Susan Faircloth Receives Fulbright Scholar Award to New Zealand

by Hannah Chakan (July 2011)

University Park, Pa.—Susan C. Faircloth, associate professor of educational leadership and director of the American Indian Leadership Program, has been awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholar award to conduct research in New Zealand in the spring of 2012.

Faircloth will complete her Fulbright award with Victoria University of Wellington in Wellington, New Zealand. Her research will focus on special education programs and services for students of New Zealand’s indigenous Māori population.

Faircloth says she is specifically interested in the extent to which these students are academically, socially, and physically included within the regular education environment. She is currently working with a national school leadership project, He Kākano, in New Zealand. This project evaluates the impact of cultural proficiency training on school leaders.

Faircloth is an enrolled member of the Coharie Tribe. She received her Ph.D. in educational administration with a concentration in special education, as well as her M.Ed. in special education, from Penn State. She holds a B.S. in history. In addition to teaching and research, she serves as the director of a personnel preparation grant for aspiring school administrators, “Principals for Student Success,” which is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Indian Education. Her research focuses on the education of American Indian and Alaska Native students with disabilities.

The Fulbright Scholarship Program was founded in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the rest of the world.