This symposium session is a tribute to life and work of Dr. Thomas David Oakland, professor emeritus of the College of Education at the University of Florida. Tom was president of the International Test Commission from 1998-2001 and received numerous awards for his work in international testing, including Distinguished Contributions to the Advancement of Psychology Internationally from the American Psychological Association and Outstanding International Scholar Award from the International School Psychology Association. He was a productive author editing 12 books, over 200 chapters and articles, and 11 psychological tests. His last cv listed accomplishments over 145 pages. Tom’s later work on temperament assessment exemplified the international flavor of his research in which he collaborated with colleagues to obtain responses from samples in Australia, China, Costa Rica, Gaza, Nigeria, Philippines, United States, and Zimbabwe. What probably isn’t as well known is that Tom had a career that was multifaceted. He was not only an accomplished researcher, but excellent clinician, faculty member, department chair, organization president (multiple times), editor, father, and husband. Above and beyond everything else, Tom strove to be excellent in every project he undertook, but would characterize his accomplishments as simply being “competentâ€.

Five presenters will discuss the various dimensions of his work which has as its core “international testingâ€:

Dr. Barbara Byrne, Professor Emerita
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa
barbara.byrne@uottawa.ca

Dr. Kurt Geisinger, Director
Buros Center for Testing and W.C. Meierhenry Distinguished Professor
University of Nebraska—Lincoln
kgeisinger2@unl.edu

Dr. Ron Hambleton, Director
Center for Educational Assessment and Distinguished University Professor
University of Massachusetts Amherst
rkh@educ.umass.edu

Dr. Dragos Iliescu, Professor
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
University of Bucharest
dragos.iliescu@fpse.unibuc.ro

Dr. Mark D. Shermis, Dean and Professor
School of Education, University of Houston - Clear Lake
mshermis@gmail.com