Invited Keynote Speakers

Confratute 2008



George Betts Dr. George T. Betts is a Professor of Special Education in the area of gifted and talented education at the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado and former teacher/facilitator at Arvada West High School, Arvada, Colorado. He is the director of Center for the Education and Study of the Gifted, Talented, and Creative and the director of the Summer Enrichment Program at the University. Dr. Betts is an internationally acclaimed speaker and consultant, helping schools, districts, states, and national organizations implement and refine programs for the gifted and talented. He has worked extensively in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. He received the 1990-91 Distinguished Service Award from NAGC and was honored with the Life-Time Achievement Award by the Colorado Association for Gifted and Talented in 1996. In 2003, he was selected as one of the 50 Most Influential Leaders in the Field of Gifted Education by the National Association for Gifted Children. In 2006, he was awarded the M. Lucile Harrison Award for Professional Excellence, the highest award presented to a Professor at the University of Northern Colorado.
Susan Baum Dr. Susan Baum is a professor at the College of New Rochelle. She spends much of her time writing, consulting, and teaching around the globe. Her books include Creativity 1,2,3; Chi Square, Pie Charts and Me; To Be Gifted and Learning Disabled: Strategies for Helping Bright Students with LD, ADHD, and More; Multiple Intelligences in the Elementary Classroom: A Teachers Toolkit; and Staying In Stepp: Nurturing the Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted Adolesecents. Her consulting takes her to exotic and not so exotic places around the world. From Zurich to Zimbabwe to Zagreb; from Colombia to Haiti to Nicaragua; from Prague to Helsinki to Estonia; from Malaysia to Shanghai to Eritrea; and from Oagadougou to Tegucigalpa to Cochabamba and Puerto Vallarta, you can find her spreading the word about twice exceptional students, talent development, differentiation, and stress management for adolescents.
Donna Ford Dr. Donna Y. Ford is Professor of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. She teaches in the Department of Special Education. Donna has been a Professor of Special Education at the Ohio State University, an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Virginia, and a researcher with the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. She also taught at the University of Kentucky. Donna earned her Doctor of Philosophy degree in Urban Education (educational psychology) (1991), Masters of Education degree (counseling) (1988), and Bachelor of Arts degree in communications and Spanish (1984) from Cleveland State University. Donna conducts research primarily in gifted education and multicultural/urban education. Specifically, her work focuses on: (1) recruiting and retaining culturally diverse students in gifted education; (2) multicultural and urban education; (3) minority student achievement and underachievement; and (4) family involvement.

Donna is the author of Reversing Underachievement Among Gifted Black Students (1996) and co-author of Multicultural Gifted Education (1999), In Search of the Dream: Designing Schools and Classrooms That Work for High Potential Students From Diverse Cultural Backgrounds (2004), and Teaching Culturally Diverse Gifted Students (2005). Donna has written over 100 articles and chapters; she has made over 200 presentations at professional conferences and school districts. Donna is a board member of the National Association for Gifted Children, and has served on numerous editorial boards, such as Gifted Child Quarterly, Exceptional Children, and Roeper Review. Professional development includes membership in professional organizations including the National Association for Gifted Children, Council for Exceptional Children, American Educational Research Association, Association for the Education of Gifted Underachieving Students, Association of Teacher Educators, American Counseling Association, and others.
Marcia Gentry Dr. Marcia Gentry is a UConn Ph.D. graduate who has been coming to Confratute since 1988. She currently directs the Gifted Education Resource Institute at Purdue University, where she is Associate Professor in Educational Foundations and where she coordinates the graduate program in gifted education. Her work on Total School Cluster Grouping is widely recognized, and she recently completed a book on the topic with her colleague Rebecca Mann, also a UConn alumna. Marcia frequently contributes to the literature in her field and works with educators across the country on issues concerning gifted education and talent development. She serves NAGC on the program committee and AERA as the Secretary for the gifted SIG. She enjoys time with her husband and daughter, her Azteca mare, gardening, and collecting Navajo weavings.
E. Jean Gubbins Dr. E. Jean Gubbins is associate director of The National Research Center on the Gifted and (NRC/GT) and associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT. Dr. Gubbins is involved in research studies focusing on professional development and using gifted education pedagogy with all students, with a special emphasis on students with high abilities. Her research interests stem from prior involvement as a classroom teacher, teacher of gifted and talented students, evaluator, educational consultant, and professional developer. She teaches graduate level courses in gifted education and talent development related to identification, programming, curriculum development, and program evaluation.
Sandra Kaplan Dr. Sandra Kaplan is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Division of Learning and Instruction, University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Kaplan teaches the methods courses for the Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential. She is a consultant for several state departments and school districts nationwide on the topics of education for gifted students, differentiated curriculum in depth and complexity, and thematic interdisciplinarity.
Rachel McAnallen Rachel McAnallen, known simply as "Ms. Math" to children across the country, has devoted her life to sharing the joy and beauty of mathematics with learners of all ages. A professional educator for half a century, she travels the globe teaching her subject at every grade level. In addition to her experience in the classroom, Rachel has served as a department chair, a school board member, and a high school administrator—she claims the latter position is responsible for the majority of her gray hairs. Rachel has a passion for teaching, golf, and mathematical modular origami, though not always in that order. A life-long learner now pursuing her PhD at the University of Connecticut, Rachel approaches the world around her with a boundless curiosity and a playful sense of humor that is reflected in her teaching style. Her teaching philosophy exemplifies that mathematics is a language to be spoken, an art to be seen, a music to be heard and a dance to be performed.
Barry Oreck Dr. Barry Oreck, a dancer, writer, and educator in the arts and gifted education, received his doctorate in Educational Psychology from the University of Connecticut and is an adjunct professor in Education at Long Island University Brooklyn, the University of Connecticut, and the International Learning Styles Center of SUNY Buffalo. From 1983 to 2001 he directed ArtsConnection’s in-school programs in over 150 New York City public schools and now consults with school districts across the country as well as arts education organizations including Shakespeare Theatre Company, Young Playwrights Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, and Young Audiences. Oreck was assessment chairman for the 1997 National Assessment of Educational Progress in dance and has developed assessment processes for the Ohio Department of Education, the Mississippi School of the Arts, and other schools and school districts in the U.S. He currently is the Director of New York City Professional Development in the Schoolwide Enrichment Model of Dr. Joseph Renzulli. His research on talent identification in the arts, self-regulation, and the professional development of classroom teachers and teaching artists has been published by the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented and as part of the Champions of Change research compendium, Arts Education Policy Review, Journal of Teacher Education, Teaching Artist Journal, Gifted Child Quarterly, and the International Journal of Education in the Arts, among other publications. He is a contributing author to the International Handbook of Research in Arts Education. As a dancer he has performed with Gerrie Glover, Elizabeth Waters, MoMoMo, Bob Beswick, Stephen Koplowitz, among others. His own work as a dancer and choreographer in the duo Nicoll + Oreck has been produced in NYC at Danspace Project, Spoke the Hub Dancing, and the DanceNow Festival, and by Wildroot Arts in Brattleboro, VT, and at the Boulder Fringe Festival, among others.
Sally Reis Dr. Sally M. Reis is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut where she also serves as Principal Investigator of The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. She was a teacher for 15 years, 11 of which were spent working with gifted students on the elementary, junior high, and high school levels. She has authored more than 100 articles, eight books, 30 book chapters, and numerous monographs and technical reports. She has traveled extensively across the country conducting workshops and providing professional development for school districts on enrichment programs and gender equity programs. She is co-author of The Schoolwide Enrichment Model, The Secondary Triad Model, Dilemmas in Talent Development in the Middle Years, and a new book published in 1998 about talent development in females entitled Work Left Undone: Choices and Compromises of Talented Females. Sally serves on the editorial board of the Gifted Child Quarterly, and is a past-president of The National Association for Gifted Children.
Joseph Renzulli Dr. Joseph S. Renzulli is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut, where he also serves as director of The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. His research has focused on the identification and development of creativity and giftedness in young people, and on organizational models and curricular strategies for total school improvement. A focus of his work has been on applying the strategies of gifted education to the improvement of learning for all students.

Dr. Renzulli is Fellow in the American Psychological Association and he was a consultant to the White House Task Force on Education of the Gifted and Talented. He was recently designated a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at the University of Connecticut. Although Dr. Renzulli has obtained more than $20 million in research grants, he lists as his proudest professional accomplishments the UConn Mentor Connection program for gifted young students and the summer Confratute program at UConn, which began in 1978, and has served thousands of teachers and administrators from around the world.
Del Siegle Dr. Del Siegle is an associate professor of educational psychology in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. Prior to earning his PhD, Del worked as a gifted and talented coordinator in Montana. He is currently President of the National Association for Gifted Children and sits on the board of the Association for the Gifted. He authors a technology column for Gifted Child Today and is coeditor of the Journal of Advanced Academics. Del's research interests include web-based instruction, motivation of gifted students, and teacher bias in the identification of students for gifted programs.
Joyce VanTassel-Baska Dr. Joyce VanTassel-Baska is the Jody and Layton Smith Professor of Education and Executive Director of the Center for Gifted Education at The College of William and Mary in Virginia where she has developed a graduate program and a research and development center in gifted education. Formerly, she initiated and directed the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University. She has also served as the state director of gifted programs for Illinois, as a regional director of a gifted service center in the Chicago area, as coordinator of gifted programs for the Toledo, Ohio public school system, and as a teacher of gifted high school students in English and Latin. She has worked as a consultant on gifted education in all 50 states and internationally. She is past president of The Association for the Gifted of the Council for Exceptional Children, and the Northwestern University Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa. She is currently Past-President of the National Association for Gifted Children. During her tenure as NAGC president she oversaw the adoption of the new NCATE standards for gifted education, and organized and chaired the National Leadership Conference on Promising and Low-Income Learners.

Dr. VanTassel-Baska has published widely including 22 books and over 500 refereed journal articles, book chapters, and scholarly reports. Recent books include: Alternative Assessment with Gifted Students, Serving Gifted Learners Beyond the Traditional Classroom (2007). Dr. VanTassel-Baska has received numerous awards for her work, including the National Association for Gifted Children's Early Leader Award in 1986, the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award in 1993, the Phi Beta Kappa faculty award in 1995, the National Association for Gifted Children Distinguished Scholar Award in 1997, and the President's Award, World Council on Gifted and Talented Education in 2005.
Gilman Whiting Dr. Gilman W. Whiting received his Ph.D. from Purdue University's College of Education. His areas of concentration were Curriculum and Instruction, Vocational and Technical Education as well as Work and the Family. Currently he is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the African American and Diaspora Program at Vanderbilt University. He teaches courses on the African American diaspora, Black masculinity, race, sport, and American culture and qualitative research methods. He also teaches for the Peabody College of Education in the Human Organizational Development Department. His research includes work with young Black fathers, low income minorities, welfare reform and fatherhood initiatives, education reform, special needs populations (gifted, at-risk learners, young Black men and scholar identities), and health in the black community. He was recently featured on Channel 2 (WKRN.com) for his work with nearly 100 Metro 5th-10th grade male students on what he calls a "Scholar Identity." He is currently working on a book project entitled "Fathering from the Margins: Young African American Fathers, Fatherhood Initiatives and The Welfare State." He has articles in The Willamette Journal: Special on African American Studies, Gifted Education Press Quarterly, Journal for Secondary Gifted Education, Gifted Child Today, and Midwestern Educational Research Journal. He is editor of the forthcoming volume, On Manliness: Black American Masculinities. He consults with school districts nationally on various issue related to psychosocial and motivation among young students.