Profile
Dennis Mulcahy, Ph.D. (Toronto)
Professor, Faculty of Education, MUN
Office: E3037, G.A. Hickman Building
Memorial University of Newfoundland
(709) 737-7917
dmulcahy@mun.ca
I have been a member of the Faculty of Education, MUN, since 1988. I graduated from Memorial University with a B.A. (English) and a B.ED (Secondary Education) and spent 11 years as a high school English teacher in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador. I completed my graduate work in Curriculum Studies at the University of Toronto: M.ED (1983); Ph.D. (1992).
In addition to being at Memorial University, I have been a visiting professor/scholar at Ohio University (Athens, Ohio), the University of Western Carolina (Cullowhee, North Carolina) and Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia.
The primary focus of my research and development work is Rural Education and Small Schools. Topics included in this work: multi-grade classrooms and multiage pedagogy; the viability and value of small community schools; school closure and consolidation; distance education and e-learning; teacher education, recruitment and retention; bussing; and rural policy development.
I believe that small schools are both viable and valuable for the rural communities that they serve. My work as a scholar and public intellectual is dedicated to supporting those who strive to improve the provision of education and schooling of the highest quality to rural children and youth. Supporting small schools through research and development is a necessary component of rural community sustainability.
I also have a strong interest in curriculum theory and development.
International Work
While my primary interest is Canadian education and schooling and in particular rural education in Newfoundland and Labrador, I have an increasing interest in international work. I am very interested in working with rural scholars and educators in other parts of the world and lending my expertise and enthusiasm for their rural education development work.
I have established contacts and collaborated with rural scholars in the US, the UK and Australia. Last August (2008), I had spent a month in Egypt working on a USAID sponsored project for the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education that focused on teacher preparation programs for One Classroom Schools for Girls in rural villages in Egypt. The next focus of my international work will be Cuba and Central and South America.
I am an active member of the U.S.-based National Rural Education Association and the Rural Education Significant Interest Group of the AREA . I have served as program coordinator and Chair for the Rural SIG. I am a member of the editorial board of The Journal of Research in Rural Education, The Rural Educator, and Education in Rural Australia.
Stuart McLean of CBC's The Vinyl Cafe has coined the phrase, "we may not be big, but we're small." I rather like this statement and I take it to mean rather than regretting that a school is not a big school we should celebrate the virtues of being a small school. Too long in this province we have mislead people not only about the viability of small schools but their intrinsic value and worth.