College of Education and Human Development

School of Education Faculty Samantha Viano Receives the University Council for Educational Administration Jack A. Culbertson Early Career Award

Samantha Viano, associate professor in the Education Leadership and Education Policy Programs within the School of Education at George Mason University, has received the Jack A. Culbertson Early Career Award from the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA). As described on the UCEA website, this award is presented annually to an outstanding junior professor of educational administration in recognition of their contributions in this field.

Among the many accomplishments for which Viano was honored with this award, is her publication of over 25 peer reviewed journal articles as an assistant professor in a range of journals germane to disciplines like sociology, criminology, and educational leadership. Viano was also cited for her innovative research on topics such as school security, online credit recovery, and teacher labor markets. She has been awarded over $3 million in grant funding in support of research for which she was Principal Investigator and more than $7 million in external funding for projects where she was investigator.

Samantha Viano (right) was presented with the Jack A. Culbertson Early Career Award from the University Council for Educational Administration.

Upon learning of her selection for the UCEA award, Viano stated, “I am very honored to be selected for this award because of the storied history of previous recipients and the recognition of the impact of my research on the educational leadership field. The list of previous Jack Culbertson recipients is full of the highest-impact scholars in educational leadership, a group that I am in awe of. Because I straddle topics in educational policy and leadership, some might accuse me of not really doing educational leadership research. This award shows that this kind of interdisciplinary research is celebrated at UCEA, the field’s most prominent educational leadership research organization.”

In expressing her gratitude for the UCEA award, Viano gave special thanks to one of her long-time mentors. “I am indebted to Diana Pounder, Professor Emeritus from University of Utah and former UCEA President, for serving as a compassionate mentor for many years,” Viano stated. “Diana became my mentor through UCEA’s retired professor mentorship program and has been so gracious with her guidance amidst her retirement from the profession. Diana nominated me for this award, and I am only receiving this recognition because she has taken me under her wing and guided me to who I am today as a scholar.”

The bestowment of this award to Viano is a testament to the high quality of her research meeting the standards of excellence set by UCEA for this honor. One of the UCEA benchmarks focuses on originality and generalizability of research which was exemplified by Viano’s study on online credit recovery, a practice which allows students who fail a course to retake it online to earn course credit to graduate. Her interest in this area was prompted by significant concerns that online credit recovery may be detrimental to student learning and may only serve to push students to graduate without learning course content. Viano’s research on this topic provided the most comprehensive estimates of credit recovery enrollment across a large, diverse state, an accomplishment recognized by her selection for the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. Her role in leading a follow-up study to better understand leadership in high schools around credit recovery resulted in Viano receiving the prestigious CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation.

In other areas, Viano’s research on how to measure racial identity more authentically and critically in quantitative research was recognized for its potential impact on education. Her work on this topic was presented as part of the Strategic Data Project at Harvard University, a staff retreat for NWEA (an educational assessment company), and the Critical Perspectives in Quantitative Methods Series. This Series was sponsored by several major educational research organizations including Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), American Educational Research Association (AERA – Division L), and the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE).

Viano was also celebrated for the contributions she made serving in a leadership capacity as part of the iLEAD initiative, a partnership between George Mason University and Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). The iLEAD partnership was established to address issues related to problems of practice and school improvement within the Fairfax County school district. Viano was lead author of a book chapter describing the accomplishments of this endeavor in the edited volume titled Improving America’s Schools Together How District-University Partnerships and Continuous Improvement Can Transform Education. Instructional expertise related to the partnership between George Mason and FCPS led to Viano being invited to be a member of the design team for the Transforming Education in an Interconnected World professional learning series from the University of Michigan.

In reflecting on her research and the importance of educational leadership, Viano stated, “Since I entered doctoral studies, I have been extremely interested in exploring the role of educational leaders as policy interpreters and implementers. Educational policy research has often under-utilized leaders as part of the policy implementation process, and my research seeks to explicitly bridge this divide.”

Viano shared her thoughts on where future research priorities should be directed. She emphasized, “We have a huge gap in research evidence on the most effective policies and practices in a variety of areas and in what school leaders implement at the ground level. For instance, I study school security, and school leaders invest heavily in security measures with no evidence they reduce violence or increase safety in schools. I look forward to exploring how to reconcile research evidence with practice and work with educational leaders to be more guided by evidence to increase their efficacy and reduce opportunity gaps in schools for marginalized students.”

Viano concluded her remarks as she observed, “I believe the focus of my research on the experience of minoritized students, and their teachers has been exceptionally fruitful. Many researchers are guided by questions they have an intellectual interest in, and I have some projects that I would place in this category as well, but having research guided by true wicked problems that widen opportunity gaps in schools, I argue, is why my research has received external funding and is published in top outlets. Being passionate about educational equity pays off professionally as well as provides personal reassurance that my research matters.”

Please join the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) community in congratulating Samantha Viano for the well-deserved honor of being named the 2024 recipient of the University Council for Educational Administration Jack A. Culbertson Early Career Award. Her selection for this award reflects the high caliber of the contributions she has made within the discipline of educational leadership.