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Assistant Professor of Education, Jacob Hardesty, Ph.D., named one of Rockford Register Star’s 75 people to know
04/03/2018 11:12 am
Assistant Professor of Education, Jacob Hardesty, Ph.D., has been named one of Rockford Register Star’s 75 people to know. Dr. Hardesty believes in the importance of foundational education courses, which give his students a solid understanding of the profession and promotes realistic thinking in teachers. His motto: Becoming a good teacher takes time. New tests don’t create better educators.
Read more about Dr. Hardesty in the Rockford Register’s special feature: Jacob Hardesty: Debate, foundation drew Rockford University assistant professor to education.
More about Dr. Hardesty:
M.A., Ethnomusicology, University of Limerick (Ireland)
B.M., Music Education, Ithaca College
Jacob Hardesty is an Assistant Professor of Education at Rockford University, where he teaches foundations courses in educational history and research methods. He completed his doctorate degree in 2013 at Indiana University in educational history. His work has appeared in the High Ability Studies, American Educational History Journal, and the History of Education Quarterly, and edited volumes. He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Historical Research in Music Education. Dr. Hardesty has a B.M. in Music Education from Ithaca College and an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Limerick, Ireland. Before coming to Rockford, he taught music for four years in public and Catholic schools, as well as education courses at DePauw University and Indiana University.
Dr. Hardesty’s primary research interest involves the historical connections and tensions between popular culture and public education. His dissertation, which he is currently revising as a book, explores educators’ perceptions and responses toward the impact jazz would have on young people in the 1920s. More than a musical genre, jazz operated as the clearest diving line between a Victorianist ethos of restraint and an emerging modernist alternative. Despite a general dislike among both groups, university faculty and administrators allowed students more agency to shape the culture of their institutions than their secondary school colleagues, who sought to minimize young people’s exposure to jazz.
RPS 205 Students commit to attend Education Pathway program
03/21/2018 10:18 am
The Rockford Public School District 205 School Board recognized 20 seniors at last night’s board meeting who have committed to participation in the Education Pathway program at Rockford University. The students come from high schools East, Jefferson, Auburn and Guilford.
First introduced in the spring of 2016, Education Pathway students could first began enrolling in the program in the fall of 2017. The Education Pathway program’s goal is to attract RPS 205 students to the teaching profession specifically to stay and work in RPS 205. The program begins in the middle school with seventh and eighth graders discussing a teaching career. It continues in high school with an education pathway, then transitions into a college degree program through Rockford University at a significantly reduced cost. If hired in RPS 205, program graduates can also receive a master’s degree in urban education cost-free from 
Rockford University.
Rockford University congratulates the incoming Education Pathway students and commends them on their decision to pursue a career in education.
Read more in Rockford Register Star’s article – Rockford Public Schools celebrates first full class of future teachers
RU Professor Published, Invited to Speak by American Educational Research Association
01/17/2018 1:30 pm
NEW YORK — The American Educational Research Association has selected a Rockford University professor’s paper to be presented at its annual meeting in New York this spring.
Assistant Professor of Education Dr. Jean Swindle’s paper—“Unequal Languagehoods: Pre-service Teacher Language Beliefs about Different Child Migrants”—was chosen from among more than 13,000 submissions for consideration. AERA has invited Prof. Swindle to present her research with other authors in a session titled “Diverse Perspectives on (Inter)national Education.”
Dr. Swindle’s most recent focus at Rockford University has been the further development of a new master’s in Urban Education (M.Ed.) online degree program, designed to help prepare educational professionals to work in urban school environments.
Founded in 1916, the American Educational Research Association draws more than 15,000 participants to its yearly conferences focused on the scientific study of education and learning. AERA’s Annual Meeting for 2018 is slated for April 13-17 in New York City.
