Alumna Mary Lynn Boscardin, Ph.D. ’84 EOL, is the most recent College of Education graduate to make her mark on and help lead the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), an organization known for advancing the success of children with exceptionalities through advocacy, standards, and professional development.
As president of CEC, she will serve as a voting member of the board, provide leadership to the organization’s planning and programs, oversee the work of CEC committees, and assist with the overall strategic direction.
Boscardin, a professor of education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was named president-elect of CEC and will begin her tenure on January 1. She joins Susan Fowler and deceased graduate Phil Jones (a longtime educator at Virginia Tech) as College of Education-affiliated scholars who have served as CEC presidents. Fowler, a former dean of the College, was recently named the recipient of the prestigious 2018 Council for Exceptional Children J.E. Wallace Wallin Special Education Lifetime Achievement Award.
Boscardin initially became involved with CEC while pursuing her doctorate at Illinois.
“Joining organizations modeled after the careers you wanted to pursue was a natural extension of formal educational programs and the beginning of building professional networks that would continue to support all aspects of your work,” she said.
The scholar lived in Urbana-Champaign for 10 years and met her husband, Marco, on the Illinois campus. The couple has two children, Tristan and Adriane.
Boscardin’s doctoral path is revealing in terms of the interdisciplinary approach to learning that the College practices today, as she merged her study as an Educational Administration & Leadership (EOL) doctoral student with the Department of Special Education. Her dissertation, chaired by Professor Emeritus Robert Henderson, was titled “A Cost Analysis of Impartial Due Process Hearings in Special Education.”
The scholars in Special Education welcomed participation from students in other disciplines and heartily welcomed Boscardin, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Illinois in speech and hearing science. Today, she keeps in touch with Special Education scholars Lisa Monda-Amaya and Jim Shriner, enlisting them in professional scholarly and service activities.
Academically, the strong encouragement and mentoring Boscardin received from her Illinois professors and peers were formative to her future leadership roles. The alumna said numerous Illinois professors influenced her as she pursued her degrees. They included EOL professors Tom Sergiovanni, Terry Geske, and Paul Thurston, as well as scholars Ernie House and Bob Stake in the Center for Instructional Research and Curriculum Evaluation (CIRCE). Boscardin said these professors taught her to think about the transformational roles leaders play in organizations and influenced her thinking about the inter-relationships within policy, law, finance, and evaluation.
Boscardin added that the now-deceased scholars Elaine Paden and Bill Zemlin from the speech and hearing science program also influenced her educational path and career.
“At Illinois, there was an ethos and culture that students would become leaders in their respective fields,” Boscardin said. “I feel fortunate to have received the fine education I did from world-class faculty.”
Read more about Boscardin and the news about her new position at the Council for Exceptional Children.
