In rankings released by U.S. News & World Report on Tuesday, April 8, the UNC Greensboro School of Education ranks in a tie for 81st nationally among Graduate Schools of Education for 2025-2026. Within the state of North Carolina, the UNCG SOE holds the fourth-highest ranking in the same category.
The Smiley Award, which supports global educational opportunities for current School of Education (SOE) undergraduate and graduate students, has been presented to undergraduate student Leila Jane Lovell (Department of Teacher Education and Higher Education) and graduate students Haeju Lee (Department of Information, Library, and Research Sciences) and Parishi Gandhi (Department of Counseling and Educational Development). These students will represent the SOE as Global Education Ambassadors through international or local engagement.
The Emergent Voices in Evaluation (EViE) Conference is a graduate student-led conference that provides an opportunity for graduate student evaluators to present original work, engage in dialogue about evaluation theory and practice and network with fellow emerging evaluators and academics in the region.
An associate professor in the Department of Information, Library, and Research Sciences (ILRS), Dr. Kyung Yong Kim joined the faculty at UNC Greensboro in 2017. After graduating from college in his native South Korea, Kim earned both his master’s degree in statistics and a Ph.D. in Educational Measurement and Statistics from the University of Iowa.
Dr. Noah Lenstra, an associate professor in the Department of Information, Library, and Research Sciences (ILRS), came to UNC Greensboro in 2016 where he teaches classes in library and information science. The department boasts the nation’s eighth-ranked school library media specialty area and the 23rd-ranked Master’s of Library and Information Science program.
Stacy Huff, who earned a Master’s in Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research in 2022 and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Educational Research Methodology, was the big winner at UNC Greensboro’s recent Three-Minute Thesis competition. Huff claimed both first place and the People’s Choice award in the annual event.
As a first-year librarian, Jennifer Miller turned to social media, specifically TikTok, for tips from others in the field. In less than a year, the UNC Greensboro Master of Library and Information Science student has gone from someone who had never used TikTok to being the most followed school librarian on the platform with over 417,000 followers and 11.3 million likes.
Research that is having a direct impact on North Carolinians led to UNC Greensboro students Sarah Leck and Stacy Huff representing the university, and the School of Education’s Department of Information, Library, and Research Sciences, at the annual Graduate Education Day hosted by the North Carolina Council of Graduate Schools.
Dawn Shirk ’23, a library media specialist with Guilford County Schools, says that a school library is the heart of the institution. “When I was a teacher, I collaborated with the librarian a lot. Even if we weren’t in the middle of a specific project, I could come in and say, ‘Here’s what I’m planning. Can you help me find some good books or websites? How would you do this?’”
Out of nearly 1,400 nominees, Gabriel Graña, a 2015 graduate of the University of North Carolina Greensboro’s Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program, was selected as one of 10 recipients of the I Love My Librarian Award from the American Library Association
