Faculty accolades, July 2020

Assistant Professor Carrie Sampson is the recipient of the 2020 William J. Davis Award from the University Council for Educational Administration. Presented annually since 1979, the Davis Award is usually given to the author or authors of the most outstanding article published in Educational Administration Quarterly in the preceding year.

Sampson received the award for her article, “(Im)Possibilities of Latinx School Board Members’ Educational Leadership Toward Equity” in the April 2019 edition of EAQ. She becomes the second MLFTC faculty member in consecutive years to win the award. Associate Professor Melanie Bertrand won the Davis last year for her paper, “Youth Participatory Action Research and Possibilities for Students of Color in Educational Leadership.”

Sampson’s paper explores how Latinx school board members address educational equity, in general and as related to English learners, by examining the leadership of six Latinx school board members representing three districts in the Mountain West. Sampson wrote that her findings “... signify that Latinx school board members are often among the most committed on school boards to improving educational equity for ELs and other underserved populations. Moreover, their leadership provides unique and significant representation for these communities that lead to interesting possibilities. Yet Latinx school board members experience several internal and external challenges that make it nearly impossible for them to sufficiently expand educational opportunities for the aforementioned populations.”

Last spring, Sampson won the 2020 Early Career Award from Division A of the American Educational Research Association in recognition of her research projects on school board policymaking, district structures, community organizing and school desegregation. In addition to EAQ, her work has been published in journals such as the American Journal of Education, Urban Education, Educational Policy and Teachers College Record.