Two Metropolitan State University of Denver Early Education scholars have been chosen by the Bell Policy Center as 2024-25 Bell Economic Mobility Fellows.
Professor Rosemarie Allen, Ph.D., and Associate Professor Dorothy Shapland Rodriguez, Ph.D., are longtime faculty members in the Department of Special Education, Early Childhood and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education, a part of the School of Education.
As fellows, they will examine the effectiveness of federal stimulus money in encouraging people to remain and advance in the early-childhood-education profession and whether the funding improved teaching.
They will also look at whether people of color were able to access the funding and whether they stayed in the profession. The yearlong fellowship project will conclude in November.
Allen has devoted more than four decades to expanding access to high-quality early-childhood programs that are developmentally appropriate and culturally sustaining.
Rosemarie Allen has been teaching at MSU Denver since 2004. Photo by Alyson McClaran
At MSU Denver, her classes focus on ensuring that new teachers are aware of how issues of equity, power and justice impact what happens in the classroom. She also serves as the president and CEO of the Institute for Racial Equity and Excellence, which works to create inclusive environments worldwide and to ensure equity and social justice at all levels of society.
Shapland Rodriguez helped create the MSU Denver Master of Education program, which aims to develop leaders in trauma-informed practices, equity and inclusion. She has developed inclusive education curriculum for the University’s Early Childhood Education department and social emotional learning curriculum for Colorado’s Project Learning Tree, which provides environmental-education resources to schools and educators.
Dr. Dorothy Shapland teaches principles of Appropriate and Inappropriate Practice in early childhood education. Photo by Josh Gearink
The nonprofit Bell Policy Center engages in research and advocacy to advance economic mobility and equity for Coloradans.
