Wednesday, February 9, 2005

WRITER/CONTACT: Michael Childs, 706/542-5889, mchilds@coe.uga.edu

NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED SCHOLAR, RESEARCHER IN GIFTED EDUCATION, FOUNDER OF TORRANCE
CENTER MARY M. FRASIER CONCLUDES LIFE'S JOURNEY
ATHENS, Ga. - Mary M. Frasier, a nationally recognized scholar and researcher in gifted education and
founder of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development in UGA's College of Education,
passed away on February 3, 2005.
For three decades, Frasier, a professor of educational psychology, brought national and international
recognition to the college for her pioneering and highly influential work in identifying and teaching
students who are under-represented in gifted education programs.
As a researcher, scholar and advocate, she had a profound effect on changing the way children are
assessed for gifted services. She designed the Frasier Talent Assessment Profile (F-TAP), a
comprehensive assessment system with multiple indicators that is much more effective in assessing the
gifts and talents of low-income and minority children than single-indicator tests previously used. She
worked with school districts throughout the nation to implement this assessment.
She was president of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) from 1987-89, and received
the NAGC's Distinguished Service Award in 1991, and then later the Ann F. Isaacs Founder's Memorial
Award for her work with that organization.
"Gifted and talented children - particularly those representing cultural diversity - have lost a devoted
advocate, researcher, and change-maker. Not only has the field lost a tireless champion, but I have lost a
personal friend," said Richard Olenchak, current president of the NAGC, and professor and director of
the Urban Talent Research Institute at the University of Houston.
The State of Georgia changed its gifted program eligibility requirements to be inclusive of multiple
criteria due in large part to Frasier and her work with the Georgia Department of Education Task Force
on the Revision of Rules and Regulations for the Identification of Gifted Students.
Frazier was associate director and primary investigator for The National Research Center on the Gifted
and Talented, a consortium of four universities that received $7.5 million in external funding from 199095. Six Georgia school districts participated in this groundbreaking research which sought better ways to
identify gifted and talented students, particularly those who were under-represented in the nation's
gifted programs - economically disadvantaged students, culturally and linguistically different students,
students with disabilities, and certain ethnic minorities.
As a result of that research, there was a groundswell of support for reform in the field - a cry from
educators across the state for a more theoretically sound, diagnostically useful and equitable way to

identify children for gifted program placement.

"We worked to change state law and State Board of Education rules related to gifted education so that
all Georgia schools could use the promising practices from the research study," said Sally Krisel,
Georgia's State Coordinator for Gifted Education. "Educators across the state worked diligently to
implement more comprehensive evaluation procedures that were more sensitive to individual
differences and to better match gifted program options to students' identified strengths.
"We are now serving far more minority and disadvantaged students in our gifted programs, students
who may well have been missed if we had not learned from Mary Frasier how to address the persistent
barriers related to attitude, access, and assessment," said Krisel, a former student of Frasier's who
received her doctorate at UGA in 2000.
"This focus on equity, however, is not the only legacy of Mary Frasier's work. She taught us that we
cannot have true excellence without equity and that doing the right thing for those gifted children
overlooked in our traditional screening and evaluation process is the right thing to do for ALL children,"
said Krisel. "All children benefit when we consciously take a proficiency view of their learning profiles,
when we commit to multidimensional assessment of their abilities, and when we provide a variety of
services designed to challenge them in their areas of strength.
"When Georgia educators tackled these difficult issues in the mid-90's, the rest of the country watched,
wondering if we would identify too many children and, consequently, water down our programs for
gifted students," said Krisel. "I can assure you that we have not! We have made great strides in
advancing equitable identification procedures and comprehensive programming for ALL gifted children .
. . and we have done that, in large part, because of Mary Frasier."
Within the college, Frasier played many vital roles. In 1984, she founded the Torrance Center for
Creative Studies - named for the late UGA Distinguished Professor E. Paul Torrance, another early
pioneer in gifted education - and served as its director for its first decade, then again from 1995-97.
The Torrance Center has served many local children, schools and families over the past two decades
with a variety of programs including the Georgia Future Problem Solving Program, the Challenge
programs and is host for many international and national visiting scholars.
Frasier also served as coordinator of the gifted and creative education program in the College for nearly
20 years. She worked selflessly as a mentor to many faculty and students during her 30-year tenure at
UGA. She was appointed to the graduate faculty in 1982 and reappointed in 1989 and 1996.
She was named Aderhold Distinguished Professor in 2002, one of the highest honors in UGA's College of
Education. She also received the EVE Award for Achievement in Education from the Athens Daily
News/Banner-Herald, Georgia National Bank and radio stations WNGC/WGAU in 1990.
Frasier received a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Connecticut, a master's in

guidance and counseling, and a bachelor's in music education, both from South Carolina State College.
The family has established a "Dr. Mary M. Frasier Memorial Fund" to receive contributions toward the
development of a scholarship in her honor. Donations should be addressed to the:
Dr. Mary M. Frasier Memorial Fund
505 Sandstone Drive
Athens, Georgia 30605
The funeral for Mary M. Frasier is Thursday, Feb. 10, 2005 at 11 a.m. at Ebenezer Baptist Church West.
------Dr. Mary M. Frasier, Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology
at The University of Georgia, served as an Associate Director of The National
Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, and the primary investigator for the
National Research Center project at Georgia. The National Research Center was a
five year, $7.5 million grant provided to four universities (The University of
Connecticut, The University of Georgia, The University of Virginia, and Yale
University) by the U. S. Education Department's Office of Educational Research
to study gifted and talented children.
Dr. Frasier was also founding director of The Torrance Center for Creative
Studies, a Center devoted to continuing the research and instructional legacy of
Dr. E. Paul Torrance. This Center sponsors: (a) an annual E. Paul Torrance lecture,
(b) the Georgia Future Problems Solving Program and Challenge Programs,
instructional programs for children and youth based on the work of Dr. Torrance
and (c) The Torrance Creative Scholars Program (with Scholastic Testing
Service), a program designed to identify and provide mentors for highly creative
children and youth. Also coordinated through the Center are (a) the work of
international scholars who wish to do research in creativity, (b) the Torrance
Library and the E. Paul Torrance Archives, an extensive collection of research
reports, papers, speeches, tests, and other materials that span the career of Dr.
Torrance.
Dr. Frasier's academic background includes an M.Ed. in Guidance and Counseling
from South Carolina State College and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from
the University of Connecticut. She was a middle and high school teacher of music
and English prior to her becoming involved in higher education. Dr. Frasier has
conducted research, published widely, and presented workshops, invited lectures,
and seminars at the state, national, and international levels concerned with
identification, educational programming, and counseling for gifted and creative
individuals, with a special focus on gifted children and youth from minority
populations.

Selected publications by Dr. Frasier include: The identification of

gifted black students: Developing new perspectives (1987); Disadvantaged and
culturally diverse gifted students: What we know, what we think we know, what
we need to know (1990); The sharing of giftedness between culturally diverse and
non diverse gifted students (1991). The Frasier Talent Assessment Profile (F-TAP)
(copyrighted1983) is used by school districts across the United States to facilitate
them in assessing and planning appropriate educational experiences for children
from culturally diverse backgrounds.
Dr. Frasier has served as President of the National Association for Gifted Children
(1983-1991); Governor for The Association for the Gifted (TAG) (1979-1985);
and President, Georgia Federation Council for Exceptional Children (1976-1979).
Dr. Frasier served on the editorial and review boards of the Gifted Child
Quarterly, and The Journal for the Education of the Gifted. She has also served on
the editorial board for Roeper Review.
Selected honors and awards include Leadership Georgia, 1981; Who's Who in
Black America, 1981; Who's Who Among American Women, 1982; Pallischeck
Visiting Distinguished Professor Lecturer, University of Northern Iowa, 1988; and
EVE Award for Achievement in Education, Athens Daily News/Banner Herald,
Georgia National Bank, WNGC/WGAU, 1990; Distinguished Service Award, The
National Association for Gifted Children, 1991; Distinguished Aderhold Research
Professor, 2002.

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