International Activities

2019 - 2020 - 2021 Current Faculty Activities

Welcome to the COE Faculty International webpage. COVID-19 has eliminated all travel from the US to other nations. At the same time international work here in the College of Education continues in terms of publishing, virtual conferences, reviewing proposals, international grants and awards, and maintaining international relationships.

Yes, international scholarly activities certainly look differently in 2020. With all that is happening, it must be said that international perspectives are more important to college students than ever before. Our students need to know that education from early childhood to K12 to higher education and adult and community education all look differently around the world. Having an international perspective has always been critically important to being an educated citizen.

It helps that the College of Education has an international faculty across departments. Faculty come from around the world including Argentina, China, Colombia, Egypt, England, Guatemala, India, Iran, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

The list of international activities below is indeed impressive.

To learn more about international opportunities for students and faculty go to /international/

COE Faculty (Alphabetical Order)

Eileen Ariza

Eileen Ariza is our Fulbright Alumni Ambassador since Fall 2009. Among her work she offers predeparture orientations, reviews applications for the Fulbright Egyptian Student and Scholar Program and the US English Teaching Assistantship program.

  • Eileen serves as on the International Editorial Review Board for The New English Teacher Journal, at Assumption University in Bangkok, Thailand
  • Eileen is an affiliate faculty of the FAU: University International Committee, Peace, Justice and Human Rights (PJHR)
  • Her international publications appeared in The International Journal of Diversity in Education (with Bousalia and Lapp), and in The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, Second Edition. Edited by John I. Liontas (invited) (with E. Brown).
  • Her international presentations (virtual) have been with B. Brown, S. Lapp, M. Mountford, and A. Saleh).
  • Eileen was an invited speaker three times in March at the University of Malta, as featured speaker for the 70th session in the Malta Review of Educational Research (MRER) lecture series, Msida, Malta, and twice at the Induction Hub, in Naxxar, Malta.
  • Eileen and Susanne Lapp (FAU) gave a Radio Interview, “Talking Eds,” the radio series about the use of educational technologies in migrant education, live, in Malta. The interview will be aired on Campus FM radio 103.7) towards the end of the year, and will be available as a webcast on the campus FM website: https://campusfm.um.edu/mt/  Valetta, Malta.
  • Dr. Ariza is also on the FAU Student Fulbright ETA (English Teaching Assistant) Committee, where she works with students applying for Fulbright ETA posts, and interviews. Her FAU student candidates, who are are applying for Germany, Bulgaria, and Colombia, are very strong. She has at least 6 FAU students applying for Fulbrights to teach English abroad.

Eileen Ariza speaking to a crowd


Maysaa Barakat

Maysaa Barakat is proud to announce the publication of her edited book (with Dr. Mariela Rodriguez) Immigrant Faculty in the Academy: Narratives of identity, resilience and action by Routledge Immigrant Faculty in the Academy: Narratives of identity, resilience and action by Routledge. Many of the chapters were authored by FAU faculty including Dilys Schoorman, John Hardman, Sabrina Sembiente and others.

  • Maysaa, who is the Coordinator of the FAU-Egypt Project invited the following FAU faculty (alphabetical order) Ira Bogotch, Jennifer Freeland, John Hardman, Pat Maslin-Ostrowski, Daniel Reyes-Guerra, Dilys Schoorman, Sabrina Sembiante, Robert Shockley, and Michelle Vaughan to contribute to the following book about the Education First Foundation initiatives, edited by Salma El Bakry and Mohammad Hamza. The book will describe the FAU-BalancED partnership, visits and training in Cairo. Education First in Arabic
  • Like many other FAU faculty, Maysaa had a number of international presentations canceled due to COVID-19.
  • Maysaa Barakat and Daniel Reyes-Guerra have submitted a USAID Grant to continue their work in Egypt with BalancED, Education First Foundation, and the Ministry of Education.

Jenny Bloom

Jenny Bloom has been in early discussions with TecMilenio University in Mexico to translate Appreciative Advising materials and offerings into Spanish.


Ira Bogotch

Ira Bogotch co-edited a book (with K. Arar & J. Brooks) (Sept. 2019). Education, Immigration and Migration: Policy, Leadership and Praxis for a Changing World, Emerald Publishers, UK

  • Ira has published (with B. Faubert et al.) in the International Journal of Leadership Education and (with S. Bauer & E. Su-Keane) in the Turkish journal Research in Educational Administration & Leadership, Guest Editor, Scott Eacott.
  • Ira wrote the foreword, Their stories become our stories, in M. Barakat & M. Rodriguez (co- editors). Immigrant Faculty in the Academy: Narratives of Identity, Resilience, and Action. Routledge, and another foreword, Refugee Education: An Unexpected Gift to Welcoming Communities in K. Arar’s book School Leadership for Refugees’ Education: Social justice leadership for immigrant, migrants and refugees. Routledge
  • Education, Immigration and Migration: Policy, Leadership and Praxis for a Changing World Education and Social Justice: Aspirations and Realities On July 23, 2020, I participated in a Webinar on Education and Social Justice: Aspirations and Realities. His talk was titled, The Third and Fourth Dimensions of Leadership for Social Justice. Organizers, Profs. Dr. Abdelaziz Zohri School of Business & Management (ENCG) University Hassan First of Settat, Morocco, & Dr. Rania Sawalhi College of Education, Qatar University Co-founder Eduenterprise

Rina Bousalis presentation in Milan, Italy, (2020). Immigrant Students: Assets to the Social Studies Curriculum. Session presenter at the Twentieth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations, at the University of Milan, Italy June 10-12, 2020.


Victoria Brown

Victoria Brown: I am currently working with a private K12 school in Bogota, Colombia in training their teachers for online teaching. I am completing a study of the teachers’ self—efficacy in using distance learning tools to teach the students.


Ali Danesh

Ali Danesh is an associate editor for the International Journal of Audiology

International Journal of Audiology


Susan Dennett

Susan Dennett facilitated a research study class this summer where she and ten graduate students conducted a systematic literature review of Leadership Practices in Europe During a Crisis. The students worked in country cluster groups to review the practices of various European leaders during the Covid-19 crisis and other crises. Dr. Dennett and her students plan to submit their findings for a research conference presentation either late fall or early spring, and plan to submit an article for publication.

Susan will participate in, and submitted a conference proposal to Eucen Virtual University Lifelong Learning on her research titled: High Touch, High Feel in the Virtual Classroom: Lessons learned from a reflective practitioner. Eucen is an organization based in Europe, comprising of lifelong learning institutions and continuing education institutions from 34 countries.


Daniel Reyes-Guerra

Daniel Reyes-Guerra was among many faculty with international presentations canceled. Here are just three:

  • Barakat, M. & Reyes-Guerra, D. (2020, August 25-28). School Leadership and Inclusive Education: Leading diverse schools. The European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Glasgow https://www.conftool.com/ecer2020/  (Conference Canceled).
  • Reyes-Guerra D., & Barakat, M. (2020, August 25-28). The Centrality of Leadership in Social, Emotional, Instercultural/Transcultural Learning. The European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Glasgow https://www.conftool.com/ecer2020/  (Conference Canceled).
  • Barakat, M. & Reyes-Guerra, D. (2020, July 1-3). Comprehensive multicultural understandings: Synthesizing current competency frameworks. World Education Research Association (WERA), Santiago de Compostela, Spain https://wera-compostela.com/  (Conference postponed).
  • And, like Jenny Bloom, Daniel has been in talks with the Fundación Empresarial para el Desarrollo Educativo (FEPADE), an NGO that works with the Ministry of Education of El Salvador. We have been negotiating around AID and other granting opportunities to develop school leaders in terms of social and emotional learning leadership as well as trauma-informed leadership given the economic and gang-related trauma and impediments that public schools are facing.

Dilys Schoorman

Dilys Schoorman had a number of international publications (with K. Waldon) International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, (with H. Zainuddin, & R. Sena) Diaspora, Immigrant and Migrant Education, (with R. Shah and A. Leichtman) in Multicultural Education Review [Special Issue].

  • As noted above, Dilys has chapters in two edited books on with Maysaa Barakat, the other with our Egyptian partners.
  • Like many FAU faculty with family abroad, Dilys has been in Zoom contact with elderly relatives in Sri Lanka

Robert Shockley

Robert Shockley is Editorial board member of the Malaysia Journal titled - The Educational Leader (Pemimpin Pendidikan)

Conducting research on teacher satisfaction with colleagues at the University of Malaya. Shockley, R., Yan-Li, S., DeDonno, M., Na, J., & Sriyanto, J., (In Review). Weighted Balance Satisfaction Instrument: Assessing Teacher Job Satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology.

Maria Vasquez

Maria Vasquez will be on Sabbatical in Spring, 2021 conducting research in her birth country of Peru.


Dale Williams

Dale Williams will be a participant in the 2020 International Stuttering Awareness Day on-line conference in October

Dale Williams is a subject of the documentary “When I Stutter” to be shown virtually by the Australian Speak Easy Association. Dr. Williams will participate in a panel after the showing.