An impactful career comes full circle with top faculty honor

To kick off an online course she taught over the summer, San Diego State University Professor Bonnie Kraemer prompted students to film video introductions of themselves. One in particular stopped her in her tracks. 

An aspiring special education teacher divulged that he took the class at the urging of his mother — a longtime special educator who, years earlier, had been one of Kraemer’s students.
 
“That made me feel a little bit old, but it also felt good,” Kraemer said, laughing. “It feels a little bit of a full circle moment. I was really touched by that.”

If Kraemer has been in a mood to reflect on her career of late, it’s surely understandable. As she prepares to enter her 21st year as a tenured/tenure-track faculty member in SDSU’s Department of Special Education — and her first full academic year as chair — she will soon receive one of the university’s highest faculty honors.

At SDSU’s annual All University Convocation on August 21, Kraemer will be named the College of Education’s 2025 recipient of the Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Faculty Contributions (see videos of past COE winners). She admits being on stage at a large public event — one that will include a flashy video feature highlighting her career — is not something that comes naturally.

But she’s starting to wrap her head around it.

“I'm excited,” Kraemer said. “I typically go to Convocation, and the best part is seeing the videos and learning about the awardees. I love it. 

“It's a little intimidating and surreal to be the college awardee, but it really feels like an honor.”

In her 20 years at SDSU, Kraemer has been an integral part of the programmatic growth of a department that works to meet an ever-growing community need for teachers qualified to work with students with disabilities.

Kraemer served as coordinator of what is now known as the extensive support needs credential program for much of her career. She has also played a leadership role in SDSU’s popular master’s program in autism and helped develop the advanced certificate in behavior analysis.

By securing federal training grants through the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), Kraemer has been instrumental in funding and mentoring credential and master’s students in special education.

“I look at the number of people that are working in schools as teachers and in leadership positions that have come through our program and it’s great to see,” she said. “I feel like our program touches so many areas within the county and all the different school districts.”

Kraemer has also made her mark as a researcher focused on better serving transition-age youth with autism. She’s currently working with Special Education colleague Professor Laura Hall and Associate Professor Kelsey Dickson from the Department of Child and Family Development on Project EXPRESS — a federally-funded partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Now in its fifth year, Project EXPRESS is testing the efficacy of social skills and executive intervention programming in middle schools in both San Diego and North Carolina.

“We'll have been in nearly 40 middle schools in San Diego by the time we wrap up,” Kraemer said.

As both a teacher educator and a researcher, Kraemer is inspired to make a difference for the disability community because of her own experience as a special education teacher, working with adults with severe disabilities at a state developmental center. Troubled by the restrictive and isolating environment she witnessed, she began to wonder what could have been done differently for them earlier in their lives that would have changed their realities for the better.

Two decades later, she’s proud of the change that she has been a part of bringing about.

“I see so much more growth for the population in terms of community access; being provided supports to live and work in the community, and just having more agency in their own lives,” Kraemer said. “I love to see that.”

Reflecting on her two decades at SDSU, Kraemer sees a well-rounded career — one that has included leadership as a member of the University Senate for the past 10 years, and as chair of the College of Education Policy Council. Just last year, she was elected chair of the SPED department.

“The number of publications on my CV hasn't defined my work in a way that I thought that it would maybe 20 years ago,” she said. “And I'm OK with that. I'm proud of the overall breadth and scope of the work that I've done.”