Today’s News from the University of Kansas
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KU Alumni Association honors John Hadl with the 2020 Fred Ellsworth Medallion
LAWRENCE — John Hadl, one of the Jayhawk football legends enshrined in Memorial Stadium’s Ring of Honor, is the 2020 recipient of the Fred Ellsworth Medallion for his lifelong service to the University of Kansas. Hadl, who earned his bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1968, retired in 2018 after 30 years as an associate athletics director for the Williams Education Fund.
New book ‘Invested Stayers’ tells stories of teachers who overcame early career challenges
LAWRENCE — A new book co-edited by a University of Kansas scholar, “Invested Stayers: How Teachers Thrive in Challenging Times,” pairs teachers and teacher educators from across the country to discuss some of the most pressing challenges that educators face today, how teachers have innovated to overcome them and how those training the next generation of teachers can better prepare them.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Jennifer Sanner, KU Alumni Association, 785-864-9782, [email protected]; @KUAlumni
KU Alumni Association honors John Hadl with the 2020 Fred Ellsworth Medallion
LAWRENCE — John Hadl, one of the Jayhawk football legends enshrined in Memorial Stadium’s Ring of Honor, is the 2020 recipient of the Fred Ellsworth Medallion for his lifelong service to the University of Kansas.
Hadl, who earned his bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1968, retired in 2018 after 30 years as an associate athletics director for the Williams Education Fund. Throughout his career, he forged friendships with countless alumni and raised vital funds to support student-athletes and athletic facilities.
“John’s ability to make every Jayhawk he met feel welcome was such a gift,” said men’s basketball coach Bill Self. “You would always leave John feeling better about KU and inspired to give back.”
The Fred Ellsworth Medallion is the Alumni Association’s highest honor for extraordinary service to KU. The association created the award in 1975 in tribute to longtime executive director and secretary Fred Ellsworth, a 1922 KU graduate who led the organization for 39 years before his retirement in 1963.
Self credits Hadl for his important role in building and improving athletic facilities on the Lawrence campus, including the Anschutz Pavilion, Wagnon Student-Athlete Center, Ward Family Scholarship Suites, Booth Family Hall of Athletics, Anderson Family Strength Center and the Anderson Family Football Complex.
Hadl first gained fame for his key role in building the early 1960s success of Kansas football as the Jayhawks’ star halfback and quarterback. The Lawrence native, known for his performances on the Lawrence High School football and baseball teams, chose to attend his hometown university, and as a sophomore in 1959, he led the NCAA in punting (45.6 yards per punt). He kicked a 94-yard punt that still stands as KU’s longest in history, and he set the school record for longest interception return (98 yards, which endured until Aqib Talib surpassed it in 2007).
As a junior and senior playing both halfback and quarterback, Hadl led the KU offense and propelled the Jayhawks to a top-20 national ranking and a two-season record of 14-5-2. Kansas also won its first bowl victory in the 1961 Bluebonnet Bowl, defeating Rice University, 33-7. He was the first Kansas player to earn All-America distinction twice, in 1960 and ’61, and he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994.
Hadl continued his success in the National Football League throughout his 16-year career as a quarterback, especially during his years with the San Diego Chargers. He played in six Pro Bowls and was named the NFL Man of the Year in 1971. He is a member of the Chargers Hall of Fame.
After retiring from the NFL in 1977, he returned to KU as an assistant coach and offensive coordinator. With Coach Don Fambrough, he led the Jayhawks to the Hall of Fame Bowl. After coaching in the NFL and the United States Football League in the mid-1980s, he returned to the Hill in 1988 to begin his career with the Williams Fund. He is a member of the Kansas Athletics Hall of Fame and the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame. Along with Gale Sayers, a 1975 and ’77 graduate, and Ray Evans, Class of 1947, Hadl is one of only three Jayhawks whose football number (21) is retired.
For the Alumni Association, Hadl and his wife, Diana, chaired the 2009 Rock Chalk Ball in Kansas City. They have attended several balls, the Jayhawk Roundup in Wichita and numerous other alumni gatherings through the years. He is a Life Member of the association.
The KU family traditionally celebrates the Ellsworth Medallion recipients each year at a dinner and program in conjunction with the fall meeting of the association’s national board of directors. This year, because the pandemic prohibits campus gatherings, the association and Kansas Athletics are honoring Hadl through an online campaign, including a tribute video, which can be viewed at kualumni.org/hadl.
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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
New book ‘Invested Stayers’ tells stories of teachers who overcame early career challenges
LAWRENCE — Teaching is a challenging profession. Low pay, long hours, reliance on testing, and state and federal mandates make the job difficult, to say nothing of a pandemic that has upended education. Those stressors cause countless teachers to leave the field every year. Yet many others meet the challenges and stay. A new book co-edited by a University of Kansas scholar tells the stories of those who have persisted as stayers in the classroom.
“Invested Stayers: How Teachers Thrive in Challenging Times,” published this month, pairs teachers and teacher educators from across the country to discuss some of the most pressing challenges that educators face today, how teachers have innovated to overcome them and how those training the next generation of teachers can prepare them.
“There has been a lot of focus on early career teachers and why they leave in recent years,” said Heidi Hallman, professor of curriculum & teaching at KU and one of the co-editors. “We knew, though, as teacher educators and former public school teachers ourselves, that there were people who decide to stay in the field despite the challenges. We wondered, ‘Are there stories behind why they stay?’”
“Invested Stayers” (Rowman & Littlefield) was co-edited by Hallman, Terri Rodriguez of the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University, and Kristen Pastore-Capuana of State University of New York-Buffalo. The book is organized into three sections: social, political and disciplinary landscapes.
Chapters in the social landscapes section include examinations of advocating for refugee and immigrant students, thriving in special education and culturally responsive teaching. Political challenges such as top-down accountability initiatives, standards-based education and critical collaboration among teacher communities appear in the book’s second section.
New visions for science education, improving college readiness in mathematics, using digital spaces to foster learning communities and using hope as a catalyst to thrive are among the topics addressed in the disciplinary landscapes section.
Each chapter acknowledges a challenge teachers commonly face and shares the story of an educator who has met the challenge. Featuring both educators who saw teaching as a calling and others who joined the profession later in their careers, they explore why they have stayed in the field and how teacher educators can help prepare future teachers to be ready for such challenges. The book’s authors acknowledge that no challenge is universal and that school context varies widely not only by state and region, but also within a single district.
Teacher educators are sometimes critiqued for assuming teachers can meet and overcome school-level challenges and thrive in any setting. The authors acknowledge that is not the case and share stories of both teachers who have thrived in what are considered underprivileged schools and others who did not fit in advantaged schools. Stories are shared from teachers who have been with one school for many years as well as others whose careers were reinvigorated upon changing schools.
“We’re trying to show future teachers that knowledge of these inequities can be the reason they stay. Stayers often develop agency that enables them to continue, learn and hone their craft,” Hallman said. “There are teachers doing that this very minute.”
The book also includes stories of teachers who thrived outside of their comfort zone. One chapter tells the story of a teacher who helped organize and carry out a strike for better pay, collective bargaining rights and other improvements. Political activity was the best professional development she ever experienced, the educator shared, as it helped define the vision for what professional teaching can be and fostered respect for colleagues who had similar feelings but were not comfortable striking.
Educators often face challenges in implementing curriculum. The disciplinary landscapes section presents the stories of teachers who faced the common dilemma of reaching struggling students, revamping how they teach their subject matter and learning new ways to individualize their work to meet students’ needs. Throughout, stayers show their ability to perceive individual students’ needs, openness to updating their approaches and seeing challenges as an opportunity to improve their own teaching. The section also includes chapters by KU faculty members Joe O’Brien, Susan Gay and Carrie LaVoy.
While the book was written before the COVID-19 pandemic introduced a whole new world of challenges to teachers and schools, the editors and authors say it appeals to veteran teachers, new teachers and those training the next generation of American teachers. The pandemic is forcing changes that no one chose, but teachers still early in their careers can hopefully see how others met the common obstacles and chose to become “invested stayers” themselves.
“I think there’s a myth that there is just one reason why people stay, but I also think new teachers can benefit from seeing the multiple reasons why veteran teachers persevere and how they innovated to meet challenges,” Hallman said. “Hearing about how it has happened in multiple contexts is valuable as well.”
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KU News Service
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Lawrence KS 66045
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Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]
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