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Dr. Mary Frasier is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Director of the Urban Initiative in the College of Education at The University of Georgia. She has written many articles, presented numerous workshops and seminars at the state, national, and international levels on gifted education and creative individuals. She served as president of the National Association of Gifted Children and the Georgia Federation Council for Exceptional Children. In the early eighties, Mary created the Frasier Talent Assessment Profile, a comprehensive assessment system that helps educators gather and synthesize information in order to identify gifted students and design educational programming for them. This system is used by school districts across the nation as well as other parts of the world. During the early nineties, Mary was an Associate Director of The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented and was the Principal Investigator of The University of Georgia project. She conducted research on better ways to identify gifted students from culturally diverse and low socioeconomic backgrounds.
While Mary's many contributions to the field are recognized through the honors and awards bestowed upon her, perhaps the most telling about the nature of her passion is an observation made by a colleague. The colleague noted that Mary, rather than training students to be extensions of her work, nurtures scholars who are independent, creative, and critical thinkers.
Mentoring is like a two-way circular dance-those particular life performances where the mentor and those who seek mentoring know when and how to give and teach and how to receive and learn. What you have to offer fulfills the immediate and future needs of the other.
This interview is part of a series of interviews with masters in the field of gifted education offered by the Roeper Review. As one of Dr. Mary M. Frasier's doctoral students, I had the joy and pleasure of interviewing her in Denver, Colorado, just two days after she was presented with the first annual Ann F. Isaacs Memorial Award at the 49th Annual Convention of the National Association for Gifted Children, November 2002. Ann F. Isaac was one of the founders of the National Association for Gifted Children. Mary M. Frasier, among many of her other achievements and contributions, is the...