Four doctoral students have been awarded Steinhardt’s Mitchell Leaska Dissertation Research Award. Geffen Godder, Monique M. Jethwani- Keyser, and C. Michael Nina of the Department of Applied Psychology and Gabriel Reich of the Department of Teaching and Learning are recipients of a $5,000 stipend. The award was endowed by the late Mitchell Leaska, who taught English education at Steinhardt for 46 years. It supports the research of doctoral candidates in education and applied psychology. Leaska, a writer and critic whose scholarship shaped the field of Virginia Woolf studies, authored ten books on Woolf, including the biography Granite and Rainbow (FSG 1998).

Selcuk Sirin, an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Psychology, received the Young Scholar Award, a $150,000 grant from the Foundation for Child Development to study parent-teacher perceptions of immigrant Muslim students’ academic competencies in the first three years of schooling. The Foundation for Child Development is a national, private philanthropy dedicated to the principle that all families should have the social and material resources to raise their children to be healthy, educated and productive members of their communities.

At 77, Walter Oerlemans is one of Steinhardt’s oldest graduates. This May, he will earn his MA degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) education — at the same time his daughter, Catharina, will be earning her MSW from NYU’s School of Social Work. Oerlemans, who has worked in NYU’s Office of Financial Aid since 1992, will retire in July. He plans to do volunteer teaching.