2008-9 Sabbatical Grantees

Jennifer Peters
Capital IDEA

Jennifer Peters is Senior Institutional Relations Officer at Capital IDEA, a non-profit organization that lifts working families out of poverty by sponsoring educational services that lead to life-long financial independence. During her Community Sabbatical Research leave, Ms. Peters will research best practices in remedial education programs at the community college level and develop a paper or article on Capital IDEA’s College Prep Academy. The Academy is a 12-to-16 week course jointly developed by Austin Community College District (ACC ) and Capital IDEA that enables participants to pass the Texas Higher Education Assessment (THEA ) at high rates and to begin college- level coursework without having to take remedial courses. Ms. Peters plans to investigate whether this approach might be replicable, and might offer a model to other workforce development and education agencies and community colleges. Her faculty advisor will be Dr. Suanne D. Roueche of the Community College Leadership Program in the College of Education.

Catherine Lee Doar
Austin Habitat for Humanity

Austin Habitat for Humanity builds homes for families who live in substandard or overcrowded housing and are unable to obtain conventional home financing. As Design Coordinator, Catherine Lee Doar is responsible for the design, site planning, permitting, and materials procurement for each Austin Habitat home, including research and implementation of green building principles. During her Community Sabbatical research leave, Ms. Doar will work with Dr. Steven Moore and Dr. Elizabeth Danze from the School of Architecture to investigate the many possibilities for shading and wall assembly that have been developed over the past few years and determine which might be viable for Austin Habitat’s use. While excellent shading techniques can be found in nearly every new architecture magazine, they are almost exclusively created with expensive materials for high-end homes or commercial projects. Ms. Doar will investigate shading strategies that can be effected with durable materials at minimal cost and adapted for integration into Habitat Homes.

Rebecca Jones
Austin Children’s Museum

Rebecca Jones is the Director of Education at the Austin Children’s Museum. Over the past eighteen months, she has helped craft a new strategic direction for the museum: to serve an older target audience of children up to eleven years of age by focusing on creative problem-solving through the lens of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and creating innovative learning experiences that equip and inspire the next generation of creative problem solvers. Ms. Jones will use her Community Sabbatical to gain a deeper grounding in current understandings of cognition and inquiry-based learning. In conjunction with her faculty consultants—architect Dr. Louise Harpman and Dr. James Barufaldi, director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education—she intends to produce a blueprint for Austin Children’s Museum’s new direction that outlines: research-based interpretative strategies and best practices; potential gallery and programmatic themes; and workable space and exhibit design strategies.