Investiture CeremonyDoctor Honoris Causa

27th January 2012

U n i v e r s i t y o f A l i c a n t e

Linda Dar l ing-HammondMar i l yn Cochran-Smi th G lor ia Ladson-B i l l ings

U n i v e r s i t y o f A l i c a n t e

Investiture CeremonyDoctor Honoris Causa

27th January 2012

Linda Dar l ing-HammondMar i l yn Cochran-Smi th Sra . G lor ia Ladson-B i l l ings

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Laudatio delivered by ProfessorMª Ángeles Martínez Ruizat the investiture ceremony ofMarilyn Cochran-Smith,Linda Darling-Hammond andGloria Ladson-Billingsas doctors honoris causa of theUniversity of Alicante

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Throughout the history of the investiture of doctors honoris causa here at the University of Alicante, 70 scholars have been awarded this distinction, only 3 of which have been women. Today, the College of Education has the honor of presenting Dr. Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond and Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings. As protocol dictates that my presentation today must be a brief one, I will try to present a concise synthesis of the intellectual, practical, and ethical impact of the teaching and research done by these three scholars, and highlight their commitment to fighting for an education that equally benefits all of the diverse sectors of our societies.To begin, allow me to mention the institutional affiliation of each of these remarkable women. Professor Marilyn Cochran-Smith is the John E. Cawthorne Millennium Professor of Teacher Education for Urban Schools and is also the director of the doctoral program in Curriculum and Instruction at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education. She has also held a leadership role in the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.Professor Linda Darling-Hammond is a full professor of Education at Stanford University where she launched the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. She has served as the executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a panel whose report "What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future" was named one of the most influential treatises on education in 2006. Professor Darling Hammond has become one of the most influential educational figures in the United States and has been an active advisor to President Obama on educational issues.Professor Gloria Ladson-Billings holds the Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education and is a full professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She has been an influential member of the National Society for the Study of Education and in 2011 was invited to give the Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research in recognition of her significant contribution to fairness and equality in education.It is also important to mention that their intense professional activity has led to a variety of leadership roles and countless acknowledgements. Each has been elected president of the American Educational Research Association, the most influential international association in the field of educational research and the most prestigious recognition of achievement, and all have been named members of the U. S. National Academy of Education. Their accomplishments, research and writings have earned them a series of distinctions and recognitions from institutions such as the American Educational Research Association, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the National Association of Multicultural Education, and the National Staff Development Council, among others.

To conclude this brief review of their professional careers, I might just mention that the breadth and quality of their contributions to the field through textbooks, handbooks and journals has made them an essential part of today´s educational discourse. Their work regularly appears in journals such as Educational Researcher, Review of Research in Education, The American Educational Research Journal, The Journal of Teacher Education and Educational Leadership. There is no doubt that the participation of these three scholars on the editorial boards of many of the most influential journals in the field has guided the direction of research done by academics all over the world.Next, I would like to express the deep sense of identification that we here in Alicante have with the educational philosophy of these three professors. Drs. Cochran Smith, Darling Hammond and Ladson Billings are the strongest and most compelling voices advocating fairness in and the democratization of education. In their pedagogical theories we find domains of great strength and influence. One of these is their condemnation of the educational gaps that exist between different groups of students and their efforts to find a way to bridge those gaps. All three scholars recognize the impact that the legacy of inequality has had on scores of students in many societies. They are all aware of the ways that antiquated educational systems and market politics restrict the already limited educational opportunities of some of our youth. In their search for effective remedies, these three experts argue that it is absolutely essential to develop new models for the professionalization of teaching. And finally, all three agree that through teaching we build learning communities in which true relationships of diversity become possible.In her book Policy, Practice and Politics in Teacher Education, a compilation of the editorials she has written for the prestigious Journal of Teacher Education, Dr. Marilyn Cochran-Smith takes a stand against policies that are based on a reductionist view of teaching. A standards-based approach to teaching, or one based on merely tabulating results, frequently becomes subject to market forces, and the crucial commitment to democratization that education requires is forgotten. Likewise, in Walking the Road: Race, Diversity and Social Justice, published in Teacher Education in 2004, Dr. Chochran Smith shows that teaching is not a technical problem related to training and evaluation but rather primarily a problem of social policy and educational justice and ultimately of learning. In two publications written in collaboration with Susan L. Liytle, Inquiry as Stance (2009) and Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge (1993), she argues with undeniable rigor, that social knowledge should be based and built in the community.The metaphor “walking the road,” which echoes a well-known phrase associated with the Spanish poet and philosopher Antonio Machado, brings to mind the difficult road that educators must walk in our search for more socially committed teacher education programs. When teacher education becomes dominated by the beliefs of certain politically powerful groups and is based on formulas, we should question our role in the system. Dr. Cochran-Smith posits that whoever controls the questions posed in our curricula, also controls the answers. Hence, she encourages educational researchers to seek out the most complex and challenging questions possible by always exploring both critical dissonance and collaborative resonance as agents of action in the construction of a new professional teaching culture.In her book Studying Teacher Education, and specifically in the report of the Research Panel on Teacher Education of

the American Educational Research Association that she codirected with Kenneth Zeichner, Prof. Cochran-Smith uses multiple epistemologies to examine the relationship between teacher education and student performance. Given that teachers are a crucial factor in successful student performance, “the knowledge that teachers need to enhance their students’ life experiences and learning opportunities cannot be generated solely outside of the classroom and imported to schools.” We here at the College of Education at the University of Alicante wish to express our agreement with Dr.Cochran Smith’s inspirational message. Linda Darling-Hammond, co-director of the Committee on Teacher Education of the National Academy of Education, has been involved in two editions of Preparing the Highly Qualified Teachers Our Children Deserve. Professor Darling-Hammond posits that society does not sufficiently invest in the lives of children, especially as regards those most in need who are often treated unfairly by the educational system. In her book New Standards and Old Inequalities, she criticizes reform rhetoric based on standards and testing; in other words, those based on a philosophy of extreme accountability that do not address the overwhelming need to rectify student-teacher ratios in classrooms or provide solutions for inadequate teacher education, two of the most pressing issues that have been shown to be significant factors in education. As Dr. Darling-Hammond stated in Teaching as the Learning Profession (1999) and in The Right to Learn (1997), bureaucratic solutions to practical problems always fail because teaching is not a routine, students are not passive, and issues related to practice are not simple, predictable or standard. As a consequence, educational decisions cannot be formulated from above and simply handed down to teachers.Given that the ethnic fabric of our society is becoming increasingly diverse, it is absolutely necessary to create an educational identity, particularly as regards an awareness of diversity that allows teachers to cross boundaries and share the cultures that their students bring to school. Within this framework, Dr. Darling-Hammond, in her book Learning to Teach for Social Justice, portrays education as an act of cultural exchange and states that there are times that the curriculum established by the dominant society must be breached in order to transport students stuck on the mono-cultural side lines directly into the heart of interculturality.Gloria Ladson-Billings, through her strong sense of social and political commitment and her on-going denunciation of the deprivations and disadvantages suffered by minority students, has made it her mission to construct a critical theory on race that questions privilege and difference (Critical Race Theory, 2003). Dr. Ladson-Billings believes that all members of society are entitled to a good education and that society has an educational debt to its more disadvantaged members. Based on the premise that a child´s culture is a source of strength for learning, she advocates that when children enter school, they should not be deprived of the cognitive and emotional power of their own identities and that they should clearly perceive a sense of respect at school for the dignity of their own cultural heritage.Today we want to emphasize how strongly we identify with Gloria Ladson-Billings’ biography. Many of us were children during the 50’s and 60’s when attending school here in Spain exposed children to social repression and inequality. Like Gloria, many of us were teachers or professors, and like Gloria, we discovered that education was one of the most effective ways by which

we could change society. In many countries, and in too many schools and classrooms, the situation that Professor Ladson-Billings describes in Crossing over to Canaan (2001) or in Beyond the Big House (2005) still exists even now. Differences in gender, socio-economic level, ethnicity, culture, opportunity, and therefore power, create groups that are invisible and forgotten by society and institutions. This is why we encourage all teachers and professors to share the metaphor that Prof. Ladson-Billings developed in The Dreamkeepers (2009), based on the importance of maintaining and nurturing the dream of equal educational opportunity for all. Through an analysis of the life stories of committed docents, Prof. Ladson-Billings concludes that all examples of good practices are based on a strong sense of professional identity, on a firm belief in all students’ capacity to learn, on the importance of a critical attitude when teaching, and on the willingness to create learning communities that can capitalize on the culture of the students themselves.Synthesizing the pedagogical premises of these three scholars has been a complex undertaking that we may not have achieved as well as we would have liked, but we are convinced that the opportunity that we have to hear them speak, today, at this time, will certainly inspire us all to become better professionals. We wish to express our most heartfelt gratitude to them for their work throughout the years, for their quest for knowledge, for their expertise which has guided us in our own work, and most of all, for the passion they have shown which has inspired us and intensified our own struggle to achieve a fair and just education for all.

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Speech delivered by ProfessorMarilyn Cochran-Smithat the doctor honoris causa investiture ceremony of theUniversity of Alicante

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I am very proud to be here today for this special event, but I am also humbled by the great tribute of being awarded an honorary doctorate at this university. On behalf of myself and my husband, who is here with me today to celebrate this occasion, I want to thank the university and particularly the Dean and Faculty of the College of Education, for bestowing this honor and for so graciously hosting us here is this lovely place. As I understand it, this is the first time that either women or scholars in the field of education have received the honorary doctorate at the University of Alicante, which makes this occasion all the more momentous. I am proud to share this recognition with my colleagues and fellow honorees, Professor Linda Darling-Hammond and Professor Gloria Ladson-Billings.For the last 30 years, my scholarly work has been in the field of education, concentrating in particular on research, practice and policy related to teaching, teacher quality, and teacher preparation. Sometimes, because teachers work with children and adolescents, their work is thought of as lowly, even unimportant. For example, in the United States in the first part of the 20th century, teachers were thought of primarily as caregivers who had duties including keeping the school clean and starting the fire in the morning so the classroom would be warm when the children arrived. During that long-ago time, there was not much emphasis on how, why and what teachers were actually expected to teach to students.In the 21st century, however, we have extremely high expectations for teachers. Unlike their professional ancestors who were expected to keep the classroom warm, teachers today are expected to teach all students to world class standards. To do so, they must know subject matter thoroughly and how to teach it to all students. They must be fully familiar with the state or national curriculum and prepare students to perform well on national and international assessments. Teachers today must be adept at all sorts of technology and able to accommodate curriculum and instruction for students with disabilities. In addition, given changing migration patterns throughout the world that have led to increasingly diverse student populations in many countries, 21st century teachers need to be thoroughly knowledgeable about multiple cultures. They must know how to teach students who do not speak as a first language the language of school instruction without sacrificing attention to content. Teachers today must also communicate and collaborate with many others who are involved directly or indirectly in the education of young people.In the 21st century, in addition to all of our expectations about teaching to world-class standards, we also want teachers who like children and who can relate to today’s youth culture. Those of us who are parents and grandparents —or who plan to

be parents at some point in the future— know how important this is. We want our children not only to do well in school, but also to like going to school and to be engaged with learning as a life-time passion. In short, we now expect a great deal from teachers. This is the case because it is now assumed across the world that teachers are the key determinants of students’ achievement, school success, and the overall quality of a nation’s education system; teachers are now seen as the “lynch-pins” of educational, economic and social reform. This new national preoccupation with teacher quality is almost universal. Encouraged by international organizations such as the Office of Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank, teacher quality is at the top of national policy and research agendas for the first time, and these issues are increasingly being taken up by high-level leaders of governments, the business world, and major philanthropic organizations as well as by education and policy scholars.For many years now, I have had the privilege of working directly on issues related to teacher quality and teacher education in the United States and in a number of places around the world. Over the years, I have found this work challenging as well as gratifying, and I have, of course, learned a great deal. In closing, I want to highlight just a few of the important things I have learned.First, I believe it is a very positive development that the work of teachers has now been identified as critically important. All of us here today have been to school. I would guess that most of us, even as adults, can remember and name teachers who made a difference in our lives. Our personal experiences add to the research evidence that teachers matter in shaping the lives of students and in the well-being of our nations. Second, as we focus more and more on teacher quality as a key to national prosperity, however, we must not ignore the reality that teachers alone cannot fix a nation’s worst schools and improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged students. And, in fact, there is strong empirical evidence that no country does well in educating its poorest children. To fix this situation in most countries, it will take continued work on teacher quality as well as simultaneous investments in school leadership, resources and capacity building along with changes in access to housing, health, and jobs. We must work on all of these issues at the same time and in concert.Third, as teacher quality and teacher preparation continue to be major policy issues internationally, we must not let educational accountability be defined in terms only of teachers’ or students’ performance on national or international assessments of achievement. These assessments are important to be sure, but they represent only one aspect of how well teachers and students are doing. We also need to know: how students apply their knowledge and how they use it creatively to solve unique problems; how students learn to live in and contribute to, our increasingly diverse society; and whether or not they are well-rounded individuals with wide-ranging interests in the arts, humanities, and sciences.Finally, and along similar lines, as we work on improving teacher quality in order to supply the labor force and meet the economic demands of the knowledge society in the 21st century, we must not forget that this is not the only, and perhaps not even the most important, goal of education. We must also work on preparing future citizens to participate in democratic

societies. We must focus on developing in all students the knowledge they need to deliberate, disagree, and to challenge the current structures of schools and society that perpetuate inequities.

Speech delivered by ProfessorLinda Darling-Hammondat the doctor honoris causa investiture ceremony of theUniversity of Alicante

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I would like to thank the Rector, the Council of Government and the faculty of the University for this great honor. The University of Alicante is one of Spain’s pioneering modern universities. Its founding, just 33 years ago, reflects the great desire to learn and the great hunger for higher education for more and more people in society today. In today’s world, individual and societal success depend increasingly on our capacity to learn – to acquire the knowledge and problem-solving skills that will allow us to meet all of the challenges of a fast-changing technological economy and an ever more complicated world. As a result, societies rely, as never before, on our capacity to teach. So, on behalf of all the students here, I want to take a special moment to acknowledge the great work of teachers – both the many teachers in the University of Alicante who have helped you get to this wonderful launching point where you are today, and all the teachers in the years of primary and secondary school who helped you reach the university prepared to think, invent, and create. Teaching is the profession on which all other professions depend. Indeed, everybody who is anybody was enabled to become somebody by a teacher. It is critical that societies respect and support the work of teachers, both by honoring their effort and by preparing them to be as knowledgeable and skillful as their students need them to be. As the mission of education is changing, there is no doubt that teachers’ work is becoming more challenging. Once, it was enough for teachers simply to “cover the curriculum” or get students through the book. Now, it is expected that they will figure out how to enable an ever– more diverse student body to reach much higher standards of learning – a completely new and much more complicated job. In addition, knowledge is evolving at a breakneck pace. Two researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have estimated that in the four years between 1999 and 2003, there was more new knowledge created in the world than in the entire history of the world preceding. Technology knowledge is now doubling every year. The ten jobs that were the most in-demand in the United States in 2010 did not even exist in 2004. Thus, the new mission of schools is to prepare students to work at jobs that do not yet exist, creating ideas and solutions for products and problems have not yet been identified, using technologies that have not yet been invented.As the expectations for schools expand, and as teaching grows ever more complex, teacher education is becoming ever more important. The charge of preparing teachers is a sacred trust. To be sure that teachers have all of the knowledge and skills they need to be able to do an excellent job from the day they start in the classroom is something that we owe every person who takes on this important work.Strong preparation and a strong profession are needed because good teaching cannot be teacher-proofed. Teaching is not just

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opening up children’s brains and dumping little facts in, so that they can be spit out later on a test. It is enabling children to deeply understand the world around them, empowering them to use knowledge for their own purposes – and giving them the moral commitment and cognitive tools to solve the problems of pollution and global warming, war, pestilence, and famine: to create a clean and peaceful world in which men and women from all nations can live in harmony, prosperity, and justice. To empower their students, good teachers must have an expansive understanding of knowledge. They must also understand how their students think and what they know in order to tailor their instruction to different needs. And they need to be able to adapt their teaching strategies based on what and how students are learning.We now know more about how to help teachers learn these sophisticated abilities, and how to create teacher education programs that do this important work. Research shows that such programs tightly link theory and practice. They connect courses about learning, child development, curriculum, and assessment to what candidates are learning in their ongoing apprenticeship in classrooms. They ensure that candidates spend considerable time with excellent mentor teachers who model state-of-the-art teaching strategies. They create model schools or professional development schools which function like teaching hospitals in medicine to help teachers learn about best practice in practice. They create strong relationships and common knowledge among school- and university-based faculty so that, together, they can jointly engage in transforming teaching, schooling, and the knowledge base of the profession. Great teacher education programs use case methods to help teachers wrestle with classroom dilemmas. They prepare teachers to engage in their own action research about teaching and learning, as well as to use research to guide their classroom decisions. They provide opportunities for candidates to analyze and reflect on their own and others’ teaching and students’ learning in myriad ways. They help candidates learn to address the diverse cultures and language backgrounds of their students by creating what I would call a two-way pedagogy – one in which they listen to and observe their students in order to learn about and from them, so that they can design instruction that builds on the assets each student brings to the classroom. As part of a pedagogy for empowerment, Paolo Friere talked about the importance of preparing teachers for “reading” a class of students “as if it were a text to be decoded (and) comprehended,” especially when teachers come from economic and cultural backgrounds substantially different from those of their students. “It is necessary,” he said, “to observe well, to compare well, to infer well, to imagine well, to free one’s sensibilities well, and to believe in others without believing too much what one may think about others. Being able to truly “see” students requires that teachers learn to look and listen carefully and non-judgmentally in order to understand who students really are, what they think, and how they learn. Great programs of teacher preparation help candidates create a pedagogy of empowerment and a pedagogy of hope for all the young people they touch. And in this way, such education for teachers is a foundation of a vibrant democracy that expands opportunity and justice for all of its people. Pablo Casals captured the essence of this goal when he said: “We should say to each of [the children]: Do you know what

you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed, there has never been a child like you... and when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must cherish one another. You must work – we must all work – to make this world worthy of its children.”I am pleased to accept this honor from the University of Alicante on behalf of all the teachers and teacher educators whose work infuses greater equity, hope, and possibility in the world they make worthy of our children.

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Speech delivered by ProfessorGloria Ladson-Billingsat the doctor honoris causa investiture ceremony of theUniversity of Alicante

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I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Rector, to the Council of Government and to the Claustro of the University for this prestigious honor, this ceremony, and nomination of doctor honoris causa.I would also like to thank my husband, Charles Franklin Billings, my family, and colleagues from my institution, the University of Wisconsin-Madison for their support of my research and scholarship throughout the years.I am acutely aware that every scholar who stands before you to receive this award has at least one thing in common —education. Whether their field is in the sciences, arts, humanities or the professions such as business, law, or medicine they all rest on the base of our field— education. But education, particularly in western democracies seems to be lagging in stature and innovation. I believe this lag represents our field’s failure to keep pace with the full impact of globalization, both positive and negative, and the opportunities and challenges we face in the 21st century. I would like to briefly address what I believe globalization means for education.First, globalization means that schools at every level (from elementary through university) will encounter new and different groups of people. World affairs and global migration mean that people are moving and traveling to other countries at an unprecedented rate. I would also add that much of the movement we are experiencing is internal. People are moving from countryside to cities or from less developed regions to more technologically developed ones. War, famine, and civil unrest have always prompted people to migrate. But similarly, economic, technological, and civil opportunities prompt people to migrate. While the former events push people to leave, the latter draw or pull people to leave. These new groups of people entering our education systems force the field to become more flexible and adaptable to ensure their ability to be contributing members of their new societies. Second, globalization means that education must keep pace with new and exciting ways of knowing. Two specific examples of these new ways are technological and linguistic. Today, a very young child can click a few buttons on a cell phone and access some of the world’s greatest minds and libraries. Unfortunately, formal education often responds in an antagonistic manner toward technology. Our teachers are less technologically sophisticated than their students but, trapped in old ways of knowing we have been unwilling to learn in more reciprocal manners with students teaching teachers and students teaching other students.Linguistically, we have been slow to embrace multi-lingualism as the new normal. I speak specifically of the United States where few educated citizens are capable of fluency in any language other than English. My inability to address you in Spanish is a perfect example of this. However, the 21st century will demand that we become multi-lingual. Today in the US close to 15

percent of the population is of Spanish-speaking heritage yet we continue to place roadblocks to bilingualism. Real democracies looking toward prosperity can develop their civic capacity through developing the linguistic ability of all of their citizens.Finally, globalization means that education will have to develop new and expansive values. Our current global environment has new rules about things like intellectual property and copyright or blurring the borders between art and science, academic and popular, sacred and profane. We are trying to make sense of multiple epistemological traditions and innovations where we call upon a classical past to move us into modern and postmodern futures. What does it mean to lead a class filled with students from various religious, class, and ethnic backgrounds? Do we demand that they all adhere to the same worldview or do we begin to see some value in the more complex ways that we all already live our lives? I have focused my research on those teachers who have learned to see the potential in those students who others have already given up on. I have attempted to understand what it means to teach in ways that make all students successful. I have sought to learn about what it means to teach students who come from various backgrounds and language communities. These teachers have taught me that we must focus on developing student learning, cultural competence and social and political consciousness in all students.Our education systems are vital to our survival as people and a planet. They can help us make wise decisions about the stewardship of the environment, the allocation of precious resources, and the viability of various species, including our own. The possibilities are both frightening and exciting. Educators must be in the forefront of facing the future.

Thank You.

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Speech delivered by Chancellor Ignacio Jiménez Ranedato welcomeMarilyn Cochran-Smith, Linda Darling-Hammond and Gloria Ladson-Billingsto the Faculty Senate of theUniversity of Alicante, at the investiture ceremonyheld on January 27th, 2012.

The feast of Saint Thomas of Aquinas is the most important celebration of the academic year and I want to thank all of you for being here today.This solemn ceremony keeps alive a university tradition that dates back to 1880, the year in which Pope Leo XIII proclaimed Thomas of Aquinas the patron saint of universities. Since then, this day has become a day of celebration in all universities, one in which the most revered and rooted distinctions awarded by academic institutions are conferred.A few moments ago, we formally recognized the outstanding students of 2010-2011 in several different academic disciplines and at all degree levels including the doctorate. These students have all shown themselves to be worthy of this important distinction.But there is no doubt that the highlight of this solemn act today is the incorporation into our faculty of three illustrious scholars. As president of this university, I would like to express my great sense of satisfaction at conferring the degree of doctor honoris causa on Dr. Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond and Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings.

Before I speak to the importance of the contributions of our new honorary doctors, I would like to address this year’s graduates who are represented here today by those members of their class, who as I mentioned a moment ago, are being recognized for outstanding academic performance in their respective fields of study. I am well aware of the effort that all of you have made, of the years of intense study, professional qualification, and personal development that you have undergone.The coursework that you have completed in the classrooms of this university has enriched you on both a professional and personal level. In many cases, your achievements were thanks, in part, to the commitment and efforts of your families and the support of your loved ones who, like you, have made significant sacrifices. I am sure that today, as you enjoy the successful completion of your studies, they share in your sense of satisfaction.In you, our newest graduates, we see the aspirations of all university students to acquire scientific knowledge and a critical attitude, both components that are central to all fields of human knowledge.At this university, which is your university, in addition to imparting theoretical knowledge, we have prepared you in the use of information and communication technologies, taught you how to work as part of a team, and encouraged you to be enterprising and initiate projects of your own.Society-at-large has also invested in your academic development and so from this point on, you will be expected to repay society for the resources it has put at your disposal. I am sure that many of you are somewhat uncertain about what lies ahead, about what path to follow. You will have to work harder than ever, but if there is one thing of which we are certain,

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it is that you have the education and training that you need to undertake any challenge. The University of Alicante stands ready to provide you with any assistance that you may need to hone your professional skills in the future.I congratulate you for your success, and I encourage all of you, in the practice of your profession and in your personal lives, to be an example of the best the University of Alicante has to offer. You will be permanent ambassadors of this institution in society, and I am convinced that you are taking with you some wonderful memories of the years that you have spent as a student on this campus.

Generating knowledge is one of the main functions of universities. Without this function, universities would not be universities. In order to fulfill this obligation, our university must produce a new cohort of researchers each year who will become part of the process of creation and expansion of knowledge. Hence, I would like to congratulate the new doctors who have come up on stage today to be recognized for outstanding academic performance. You are all very deserving of this recognition.You know that during these years of arduous work, you have had the full support of this institution and of all members of the university community. You have been guided in your work by your dissertation directors, whom I would like to thank publicly for their dedication and for their efforts to ensure that each of you generated new knowledge in your field and opened new lines of research. I am certain that your directors are experiencing a great sense of satisfaction and pride today at seeing your work recognized with this coveted award.And now, it is your turn. It is your turn to assume new responsibilities, to make sure that your research is published as proof of its relevance and quality. And once that has been achieved, you must embark upon independent research and find new lines of investigation, because the generation of new knowledge must be a permanent goal for you, as it is for this University.We will now proceed with the investiture of our three new honorary doctors: Dr. Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond and Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings. I want to welcome them and tell them how honored we are to have them join our faculty.Universities reserve the conferral of this highest academic degree to those individuals who, throughout their professional life, have shown exceptional merit in the fields of science, culture, art or the enhancement of other aspects of society. As Dr. Martínez Ruíz stated in her speech, the achievements of these three scholars clearly merit this award, and so I wish to thank them for agreeing to join our faculty and allow us to benefit from their prestige.Before referring to our new doctors, and on behalf of all here present, I would like to thank the Department of Education for having proposed the incorporation of these scholars into our university, a proposal which was approved by the University Board of Regents and led to the ceremony we are here to celebrate today.I would also like to publicly recognize Dr. María Ángeles Martínez Ruiz, Dean of the College of Education who, as the sponsor of these new members of our university, has given a clear and convincing presentation of their outstanding contributions to their field and has demonstrated beyond any doubt that they are meritorious of the distinction bestowed upon them today.

It is customary during academic events of the type we are celebrating today on the feast of St. Thomas of Aquinas to commemorate scientists, artists or literary figures who have left a significant mark on the Sciences or the Arts. This year, on February 7, we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens.At first glance, it may seem that our three honorees have little in common with this British author, but it is easy to see the concern for social issues that underlies the pedagogical research carried out by these scholars, a concern that, as we all know, was always present in Dickens’ work.In Hard Times, possibly one of Dickens’ most realistic novels, the dire social problems that plagued Britain during the industrialization era are intensely portrayed. In this novel, Dickens makes use of the irony that characterizes his writing, to criticize utilitarian thought and an education based on positivist criteria rooted in the Victorian society of the day. The severe and “eminently practical” professor of Coketown, a “man of reality”, as Dickens describes him sarcastically, exemplifies teaching methods that are supposedly modern and far removed from the image of the “pensive professor” that defines our honorees today.Dr. Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Dr. Darling-Hammond and Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings are pedagogues and their work has focused on what has been called “reflexive pedagogy.” These scholars have addressed the socio-educational context of the United States, but their contributions are clearly applicable to other settings, among them the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), which, as we all know, is bringing profound changes to the way we conceptualize pedagogy.Marilyn Cochran-Smith has focused her research on the role of teachers and teaching, while Linda Darling-Hammond has worked fundamentally on the role of learners and learning. Both ascribe to the international movement for reflexive education. This movement addresses teaching and teacher education and rejects the idea that professors are simply technicians that do no more than transmit what others, from outside of the classroom, dictate. This movement, and our new honorary doctors as proponents of its philosophy, view teachers as professionals who have an active role to play in the elaboration of their professional goals and objectives as those responsible for teaching itself.Linda Darling-Hammond defends the position that learning is a fundamental right of all children, and that students must be stimulated if they are to become free, capable and self-reliant citizens. Learning should never be seen as synonymous with the mere storage of concepts, ideas or doctrines. Teaching and learning only make sense if they motivate, guide, mediate and stimulate students to take up the challenges of self- improvement and the acquisition of knowledge. From this perspective, education takes on a much more socially committed role, one which incorporates personal and cultural diversity and creates opportunities for cooperative learning.The contribution of Gloria Ladson-Billings is grounded in the movement in the United States to promote multicultural education. She has focused her efforts on addressing the educational needs of African-American children that the public schools have ignored. In the early stages of its development, multicultural education was strongly linked to the abolition of racial segregation and called for equal opportunity in education for members of all races and ethnic groups. Today multicultural education is

a reform movement that seeks to ensure equal opportunity for all children regardless of race, social class, or gender, and promotes education based on human diversity.Teachers who are committed to multicultural pedagogy strive to help students understand what racism is, how it works and what they can do to combat it. These teachers prepare their students to think and act within a democratic, multicultural society, and to take a political stance in response to statistics that show that African-American youth have fewer opportunities than their Anglo-American counterparts.One of Dr. Ladson-Billings contributions has been to point out that, in teaching, mathematics is not a neutral or objective subject immune to issues of multicultural education. For a long time, the fact that the teaching of math could favor certain groups of students over others was ignored. It was assumed that success in math was limited to a select group of students. Dr. Ladson-Billings saw that the amount of attention given to a student, the type of rewards, the availability of help making up work, the types of questions and who was called upon to participate in class were all elements that determined a successful outcome in class. Similar tendencies have been identified as regards performance according to gender in math classes.I would now like to take the opportunity to briefly address our honorees in English.Dr. Cochran-Smith, Dr. Darling-Hammond, Dr. Ladson-Billings … Today the University of Alicante is proud to confer upon you the degree of doctor honoris causa. We are pleased and honored that you have accepted our invitation, as this will allow us to benefit from your prestige and knowledge. I hope that from this moment on, our relationship will continue to grow and that our future collaboration will include projects, studies, conferences, meetings, colloquia and many other types of exchange. I also encourage the College of Education and all of the departments found therein to cooperate actively and positively with you and your institutions.

In conclusion, I would like to once again address all of the graduates who are present today as representatives of the entire student body. You are outstanding examples of the work that we do here at the University of Alicante. On behalf of the entire university community, I would like to reiterate our sense of pride and extend our warmest congratulations to you for a job well done. We urge you to continue to expand your knowledge and to recognize the value of life-long learning. So, on this very auspicious occasion, let me remind you that you will always be a part of the University of Alicante and thus, rather than bidding you farewell, I will simply say “hasta luego.”

Thank you very much.

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Eusebio Sempere 1984José Pérez Llorca 1984

Francisco Orts Llorca 1984Alberto Sols García 1984

Russell P. Sebold 1984Juan Gil-Albert 1985

José María Soler 1985Severo Ochoa 1986

Antonio Hernández Gil 1986Abel Agambeguian 1989Joaquín Rodrigo 1989

Germà Colón Domènech 1990José María Azcárate y Rístori 1991

Andreu Mas-Colell 1991Juan Antonio Samaranch Torelló 1992

Manuel Alvar López 1993Erwin Neher 1993

Bert Sakmann 1993Jean Maurice Clavilier 1994Antonio López Gómez 1995

Jesús García Fernández 1995Jacques Santer 1995

Enrique Llobregat Conesa 1995William Cooper 1995Eduardo Chillida 1996Mario Benedetti 1997

Gonzalo Anes y Álvarez de Castrillón 1998Enrique Fuentes Quintana 1998

Luis Ángel Rojo Duque 1998Juan Velarde Fuertes 1998Elías J. Corey 1999Ramon Margalef i López 1999Enric Valor i Vives 1999Bernard Vincent 2000Ignacio Bosque Muñoz 2000Humberto López Morales 2000Tyrrell Rockafellar 2000Manuel Valdivia Ureña 2000Gonzalo Halffter Sala 2000Eduardo S. Schwartz 2001Johan Galtung 2002Immanuel Wallerstein 2002Alonso Zamora Vicente 2002Miquel Batllori i Munné 2002Antoni M. Badia i Margarit 2002Robert Marrast 2002Ryoji Noyori 2003Manuel Albaladejo 2003William F. Sharpe 2003José María Bengoa Lecanda 2004M.ª Carmen Andrade Perdrix 2006Antonio García Berrio 2006 Pedro Martínez Montávez 2006Muhammad Yunus 2006Alan Heeger 2007Robert Alexy 2008

Eugenio Bulygin 2008

Elías Díaz García 2008

Ernesto Garzón Valdés 2008

Mario Vargas Llosa 2008

Boris Mordukhovich 2009

Jane Goodall 2009

André Clas 2010

Manuel Seco Reymundo 2010

Avelino Corma Canós 2011Ramon Pelegero Sanchis 2011Deborah Duen Ling Chung 2011Alan Loddon Yuille 2011José Luis García Delgado 2011Eusebio Leal Spengler 2011Marilyn Cochran-Smith 2012Linda Darling-Hammond 2012 Gloria Ladson-Billings 2012