About Our Model

Founded in 1983, The Center for Gifted at National-Louis University, Evanston, Illinois, has served thousands of students in preschool through 10th grades in their summer and winter programs in the Chicago area.

The Founder/Director, Joan Franklin Smutny, teaches creative writing in her programs and gifted education to graduate students at National-Louis University. She has written extensively in the field of gifted studies, including Teaching Young Gifted Children in the Regular Classroom (co-authored), Gifted Girls, and The Young Gifted Child, Potential and Promise, An Anthology.

She is co-chairman of Membership and of the Special Schools and Programs Division for the National Association for Gifted Children and was the recipient of their 1996 Distinguished Service Award. Joan serves as Editor of the IAGC Journal, and an editor for Understanding Our Gifted and Roeper Review: A Journal on Gifted Education.

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