Announcing the Dr. Jean R. Higgins Memorial Scholarship!
Women Leading Education
Apply by June 16th to be considered for this scholarship!
WLE is excited to share that through the generosity and kindness of Dr. Helen C. Sobehart and her husband Joe Sobehart, WLE has established the Dr. Jean R. Higgins Memorial Scholarship to provide support to a researcher/practitioner who would not otherwise be able to participate in the WLE meeting. The fund will help recipients with costs to attend the meeting to present research/scholarship that contributes toward women accessing and leading the highest forms of educational leadership across the globe.
Women Leading in Education Across Continents (WLE) was co-founded in 2007 by AASA, UCEA, and Duquesne University under the leadership of Dr. Helen Sobehart. Dr. Sobehart has been a leading star for WLE offering her advice and support beginning with hosting the first conference in Rome and chairing WLE up through the second conference. And now we have The Dr. Jean R. Higgins Memorial Scholarship, in honor of Helen and Joe's dear friend Dr. Jean R. Higgins who "passed away on Easter 2023."
As Helen relates, Jean and Jean's husband were superintendents who helped Helen start her administrative career. After retiring from the superintendency, Jean worked with Helen as a doctoral cohort director at Duquesne University. "Students loved her and she chaired several dissertations over the years. She had been an English teacher and Humanities director earlier in her career". After she retired from Duquesne, Jean was a subject in the dissertation of one of Helen's doctoral students who studied female superintendents' lives and careers. Helen remembered that, in addition to supporting her, Jean "formally and informally, mentored numerous practitioners and doctoral students through her career and her post retirement work at Duquesne".
If you wish to contribute to the Dr. Jean R. Higgins Memorial Scholarship Fund, please contact Charol Shakeshaft.