Thomas Sobol

Thomas Sobol first came to Teachers College more than 40 years ago, receiving his Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching in 1969. He served as a school administrator for 20 years in the Great Neck (Long Island) Public Schools and in Scarsdale before being named New York State's Commissioner of Education in 1987. In that role, he oversaw all levels of New York's public, higher and continuing education as well as cultural education through libraries, museums, archives and historical societies. Sobol also headed up the administration for all major licensed professions in the State (excepting law), as well as the vocational and educational services for persons with disabilities.

Sobol returned to TC in 1996 as the first Christian A. Johnson Professor of Outstanding Educational Practice. He has since served as a professor in both the Curriculum and Teaching and the Organization and Leadership departments. He redesigned and has since presided over TC's longstanding Superintendents Work Conference, annually bringing together school district leaders from around the country to learn, and share concerns and successes.

Gibran Majdalany, Deputy Director under Sobol of both the Inquiry doctoral program and the Superintendents  Work Conference, recently gave tribute at a party in Sobol's honor. "Retirement and Tom Sobol - no match," Majdalany said. "I can't imagine him sitting in his backyard watching the grass grow. He's like the soldier, rather the general, who will always be on the battlefield and in the trenches fighting the good fight."

Calling Sobol a visionary and thanking him for his "leadership, honesty, commitment, nobility, humility and compassion," Majdalany said, "You are a true teacher and a rare breed."

D. Kim Reid

During TC's Disability Awareness Week activities, Professor D. Kim Reid was honored with a reception marking her retirement from TC. Reid has served as Professor of Education and Coordinator of the Programs in Learning Dis/Abilities and Disability Studies in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching since 1999. She co-founded the Seminar on Disability Studies-'"an ongoing series of lectures that brings together scholars from the tri-state area. Reid, whose work is recognized both nationally and internationally, was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Lithuania, a distinguished lecturer for the Council of Learning Disabilities and a Visiting Researcher at Princeton. Her focus has been on deconstructing long-held negative beliefs about disability and reconstructing these ideas in a variety of ways that range from the serious to the humorous.

Published Tuesday, Jun. 27, 2006