Good morning and thank you. And this morning we're
here with Dr. Kay Persichitte and uh she's been so
kind as to join us for history makers interview.
We're at the A. C. T. International
Convention 2012 and Louisville Kentucky. And so thank U
. K. For your willingness to join us for
this interview. I am deeply honored. Thank you
for so first we'll start out with having us introduce
yourself and provide an overview of who you are and
where you are. Right, Well, it's a
, you mentioned I'm Kay Persichitte and I'm professor
and dean at the College of Education at the University
of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming right now. And
how long have you been there? This is my
10th year at U. W. What is the
primary focus of your world? Well, initially It
was distance learning systems and uh distance learning systems design
and technology integration across K 12 settings. But in
the last decade or so that's more more into teacher
education policy and assessment systems. You have a natural
interest in being a dean. Okay. All right
, thank you. How did you get interested in
this field generally? You know, it was quite
serendipitous. I have been high school classroom teacher for
many years and in the same community in northern colorado
and and was becoming increasingly disillusioned with some of the
local politics. We kept building schools and not hiring
teachers to put in them. And so I thought
, in my naivete, I thought that the grass
looked a lot greener on the higher end side.
And so I thought, well, because I love
teaching, I thought let's let's find something to do
in higher ed, that's got a teaching focus as
well. And so I literally picked up a mhm
graduate student handbook from a nearby university that I thought
I could commute to pretty easily and started looking at
program names. And there was a brand new program
being implemented that year in educational technology and it was
a PhD program that, by the description, I
thought, wow, that I'm not sure that I'm
qualified to do that, but it sure sounds interesting
and it sounded like it had this focus on teaching
and learning that really meant something to me. Still
, that was the part of the career that I've
had so far that I didn't want to walk away
from. And so I called over and arranged an
interview with the department head who was also the coordinator
for this brand new program. And started there and
just went down that path. So because I picked
up a grad handbook, grad student handbook and just
started looking at degree programs. Which institution was that
University of Northern Colorado? Okay, so I started
as a dark student there the 2nd year that they
had their program. How did you become most interested
in educational technology? Yes. Well, you know
, I think it it was this real desire to
stay connected to. Okay, I have, I've
always had a passion for working with people in ways
that I hope help them lift themselves up. And
uh, for me that I've found that through teaching
and so in higher, when I was looking at
these doctoral programs in higher ed at that point in
my life, I did not see myself as a
teacher educator or prepare of the next generation of teachers
. I thought I thought I needed something and wanted
something that was, that was more technical, that
was more opportunistic in the period of time that we
were entering, I've been teaching uh, in my
high school teaching, I've been teaching a couple of
courses and computer programming. I thought some four train
and some COBOL. Um and and I thought well
maybe you know, maybe this technology stuff, maybe
there's because this was a long time ago now,
so maybe there's more to this, maybe there's going
to be more to this than it just looks like
on the computer side of it. And as it
turns out it was just the best choice I could
have made. I mean I had I had no
idea how fortunate I was to have stumbled into that
degree program at that point in my life and in
our history. Okay, well a related question.
What was your dissertation research focus on? Uh it
was technology that uses and applications of technology by juniors
and seniors in high schools. So at that point
in time, uh as I was, as I
was moving toward completion of my degree and I have
learned so much more about educational technology and its applications
. Uh Then I got to thinking well maybe there
is a way or maybe I should stay in high
school teaching and just think about my own teaching differently
instead of moving to higher ed. And so I
was still toying, was back to toying with the
idea of going back to teaching at the high school
instead of moving into higher education, hadn't really made
that decision. But I but I did. I
was fascinated by this idea of how how my own
teaching might be changed by paying attention to what students
in high schools were doing with in terms of technology
at that point in time. So it was about
how juniors and seniors in high school at that point
in time, we're using technologies across different kinds of
courses and then what the implications of that were for
changes in uh teaching process and instructional strategies in the
classroom. Yeah, it's still very relevant still well
, except that the all the tools are different and
we have we have such a greater a broader choice
of strategies and we or at least I know so
much more uh than I used to know about the
different theoretical and research bases while those technologies have changed
significantly in the decades, since the what I know
about and those instructional strategies, the theoretical basis and
the research bases have really have really morphed a lot
. And so while it was, I think the
topic of my dissertation is still very relevant, I
would expect the outcomes of that same study to be
very, very different today than they were 20 some
years ago. Okay, if you could related to
that describe your career path after that, where did
you start out after your graduation and take us down
your career path? So um, it sounds,
you know, it's pretty, in my view,
pretty traditional. Uh I was a first generation college
students and completed a bachelor's degree and Mathematics and secondary
education and And graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1975
and immediately got a job. I was very blessed
and immediately got a job at the local high school
and I thought I had my dream job, thought
I would teach it seriously, thought they would carry
me out of there in a basket. Uh that
I was, that was going to be my job
forever because it was my dream job. So I
was a high school math teacher and along the way
I completed a master's degree at colorado State University in
curriculum and instruction and not a particularly strong program.
But at that point in time again, I was
going to be a high school math teacher for the
rest of my life and I didn't have any significant
aspirations for any advanced degree. Then I became disillusioned
with the local politics of mhm, the school district
and that's when I decided that maybe I should think
about higher end. So I completed my doctoral studies
and graduated from University of northern Colorado in 93.
I was fortunate enough to be asked back In one
year later in the fall of 94 and a one
year term position. They had an unexpected opening in
the faculty and they said, come back just for
one year. And I thought, well that would
be great experience as a, as a transition from
high school to higher ed. So I accepted that
position and then again, I was very blessed.
And they opened, they opened that position line into
a national search and invited me to apply. And
so I did and was fortunate enough to be moved
into the next year, a tenure track position.
So I stayed at the University of Northern colorado,
I was there nine years or five of those years
as department head And then in 2003 I was getting
itchy feet and and things, things were just too
complacent I felt like, so it was time for
a little bit of a change for me and I
found a position at the University of Wyoming and at
the time where we lived in colorado, it was
about 100 and 10 miles. So it was,
you know, it was a geography that I was
comfortable with and a culture that I was comfortable with
. And so I applied for this position is the
Director of Teacher Education, which I which I got
excited about because it kind of brought my career full
circle. So I had, You know, it
worked in public it for 19 years and then I
had nine years and a graduate only program at Northern
colorado. And now I was going to go do
something in pre service teacher preparation and teacher ed.
And so I I was fortunate got that job and
it was a full, it was my first full
administrative assignment and I did that for five years and
my dean at the time was retiring and I was
encouraged by several folks to consider applying for the dean's
job. So after much conversation with my husband,
I decided I'd give it a shot. And I
was fortunate enough again in a national search to be
selected as the dean of the college. And and
now in my fifth year there. So it's been
a totally unexpected and an unanticipated career path for me
. But I've got to say that I think all
of my all of my preparation in this field and
all of my connections and opportunities to build relationships in
in this really small community of instructional technology as part
of a U. C. T. Has has
given me that basis. I mean it has given
me the Foundation and the encouragement even if it was
not explicit to take these kinds of risks. And
I've found I've had a skill set with my knowledge
of instructional design, basic understanding of change theories and
change models. Those those things have been invaluable to
me as I've as I transitioned from one role to
another one. Very lucky fits with leadership, doesn't
it does a good leader. It really does.
Or at least it seems to have worked that way
for me. Okay that's good. Okay. And
then how would you describe your research interests and aspirations
when you first started your career? And then you
talked a little bit about that. But then if
you could talk about how they changed over time.
Yeah. I think I think they were just initially
pretty naive. I thought of research as pretty cut
and dried as you know. Uh huh. Pick
your question, decide on your methodology. Go do
it right up the results. Huh. Take that
to the next level or to the next study and
go forward. And so I think I was just
pretty naive of much of my early research was driven
by my dissertation and not just by the topic of
it but by the methodologies that that I used there
. And so early on I just think it was
pretty narrow and over time then and I think it
was also influenced by my grad assistant experiences. So
I had a couple of grad assistant experiences that were
grant based and around fact of some faculty development and
I think that had some influence on it too.
But over time my research and my scholarship has become
much more collaborative across not only colleagues in my particular
institution but across institutions across the, across disciplines within
our field and and much more evolving. So I
haven't been I haven't been concerned about feeling like I
was jumping across the line so much, I just
make that decision so as these as the tools and
the research base has evolved. I've not been uncomfortable
with making those changes. My scholarship is much more
context dependent and so it will hone in on a
particular issue but then then flow back out to the
national or international relevance of that particular issue or perspective
on a broader scale, but the context is influencing
that much more than it ever has before. Okay
, what were some of the major ideas or approaches
that stimulated your professional growth? one of them?
One area was um just the idea of how we
could, how we could better design and more effectively
use technologies in faculty development. So when I was
a classroom teacher, I can't tell you how many
faculty development opportunities I had, there were just total
waste of time. They just they didn't accomplish anything
and I would come out of them thinking well I
probably learned what I was supposed to learn but it
wasn't relevant, it didn't matter, it didn't have
any application for me. And and so uh huh
the field has helped me recognize not only what some
better strategies are for working with faculty at different levels
and in different content areas. And but it's also
really helped me know that one size doesn't fit all
and it's okay that one size doesn't fit all.
And it's okay to pick different, different technologies are
different delivery systems or or to just totally start from
scratch with something because you think it's not been done
before, it's been done so poorly that it that
you need to do it over. And so faculty
development has been kind of a continuing theme, even
though I don't have any if you look at the
vita there's nothing on there that looks like faculty development
. But it has been it's been important to me
and I think that's been influenced by uh huh how
I I still love to read about cognitive strategies and
how people learn. And I'm I'm fascinated by the
work now that that's more contemporary in brain sciences and
how that might be connected to how we learn.
And um, I think that's important for faculty development
if we're ever going to raise the level of the
effectiveness and the quality of teaching in our classrooms,
even in higher ed. So I think about that
now, also in the context of my own faculty
in the college of him. What were some of
the most important trends in the field so far during
your career? Well, for me that the evolution
and access to the World Wide Web was huge when
my first, my first year of doctoral studies,
we were this brand new program on campus. It
was the second year of this brand new program that
nobody knew anything about. And we were the guinea
pigs on the entire university campus to use this really
crappy version of email. That was, that was
a teletype kind of email. And you had to
know certain commands to be able to send a message
, and you had to know certain commands to be
able to, and, and that's where we started
. Um, and very quickly that evolved into building
our own websites and then moving that into creating our
own, um, web based systems for distance education
. There were no learning management systems or computer mediated
systems available at that point in time. So we
were, we were building those and and then using
them to teach our students how to use them with
their next group of students. So that whole world
wide Web email thing. Those were, those,
those were huge. And oh, you had such
a sense of accomplishment, you'd get somewhat what now
is just taken for granted access issue, You get
it figured out. And then the technology would change
or you know, 30 days later. Well here
comes the software applications for$100, you could buy
that. You had just spent hours and hours and
hours trying to figure out yourself, but to know
that, to know that you have that capacity and
you were pulling together all of this stuff that is
the field of instructional technology about not only designed but
attention to learn our needs and prerequisite knowledge and instructional
strategies and assessment systems and spiraling back to be able
to re create and update. It was just,
it was just a wonderful, wonderful time I think
In the 80s and 90s for our field. Thanks
. Okay. There's a big question. Who are
some of the people who have had the most impact
on your professional growth and how did they affect?
Uhh what I drive down four names and Number one
on the list. The other three are kind of
on close to the same levels I guess. But
number one is definitely at Catarella who's a former president
of Egg and he was the fellow that they hired
from, from Maine to come to colorado and build
this program in educational technology and he ended up being
my advisor and my academic advisor and the chair for
my dissertation research and just a tremendous mentor through,
through the nine years that, well Through the seven
years he, he left and went to new york
the last two years that I was in the car
, that first seven years that I was there.
He was just a tremendous mentor and all around influential
fella who sees the field from very much abroad and
leadership kind of perspective. So I will forever be
indebted to his mentorship. The others on my list
are are folks that have have either a combination of
professional influence and personal friendship and it varies a little
bit across what those levels are. But sharing small
Dino has clearly had a tremendous influence on, on
me personally, as well as being a great sounding
board as a female in this discipline who has a
very deep history and has the contributions that are just
over the top. And I will I will forever
treasure that friendship and her help over these years.
Word Cates Lehi. Um This is a fellow who
consistently reminds me that that the power that we have
in this field is only enriched to the extent that
we work with each other and that we share with
each other and that we problem solve together and that
as an association act offers us the hub to be
able to do that. And he's such, he's
just such a wonderful voice for that that have a
great respect for him. And then the last one
on the list is when I wrote down because I
don't have colleagues, but I don't have a great
personal relationship at all. But charlie Rangel luke's work
over the years has influenced me a lot. Yeah
. Yeah. As I've watched his research and scholarship
transition into change and school school transformations and change for
schools, uh I've stayed interested in that because it's
almost parallel how my career has shifted, but the
perspectives that he brings to it are just from my
lands so real. There's just so right on target
with things that we could that are possible. They're
not so theoretical that you think, well, that
that's just never going to happen. Uh, and
so I really have a great deal of respect for
what do you think has been the greatest accomplishment of
your career so far? Not that it's over,
but so far. So I read that question in
the preview notes that you gave me an and I'm
not sure I've had one, I'm going to beg
to differ, you know, I think um I
think if anything, maybe, maybe it's not any
one event or one activity, but it's it's just
this determination, this persistence to, to drive to
the next level and to try to set ones that
that can work. Lots of people can find success
in that goal and not to make it about me
, but to make it about bringing others with me
, whoever that might be. But I hope there's
one out there for me, Barbara, well,
I hope there is something really great. Can I
ask a question related to that that's not on here
And I promise it won't be too far. Listen
. Well, it will depend on your memory,
but I can help with that. I think that
I want to point out one of the reasons that
you are asked or you're considered to be a history
maker and a great contributor to our field is all
that you have done for a ct through the years
, as you said consistently and persistently. Um you're
too modest to bring this up yourself, but but
what you have done for us in terms of guidance
and setting standards for our field in creating assessment mechanisms
, writ large for our entire discipline and coordinating with
with our federal colleagues. Can you talk a little
bit about your involvement in um those kinds of activities
just to give you folks a historical perspective on your
work there, the very first act conference that I
came to. First of all, I came because
Ed Caraballo said, you will do this and you
will get a presentation together and hopefully it will get
accepted. And this was all very new to me
and it very surprising. Uh but I came out
of that conference assigned to or having volunteered for,
I I honestly don't remember exactly how that happened,
but to a committee that at that point in time
in this organization was called the Standards and Accreditation committee
. Then again, I didn't know anything about this
work at that point in time, but that uh
that that work helped me, Rodney Earl Tom Blevins
at Catarella were folks at that point in time who
had been doing this kind of work for at least
a decade at that point. And again, I
just found tremendous opportunity to dig my heels in,
learn about something new, turned out that it was
knowledge and experience. That that's helped me get the
kinds of leadership and management management jobs that I've that
I've fallen into. It's paid off because I have
a knowledge base that a lot of folks who haven't
had that experience. So this work with standards and
accreditation and connected to the National Council for Accreditation of
Teacher Education or in cake, which is about to
go away and become a whole new organization. Uh
huh. That work has been tremendous experience. But
it's also helped me stay very cognizant of the reality
that mm in this field of educational technology, if
we're not prepared to deal with and actively engaged in
change process, then we're probably we're probably going to
be in trouble and we can we can resist resist
, resist. But the systems the systems are going
to shift depending upon where those pressures are and how
strong they are. That shifting may happen faster or
or later. Uh huh. Right now I think
we're in a time of tremendous upheaval in that respect
related to standards and accreditation around teacher preparation. And
so all of that history that I've got now in
that work with this association has not only informed my
work as a team in a college of education,
but I think is informing how this organization now moves
forward with a set of standards for our field that
are not about teacher preparation anymore, but they're about
this field and how we, how we help our
programs and our graduates understand that they're they the whole
world now is about performance assessment against a set of
standards and the sooner we accept and acknowledge that and
go to work on making sure that we've got the
kinds of data that show that our graduates can meet
those performance expectations. I don't have any, I
don't have any question in my mind, but this
organization and our field, the six standards that we've
, we've recently adopted as an association are the right
ones and that the vast majority of our programs are
meeting every one of those. I don't have any
doubt of that. But what I doubt is that
most of our programs have not yet reached the point
where they've got the kinds of data to support the
performance data for their graduates to support that. And
, and whether or not it's important to the programs
because of federal or state or university policy or law
isn't really not. From my perspective, the important
part, the important part is whether or not our
graduates are going to have the kinds of data that
they need to make their case into their futures so
that they can build the same kinds of careers that
we've been fortunate enough to have in this field,
for your work in that area, in the establishment
of standards from the beginning has been pivotal for this
organization. So. Well, thank you. And
so the last question then, how do you want
to be remembered within the profession? Mhm. I
thought about this a lot. It's kind of like
, oh, I really am over the hill,
like, I don't know a bit here, but
I wrote this down so I'm gonna, I'm just
gonna read it. I want to be remembered as
a a person sincerely dedicated to the potential that each
of us has to make the world a better place
through teaching. So whether, you know, whether
it's through mentoring or whether it's through being a parent
or whether it's through your role as a faculty advisor
in with graduate students or is a teacher preparation person
, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I think I
think the world is a better place when when we
have quality teaching. Well, thank you so much
. Okay, thank you. Uh thank you.