Education & Human Development

Shibles Professorship

The Shibles Distinguished Visiting Professorship is named for Mark R. Shibles who served as dean of the College of Education from 1947-71. Recipients of the annual appointment are recognized experts in various fields of education and serve as consultants to the College in its statewide work to provide professional teaching and leadership training, applicable research, and direct services to Maine schools and communities.

The Shibles professors bring intellectual and professional stimulation to students and faculty, and provide a national perspective and expertise pertinent to improvement of the College's professional programs, as well as to its response to state educational issues and needs.

Shibles professors - all renown for their scholarship and research - have contributed to the College's efforts in areas such as aspirations, educational leadership, human intelligence and motivation, and the implication of school restructuring for teacher preparation and professional development.

Mark R. Shibles Jr., former dean of the School of Education and current professor of education at the University of Connecticut, was the first recipient of the professorship established in memory of his father in 1985. Others include: Herbert J. Walberg, research professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago; Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, professor of human development, education and psychology at the University of Chicago; Theodore R. Sizer, former dean of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, professor of education at Brown University, and founder and director of the Coalition of Essential Schools; Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future; James P. Comer, M.D., Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale University Child Study Center and Associate Dean at the Yale Medical School; and Herbert J. Weingartner, retired National Institutes of Health director of cognitive neuroscience programs and Johns Hopkins University Professor of Cognitive Science.