Monk to Chair AERA Government Relations Committee
by Joe Savrock (March 2012)
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - David H. Monk, dean of Penn State’s College of Education, has been appointed by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) to serve as chair of the association’s Government Relations Committee.
Monk will begin his assignment as the committee’s chair-designate, beginning at the conclusion of the 2012 Annual Meeting of the AERA scheduled for next month in Vancouver, Canada. In 2013 Monk will become the committee’s chairperson and will serve in that capacity for two years, or until the conclusion of the 2015 AERA Annual Meeting.
The committee is primarily responsible for providing advice to the AERA’s council and executive board on policy issues related to the interface between governmental agencies and the funding and conduct of educational research. The AERA Government Relations Program has been active in Washington, D.C., for several decades and is the major vehicle through which AERA relates to congressional and Executive Branch policymakers and other educational and scientific societies.
The Government Relations Committee consists of six AERA members, as well as one representative of the Organization of Research Centers and one representative of the Organization of Institutional Affiliates.
According to Monk, “We are in a period with many emerging issues surrounding government oversight and financial support for research of all kinds, including educational research. I welcome the opportunity to build bridges between the educational research community and the government and look forward to making real progress.”
Prior to arriving at Penn State in 1999, Monk was a member of the Cornell University faculty. He is author of Educational Finance: An Economic Approach (1990); Raising Money for Education: A Guide to the Property Tax (1997) (with Brian O. Brent); and Cost Adjustments in Education (2001) (with William J. Fowler, Jr.), in addition to numerous articles in scholarly journals. He served as the inaugural co-editor (2005–10) and continues to serve as an editorial board member for Education Finance and Policy: The Journal of the Association for Education Finance and Policy.
Monk is an expert on educational finance and productivity and the organizational structuring of educational institutions. He is a past president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy, and he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
