-- Assistant education professor Steven Athanases, who joined the UC Davis faculty this last academic year, has been named a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow for his proposal "Aesthetics, Analysis and Reflection on the Communal: The Promise of Poetry in the Education of Urban Youth." Athanases was one in 30 selected from an applicant pool of more than 300. This honor gives him a full year of paid leave to continue his research. His research focuses on adolescents in urban public schools who use poetry as a means of learning and expressing themselves.