The Program would like to congratulate 2013 doctoral graduate, Ben Johnson, on his promotion to Associate Professor at Utah Valley University! We wish you continued success as you move forward in your new position!

Jackie Blount, PhD

ESPHE’s very own Jackie Blound has earned Ohio State’s Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, one of only ten recipients in 2019. Blount was primarily nominated by doctoral student Spencer J. Smith, who was “blown away by Professor Blount’s commitment to her students.

Jackie will be honored at Ohio State’s Fall football game in front of over 100,000 Buckeye fans.

Read more about her award here.

This month, the Department would like to profile the accomplishments of Sam Rocha, who earned his PhD after submitting his dissertation, “Education, Study, and the Person,” which was awarded the Loadman Dissertation Award from the Department of Educational Studies at The Ohio State University. Dr. Rocha is now a full-time faculty member at the University of British Columbia.

Read more about Dr. Rocha, his accomplishments, and his thoughts about the program here.

Bruce Kimball, recipient of the Peter
Dobkin Hall History of Philanthropy Prize

Bruce Kimball recently received the Peter Dobkin Hall History of Philanthropy Prize from the Association for Research on Non-profit Organizations and Voluntary Action, for his book, On the Battlefield of Merit: Harvard Law School, the First Century (Harvard University Press 2015), co-authored with Daniel R. Coquillette.

The award citation stated that the book provides “a persuasive, balanced, incisive account of the ways Harvard Law School reflected and reinforced the racial, gender, and religious prejudices that long narrowed access to competition for the prizes of American life. It documents the inadequacy of the school’s intellectual quality at several points, and the limits of the quality of the education it offered….On the Battlefield of Merit also pays consistent, close, and thoughtful attention to the question of money, assessing the relative significance of donors…, of students and their parents, or endowments, and of arrangements for paying teachers–or not paying them.”

This month, the department would like to profile Sam Akulli, PhD, who earned his doctorate in 2018. His dissertation, entitled, “Education and the Individual: An Exploration of Enver Hoxha’s Philosophy of Education,” explores the characteristics and components of the idea of the individual in the process of education.

Please see a more detailed list of his accomplishments and thoughts about the program here.