Bonnie Mullinix and David McCurry have recently headed off for their next grand adventure… in Cork Ireland. Bonnie is currently Research Fellow at the Centre for Integration of Research Teaching and Learning at University College Cork (UCC) working on an Inclusive University Initiative. She is designing a three-pronged approach with a primary focus on pedagogical partnerships enhancing voice and access for historically underrepresented groups (socio-economically disadvantaged, minority communities, and those with disabilities). It also supports professional development of university teachers as change agents and is developing a related PhD to support inclusive, equity-minded change in higher education.
This is the next step in Bonnie’s decades-long career as an educator working with higher education institutions and educational development contexts in multiple international settings. She has served as faculty, educator and an education development facilitator with and consultant to a wide range of higher education institutions. She has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in various disciplines (education, counselling/social work & interdisciplinary programs) at six Universities over the last four decades.
Most recently she served as doctoral faculty in the Global and Comparative Education Program as part of Walden University’s PhD in Education. In addition to teaching and mentoring Walden doctoral students, she developed and taught international education and development. Recognized for her innovative approaches to teaching and learning, she has also helped to guide the establishment of two Centers for Teaching and Learning.
Her commitment to engaging and empowering education and contributing to positive social change is demonstrated throughout her 40 years as an educator. In 2008 Bonnie and Dave McCurry established Jacaranda Educational Development, LLC to facilitate sharing this commitment in educational settings in the US and abroad through consultations. The first activity undertaken by this consulting firm was Bonnie's work with CIE/UMass helping with the development of a M.Ed. for faculty responsible for secondary teacher education throughout Afghanistan (February-March 2008).
Bonnie has spent 9 years residing and working in various African countries and another 15 months consulting around the globe, which is where she considered herself to have made some of her greatest contributions to social change efforts in areas including adult literacy, community development, small enterprise development, training of trainers, NGO capacity building, health education, participatory evaluation and research, and empowerment efforts from village to national levels.
Over the years, Bonnie has designed and facilitated hundreds of faculty development workshops and sessions, given invited keynote/plenary addresses, and presented sessions on teaching innovation at professional conferences. She has worked with teams of faculty over multiple years to redesign courses and conduct Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research. As scholar and researcher, Bonnie has authored/co-authored over 60 articles, chapters, books, monographs, manuals and training guides since 1981, she has presented over 150 professional papers at national and international conferences. She has been directly involved in coordinating, facilitating and/or contributing to the design and development of over 20 international and domestic project proposals to federal and private funding sources.
Bonnie continually reflects on her time at CIE as a pivotal point in her life on all levels, intellectual, personal, professional... and she reflects fondly on those times and misses and thinks about all her CIE colleagues often. It remains an anchor point and reference for her with every new challenge she takes on, including this next one: contributing to the development of a sustainable and equity-guided Inclusive University initiative at UCC. [7-23]
Email: bbmullinix@gmail.com