2002 Walter Barnard Hill Awards for Distinguished Achievement in University Public Service & Outreach

Frances Henley

During her fifteen years at the University of Georgia and eleven years as a public school educator, Dr. Frances Hensley has made significant contributions to outreach and service at UGA as well as throughout Georgia and the nation. As one of the original public service faculty members in the College of Education and the first to be promoted to the rank of Senior Public Service Associate, Hensley has brought service and outreach to the forefront of the college’s mission.

Hensley was recruited in 1995 to direct the Program for School Improvement (PSI), a university-based organization dedicated to policy, research, and outreach to improve the quality of public school education in Georgia and the nation. Under her leadership, PSI operates the League of Professional Schools, an initiative to help member schools improve student achievement by establishing common goals, taking collective actions, and studying the effects on students’ learning. The U.S. Department of Education named the league as one of thirty-three exemplary school reform models in the nation.

In 1996, Hensley, along with colleague Carl Glickman, secured a$1,000,000 grant, one of only twelve awards given by the Annenberg Rural Challenge, to facilitate renewal work in rural schools and to build school, community and university partnerships throughout rural Georgia.

Hensley is also director of the Georgia Systemic Teacher Education Program (GSTEP), a $6.5 million, five-year statewide collaborative partnership led by the College of Education and funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Initiated in January 2001, GSTEP is the University’s most ambitious effort to improve teacher education. Under Hensley’s leadership, teams of College of Arts and Sciences, College of Education, and P-12 faculty at UGA, Valdosta State University, and Albany State University are working to achieve a fundamental change in teacher education, one that supports students from the day they enter the university through their first years as classroom educators.

Hensley’s past accomplishments include the development and direction of the Georgia Facilitator Center from 1986 to 1995, one of the most successful and highly regarded facilitator centers in the country. She was selected to serve multiple terms on the National Advisory Council and is a member of the National School Reform Faculty, a group of nationally recognized experts who analyze student work. Most recently, Hensley was selected as one of ten national educators to facilitate a three-year school improvement effort funded by Lucent Technologies Foundation.

While at UGA, Hensley has brought in major grants from federal and state agencies and private and corporate foundations to support service and outreach in the state and nation. She is the author of one book, three book chapters, four peer-reviewed articles, curriculum materials, and more than one hundred technical reports. She has also made numerous presentations at national, regional, and state conferences and meetings.