downing text 2012_Layout 1 - Downing College - University of ...

DOWNING COLLEGE ASSOCIATIONAdded note April 2012At the time of writing, John and his two brothers had a combined age of 262 yearsand were all still doing well. However, I visited Dornoch in early April and wasmuch saddened to hear from John that his two brothers, Vernon and James, hadpassed away within a few days of each other at the end of March/early April 2012.A happier note was to hear that John and Betty’s son James, an author, hasbecome the No1 Bestseller in Scotland and beyond and holds the Saltire Awardfor Literature.Mike Ross (1963)C URRY IN CAMBRIDGE × 4…THANKS TO A D OWNING F ELLOWSHIPIn the spring of 2007 my husband, Richard Guy Wilson, was the ThomasJefferson Visiting Fellow from the University of Virginia at Downing, and I wasgranted leave from the Curry School of Education at the University andaccompanied him to Cambridge. For more than thirty years, the ThomasJefferson Fellowship has provided time for faculty from many disciplines at UVAto pursue scholarship and research opportunities with colleagues in the UK, tosay nothing of allowing time to reflect and work on projects that accumulateduring the busy academic term. For my husband, an architectural historian,this time at Downing was most productive as he completed several manuscripts.Richard also shared his thoughts about the relationship of Thomas Jefferson’swork to that of Downing’s architect, William Wilkins, during a lecture to theDowning Fellows: a lively topic of interest on both sides of the Atlantic.In my case, the time in Cambridge was productive in a different, but equallyrewarding way. I am a Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in the CurrySchool of Education, and my main responsibilities are with the elementaryteacher education program. My interest in the British primary schools led meto contact a Curry graduate who was on the Faculty of Education at Cambridge,and she in turn introduced me to other Education faculty who made it possiblefor me to visit some of the primary schools in Cambridge. Additionally, I wasincredibly privileged to meet John and Anne Murrell, neighbors on LensfieldRoad. Professor Murrell has been responsible for a long and successfulcollaboration of internships between Peabody College at Vanderbilt Universityin the States and Cambridge, and soon had me thinking about how it mightbe possible for Curry School students to spend time teaching in British schools,expanding their horizons and teaching skills.Suffice it to say, this idea took over a year to conceptualize and develop, workingwith the challenges of accommodating the requirements of the US curriculumwith the reality of the UK schools. The American preservice 1 students spend seven1. The equivalent of student teachers in the UK. – Ed46