her twin sister and their experiences teaching in rural New Hampshire. Lewis & Clark hired Wallace to chair its undergraduate teacher education program. For the next five years, he worked to integrate the College's graduate and undergraduate teaching programs. He then returned to full-time teaching until Casbon tapped him as associate dean. Two years ago, Wallace helped realign the graduate school's programs to meet new standards set by the Teacher Standards and Practice Commission. In 1998, he coordinated a pilot program, supported by a $25,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation, to help alumni build connections with each other to improve education. "Nothing has compromised Jim's enjoyment of teaching and the intellectual life," says Carol Witherell, professor of education and a colleague for 12 years. "He has always found the means to keep those alive and renewed, and this has enriched us all." Wallace holds master's degrees in social science from Haverford College and in education from Harvard University, where he earned his doctorate. To contribute to the James Wallace Scholarship Fund, contact the graduate school, (503) 768-7122. |
"Education
isn't just learning facts, it's empowering children to live
socially useful lives," says James Wallace, professor
emeritus of education, who retired this summer.