Congratulations to these members of the NIU College of Education family!
Cynthia Taines, associate professor in the Department of Learning Innovation, Leadership and Technology, is celebrating an award for her book, “The Metropolitan Community: Partnering for Equality Across the Educational Divide.”
Her work is among the 2026 winners of the American Educational Studies Association (AESA) Critics’ Choice Book Awards.
The Critics’ Choice Award serves to recognize and increase awareness of recent scholarship deemed to be outstanding in its field and of potential interest to members of the Association.
A committee of AESA members annually selects a number of titles it regards as outstanding books that might be of interest to those in educational studies; these then are displayed prominently at the annual meeting.
Established in 1968 as an international learned society for students, teachers, research scholars and administrators who are interested in the foundations of education, AESA provides a cross-disciplinary forum wherein scholars gather to exchange and debate ideas generated from the above mentioned areas.
- Read a Q-and-A with Taines about her book.
- AESA Critics’ Choice Award: https://educationalstudies.org/critics-choice-book-awards.php
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Peitao Zhu, associate professor in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education, received the 2026 Outstanding Professional Teaching Award from the North Central Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (NCACES).
The Outstanding Professional Teaching Award honors excellence in teaching in a counseling, counselor education or counseling supervision program in the North Central region.
“It was also a lovely reminder of what eaching means to me, which is not just about imparting knowledge and skills, but cultivating capacities, virtues, and characters,” Zhu wrote on his LinkedIn page, calling himself “very grateful to all my current and past students who continue to inspire me to grow as an educator.”
Zhu was the 2025 recipient of the Deanna Hawes Outstanding Mentor Award, which honors an individual in NCACES who has been a significant mentor to graduate students, emerging professionals, educators and/or supervisors in the manner demonstrated by Deanna Hawes over the course of her career in counselor education.
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The Department of Special and Early Education’s new Expanded Core Curriculum for People with Visual Impairments Club, joined by some Vision Studies faculty, marched in the Sycamore Pumpkin Festival Parade.
Marchers also treated the crowd to “Dots” gumdrops as a nod to the dots of the braille alphabet.
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