CONTACT: Connie Harris, (850) 645-7146, (850) 694-0821, <charris@coe.fsu.edu>

By Connie Harris

November 2006

ASSOCIATION NAMES AWARD IN HONOR OF FSU EDUCATION PROFESSOR

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The Education Law Association's Dissertation of the Year Award has been renamed the Joseph C. Beckham Dissertation of the Year Award. Beckham is the Allan Tucker Professor of Educational Leadership in the College of Education at Florida State University.

"I am deeply grateful," Beckham said. "I have been the beneficiary of my contacts with this association for 30 years and have the greatest respect for the association's many practicing attorneys, administrators and professors specializing in education law and policy."

The recognition came at the business meeting of the association's 52nd annual conference, held Oct. 12-15 in the Bahamas. As Education Law Association President Lois Berlin made the announcement, she commended Beckham's leadership in helping to build a dissertation endowment fund and soliciting support for the endowment among association members. The endowment will allow dissertation award recipients to attend and participate in the conference at no expense.

Beckham said that an award of this nature validates the quality of the graduate program and the university's commitment to scholarly excellence. He added that "for the recipient, the recognition can help with career advancement and certainly affirms the effort expended in graduate study and research."

Berlin also emphasized that the board's decision to rename the award was influenced by Beckham's 30 years of leadership and service to the organization, his prominence as an academic in the field of education law, and the success of his graduate students as Education Law Association dissertation award recipients. Five of his former graduate students have received the award - more than any other professor in the history of the association. Those students are:

• K.B. Melear (2001), currently an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi
• Douglas Pearson (1998), currently vice president and dean of students at Mercer University in Georgia
• Patricia T. Bausch (1996), currently an attorney in Lexington, Ky.
• Jill J. White (1991), currently vice president for instruction of Okaloosa-Walton College's Niceville campus
• Terry Leas (1990), president of Riverland Community College in Minnesota

More information about the Education Law Association can be found online at <www.educationlaw.org>; more information about the FSU College of Education and the department of educational leadership and policy studies can be found at <www.coe.fsu.edu>.

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