I had the pleasure of meeting with David Chard during his last month as Dean of Education at SMU, just before he left for Boston to begin his tenure as President of Wheelock College. David is an innovative educator and thinker and has been a friend of talkSTEM since we got started last year. I greatly appreciated his willingness to participate as a panel participant following our film screening of “Most Likely To Succeed” in 2015! Watch this short video (less than 3 mins) to hear his perspectives on the complicated nature of the teaching profession and the challenges of the first three years in the profession.
About President Chard:
David J. Chard, the inaugural Dean of SMU’s Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development. Now president of Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts, is known nationally as an education reformer. He became appointed by President Barack Obama, to the Board of Directors of the National Board for Education in 2012 and elected chair. The board oversees and directs the work of the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
President Chard holds a Ph. D. in special education from the University of Oregon. He is a member of the International Academy for Research on Learning Disabilities, president of the Division for Learning Disabilities in the Council for Exceptional Children and a co-founding member of Deans for Impact. He also serves on numerous local and regional boards. Since 1993, his research has been awarded more than $11 million in federal, state or private grants. SMU recognized Chard with the “M” Award, the University’s highest commendation in 2015.
“David Chard has been the ideal dean to build the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development as a national resource with a particular impact on our community,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “He has led programs and attracted research funding that will strengthen the quality of education through evidence-based practices. He has made the Simmons school a strategic partner with the community in improving education opportunities for under-served young people. He is a national leader in education. We wish him the best of success at Wheelock.”
Prior to SMU, he served as Associate Dean for curriculum and academic programs and assistant/associate professor of special education at the University of Oregon.
Dr. Koshi Dhingra has dedicated her career to STEM education and is passionate about having every child live up to their potential. Seeing a lack of girls and other underrepresented youth in STEM programs, she founded talkSTEM in 2015 to address the imbalance. She has a doctorate in science education from Teachers College, Columbia University, has years of experience teaching in graduate and undergraduate programs, and has held leadership roles in universities. She advises and collaborates with a broad range of educational institutions globally. Dr. Dhingra began her career teaching science in middle and high school in New York. She lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, three children, and two dogs.
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