FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - William Brescia, doctoral candidate at Indiana University, has been named as an assistant professor of Educational Technology at the University of Arkansas College of Education.

Brescia expects his wide variety of professional experience will help better the university and the community.

"As a new faculty member in Educational Technology, I hope to bring my knowledge and training in educational technology to the area of nonprofit studies where I believe it will be directly applicable in the arena of distance learning," Brescia said.

As assistant professor, Brescia will teach two graduate courses: one on Internet web design and one in distance learning, designed to demonstrate and provide hands-on experience with the use of technologies for educational purposes. The web design course addresses issues that educators face in providing web-based instruction, and distance learning looks at the various modes of education via the Internet and how they can be most effectively used to promote learning.

In addition to teaching, he will be involved in writing research grant proposals with the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of State, and he will be involved in a mentoring projects on campus.

Brescia comes to the U of A with experience in higher education, bilingual education and fundraising. His recent teaching experience was at Indiana University in Bloomington where he taught Principles and Techniques of Fundraising. He also taught Getting Funded in the 90’s in the Continuing Education program for five years.

Brescia brings years of development experience with him, serving as director of development in the Office of Research and University Graduate School at Indiana University from 1990-97 and at Harmony School Education Center in Bloomington from 1997-98.

He has been involved in the publishing or authoring of nearly 50 publications regarding instructional technology, nonprofit fundraising, and American Indian topics, and he has made over 50 presentations throughout the United States.

Brescia is involved in the Native American Student Association, Internal Mentoring Association and is interested in the application of education technology in the nonprofit arena.

"I have a research interest in mentoring, mostly in web-based distance learning settings. My doctoral dissertation at Indiana University focused on designing a model of online mentoring that helps professors improve threaded discussions," Brescia said.

He has won a variety of fellowships, honors and awards. These include a Summer Doctoral Fellows Program at Washington State University in 1999; the Dr. Ronald R. Smith Award in Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University in 1998 and the L.C. Larson Professional Development Award at Indiana University in 2000. He was also a Community Service Award co-winner in Bloomington in 1991.

Brescia currently holds membership in several professional organizations, including the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, the American Education Research Association, the International Mentoring Association and the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action.

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