Professor Emeritus

Nancy Ares joined the Warner School in 2003 to teach doctoral-level courses in learning and teaching theories and research methods, as well as master’s-level courses in adolescent development; race, class, gender and disability in American education; and educational equity in global contexts. She has taught at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels, and coordinated academic support programs for underrepresented and migrant students. Her primary concentration in teaching is in addressing power, culture, class, and privilege as central issues in educational research and practice. To that end, she explores social constructivist and critical approaches with students to pose problems and investigate solutions.

Ares conducts research using critical geography and sociocultural theories as frameworks for investigating classroom and community practices. This research focuses on social and spatial practices that shape participation, how structures and activity are mutually constituted, and how power and roles are negotiated through social interaction. Her work in formal and informal settings emphasizes resource-rich approaches to understanding school and community transformation. She is committed to bridging multiple theoretical and methodological perspectives in studying learning, teaching, and culture as complex phenomena.

Her work has been published in the American Educational Research Journal, Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Teachers College Record, Cognition & Instruction, International Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, Journal of Literacy Research, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and Mathematical Thinking and Learning.

She is the author and editor (with Edward Buendía and Robert Helfenbein) of Deterritorializing/Reterritorializing: Critical Geography of Educational Reform (Sense, 2017); and Youth-full Productions: Cultural Practices and Constructions of Content and Social Spaces (Lang, 2009). She is also co-author, with Edward Buendía, of the book Geographies of Difference: The Social Production of the East Side, West Side, and Central City School (Lang, 2006).

She is currently conducting a multi-year case study that focuses on community-based standards for school-aged children’s learning and development in a Children’s Defense Fund-sponsored Freedom School (FS) summer program provided by North East Area Development (NEAD), a not-for-profit in upstate NY. This community-based participatory research is aimed at disrupting academic and social structures that maintain social, academic, and economic inequities. Ares and her community collaborators are working to 1) identify ways that forms of community cultural wealth (CCW) manifest in an FS summer program and 2) understand the relationship between CCW and FS staff’s criteria for students’ social and academic learning.

Kathryn Douthit is a counselor educator who joined the Warner School in 2001 with a scholarly background and career experiences that encouraged her to bridge the worlds of social and biological sciences. Douthit thinks it is crucial to bring together the literatures of science and counseling to form one coherent statement about their relationship that both disciplines can digest and accept.

In her earliest academic and professional experiences, she devoted more than a dozen years to earning degrees in science, teaching undergraduate biology and mathematics courses, working in a tutoring program for medical school students in medical microbiology, and conducting research for use in various federal substance abuse prevention programs.

Through her academic work and career experiences, she has become increasingly interested in the relationship between neuroscience and counseling, and on the neurological changes that can result from effective counseling. As a division counselor in the department of math, science, and allied health at Harrisburg Area Community College, she provided personal and career counseling and academic advising to science and mathematics students.

Her research and doctoral education have produced articles and professional presentations on subjects as complex and diverse as an ecological view of attention deficit disorder, academic failure among gifted students, understanding the relationship between counseling and psychiatric genetics, the inequality of the aging experience, and a critical view of contemporary dementia care.

Judi Fonzi brings extensive experience as a teacher, teacher educator, and researcher to the Warner School. Her research focuses on systemic reform, professional development, and teacher leadership. She has served as the principal investigator for a $3 million National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project, Preparing Highly Qualified STEM Teacher Leaders for Urban Schools, which aims to increase mathematics and science leadership capacity in the Rochester City School District.

Fonzi has also served as co-principal investigator for a $1.95 million U.S. Department of education funded project, Western New York Collaboration for ELL Success (Project CELLS), through which the Warner School partners with the Mid-West Regional Bilingual Education Resource Network, the Rochester City School District, and Monroe 2-Orleans, Wayne-Finger Lakes and Genesee Valley BOCES to increase the number of highly qualified teachers certified in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). In addition, Project CELLs provides professional development to K-12 teachers, counselors and administrators to support ELL student achievement.

Fonzi has been published in several professional journals, including the National Science Foundation, Journal of American Geriatrics Society, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education Advance Access, Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, and the Journal of Research in Mathematics Education.

Lucia French joined the Warner faculty in 1982 as a developmental psychologist investigating language development, learning, and cognition. Her research explores the relationship between language and cognitive development during the preschool years, with emphasis on the roles of social interaction and prior knowledge. French previously directed the certification program in early childhood education at the Warner School.

French, a former Spencer Fellow, is the author of Young Children's Understanding of Relational Terms: Some ifs, ors, and buts (Springer-Vertag, 1985). She has also published more than 30 articles in research journals and other articles in publications for early childhood educators.

Based on her research, French has developed a science-based preschool curriculum to foster language development, learning, cognition, and school readiness. The ScienceStart! curriculum capitalizes on children’s natural curiosity about the world around them to build the cognitive and social skills and knowledge needed for healthy development and academic success. She is engaged in numerous projects in the community to develop, field-test, and expand the curriculum, with funding from the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Education. French’s groundbreaking work, on which she has collaborated extensively with doctoral students, has been featured in Education Week.

Logan Hazen served as a professor in the Warner School’s higher education program for 14 years. His responsibilities included teaching courses in higher education, serving as the program director for higher education, establishing and supervising higher education internships, advising higher education master’s and doctoral students, and recruiting adjunct faculty for the higher education program. He also served as the Warner School’s director of student services for six years.

Prior to joining the Warner School faculty, he spent nearly three decades in senior-level student affairs positions. Following leadership positions in the west, including at the University of Southern California for eight years, Hazen spent 17 years leading the University of Rochester’s residential living programs. Professionally, he has been involved in the leadership at local, regional, and national levels for a variety of student affairs professional organizations. He helped found and led two national higher education-based technology organizations.

Hazen taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels at Western Washington University, the University of Southern California, Canisius College, and the University of Rochester. His graduate teaching interests included introduction to student affairs administration; issues in student affairs and higher education; residential life in student affairs and the university; student affairs administration; and “how universities work.” He advised more than 180 master’s thesis projects each year, advised or co-advised five program evaluation doctoral dissertation cohorts, and served as an independent chair, committee member, or advisor for more than 60 successful doctoral dissertations.

His research and practice interests included the impact of residential living on student development; alcohol use, knowledge, and behavior in college women; residential student alcohol use and abuse; the impact of technology on college student development and community; measurement of student satisfaction with college residential living experiences; the administration of residential life and student affairs; and the integration of student and academic affairs. He has a continuing interest on the master’s and doctoral graduate experience and critical support services.

David Hursh's recent research and writing reflect three specific areas of interest. First, Hursh situates the current corporate-based education reform effort within the context of the rise and dominance of neoliberal economic policies and high-stakes testing. Over the last 25 years, he has been writing about the politics of testing, focusing on New York State. His most recent book, Opting Out: The Story of the Parents’ Grassroots Movement to Achieve Whole-Child Public Schools, is co-authored with two parents active in the opt-out movement in New York and two Warner School students. He has also co-authored several book chapters and journal articles with the students and co-edited a special issue (due out in fall 2020) of the journal Teachers College Record examining the opt-out movement nationally. He also recently edited a special issue of Policy Futures in Education on “the end of neoliberalism.”

Second, he has worked to design and implement a curriculum that promotes a sustainable society. This ranges from reconceptualizing educational goals to include practices that contribute to understanding the physical and social world as a holistic system. This includes not only teaching about energy and water use, but also creating an environment that supports the health of humans and other living things. He has created lessons and taught in classrooms in sub-Saharan Africa as well as urban and suburban schools in the United States. He also worked with the Earth Institute at Columbia University from 2011-12 on the Millennium Development Project on attaining the Millennium Development Goals.

Third, Hursh has worked with fourth- through twelfth-grade teachers on teaching about structural racism in society. Specifically, they are looking at how the communities and schools in the Rochester metropolitan area became segregated and unequal. Teachers and students are learning about how residential redlining, restrictive covenants, and zoning regulations created segregated and unequal communities.

He has given presentations on the above topics in the United States and around the globe. He has given addresses at the United Nations, in New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Canada, the United Kingdom, and at numerous international conferences in Europe and North America. For several years he was the associate editor for the Americas for the Journal of Education Policy and has been and still is the associate editor for the journal Policy Futures in Education. In addition to his appointment as a visiting scholar at Columbia University, Hursh has been on the faculty at  Swarthmore College, a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a visiting scholar at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand and the University of Redlands, Redlands, California, and a research fellow at Bristol University, Bristol, England.

Frederick Jefferson is a behavioral scientist who serves as the University Intercessor and has extensive experience in the teaching and practice of organizational change, with an emphasis on understanding the influence of human diversity on the change process. He consults with individuals and groups and conducts training on a wide variety of topics. They include: managing diversity, integrating affective and cognitive education and clarifying values taught in classrooms, developing theoretical and teaching models for enhancing positive identity development among Black youth and young adults, and anti-racism and anti-sexism.

Jefferson joined the University of Rochester in 1973, serving first as director of the department of special student services and the educational opportunity program and later as assistant to the president for university and community affairs. He joined the Warner School faculty in 1985 and served as director of the institute for urban schools and education from 1996 to 1999.

He is the recipient of several awards for his service to the community, among which are the James McCuller Award for Excellence sponsored by Action for a Better Community, Inc. (1995), and the Hannah G. Solomon Humanitarian Award made by the National Council of Jewish Women, Rochester, New York (1989). His extensive community involvement ranges from serving on the board of directors of the American Red Cross to participating in the planning and administration of the Gateways Music Festival, an annual event that showcases the talents of Eastman School of Music musicians who are members of minority groups.

Howard Kirschenbaum joined the faculty of the Warner School in 1997 and chaired the Department of Counseling and Human Development from 2000-06. He has taught secondary English and history; undergraduate and graduate courses in educational psychology, counseling and human relations; and education and psychology at Temple University, the New School for Social Research, and SUNY Brockport. He had given presentations and workshops around the U.S. and in 14 foreign countries.

Kirschenbaum is the author of 25 volumes on a variety of subjects and has been a national and international leader in the fields of values and character education, humanistic education, and Carl Rogers and the person-centered approach to counseling and psychotherapy. His books include the definitive biography, The Life and Work of Carl Rogers (American Counseling Assn., 2009), Values Clarification in Counseling and Psychotherapy (Oxford Univ. Press, 2013), Wad-Ja-Get? The Grading Game in American Education, 50th Anniversary Edition (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2020), and his newest work: Coming of Age in the Baby Boom: A Memoir of Personal Development, Social Action, Education Reform and Adirondack Preservation (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2020).   

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Steve Uebbing came to the Warner School as the former superintendent of the Canandaigua City School District. He brings extensive school and district experience. He taught social studies, coached, and advised student clubs as a teacher in the Letchworth Central School for a decade, before becoming the high school principal and then superintendent of the Fort Plain Central School.

As superintendent in Canandaigua from 1988-2006, Uebbing's accomplishments include: the development and implementation of four five-year strategic "Plans for Excellence;" participation in planning and implementing nearly $80 million in capital improvements; incorporation of organization-wide participatory decision-making and planning; incorporation of principled collective bargaining; development and implementation of instructional improvement models; development of partnerships with area and national corporations; development of nationally cited character education initiative; and focused improvement resulting in high levels of student performance.

During Uebbing's tenure, Canandaigua Schools consistently received state and national recognition, including a national Blue Ribbon School of Excellence Award for Canandaigua Academy. He was the 1999 NYS Superintendent of the Year and, most recently, the 2009 recipient of the NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCSS) Distinguished Service award, the Council’s highest honor.

At Warner, Uebbing teaches courses in educational leadership with a focus on K-12 school leadership and educational decision-making. His primary research and writing interests are in leadership development. Uebbing also does extensive work supporting local school districts. Articles by Uebbing have appeared in Middle School Journal, The School Administrator, The Executive Educator, and The Journal of School Business Officials International. Uebbing is a frequent speaker at state and national conferences.

Tyll van Geel joined the University faculty in 1972 and later was named the Earl B. Taylor Professor and chair of Educational Leadership. He was named an Emeritus Professor in 2007. His research includes legal and applied ethical issues in education.

Van Geel is the co-author of A Teacher's Guide to Education Law (Routledge, 4th. ed., 2010), a book that provides a concise introduction to topics in education law that are most relevant to teachers. He is also co-author of Educational Law: An Introduction for Administrators and Policy Makers (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2nd ed., 2000), a popular textbook used in the preparation of education leaders and a very accessible resource for the modern educational administrator. He also authored Understanding Supreme Court Opinions (Longman, 6th ed., 2008) and numerous articles and chapters in publications for the academic and legal communities, as well as for professional educators. He is currently working on a book on democracy and education.

Van Geel is leading a project, funded by the Dewitt-Wallace Reader’s Digest Foundation, to strengthen decision-making as a critical component of educational leadership training. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow, Spencer Fellow, and Fulbright-Hays Fellow. He is also an attorney.