MEET OUR NEW FACULTY
Instructor
Language & Literacy Programs
Mr. Wally D. Thompson
Mr. Wally D. Thompson is a new faculty member who will be teaching students in the following programs beginning this fall: Reading Language Arts Block, Elementary with Middle School English, Reading Specialist (Graduate Program), and Curriculum and Instruction in Literacy (Graduate Program). He held a position in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Intercultural Studies as a Lecturer at The University of Texas at Brownsville before arriving in Topeka. Mr. Thompson is receiving a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi with a specialty in Curriculum and Instruction in Reading. He has completed the coursework required for a Ph.D. and is ready to defend his dissertation. Mr. Thompson has a M.Ed. from the University of Texas at Brownsville with a major in Curriculum and Instruction in Reading and a B.A. from Stephen F. Austin State University with majors in English and History.
Mr. Thompson brings with him a variety of skills including teaching courses in Emergent Literacy in the Bilingual Classrooms, Content Area Methods in ESL Classrooms, and Teaching Reading to English Language Learners. Mr. Thompson has taught secondary and elementary school students in Texas and in an elementary school in Veracruz, Mexico. Some of his research projects include a qualitative analysis of the Williams Gates Institution’s Dual School Program, a program designed to prepare freshman and sophomore high school students to enter college in their junior year of high school, and Border Literacy Research which involved administering reading attitude surveys to students in schools along the Mexican and U.S.A. border to ascertain their attitude toward reading. Mr. Thompson stated, “As a career educator, I have taught a variety of subjects, in a variety of towns, countries and cultures; and from each situation, I have learned. I am looking forward to teaching and learning at Washburn University.”
We feel so fortunate that Mr. Thompson will be teaching in our department!
Assistant Professor
Graduate Leadership Programs
Dr. Scott P. Myers
Dr. Scott P. Myers is a new faculty member who will be coordinating and teaching in the following graduate leadership programs: Building Leadership, District Leadership, and Curriculum and Instruction in Educational Foundations. Prior to becoming a faculty member in the Department of Education, Dr. Myers was a school superintendent for ten years in USD #218 and USD #340. In addition he began working as an Adjunct Professor last year in our department. He received an Ed.D. from Kansas State University in Education Leadership, a M.Ed. from Washburn University in Education Administration with Secondary Emphasis and a B.S. from Kansas State University in Education with an emphasis in Secondary English.
Dr. Myers has taught numerous college courses as well as in adult education programs and a Summer Teacher Technology Academy. His publications include the following: A Multiple Regression Analysis of Six Factors Concerning School District Demographics and Superintendent Tenure and Experience in 2007-2008 Schools Relative to Student Achievement on the Third Grade Kansas Reading Assessments (Dissertation 2010) and “The Effects of Life Choices on the Education of High School Students”, Critical Teaching, Fall 1995, #4. Dr. Myers has received numerous grants including funding for Federal 21st Century After-School Program, Electronic Virtual School Charter, and Migrant Even Start Literacy. In addition he has given paper presentations to the Unified School Administrators and the Kansas Association of School Boards, testified before the state legislature on educational issues and assumed organizational leadership roles on Kansas educational committees. Dr. Myers stated, “I am thrilled to be joining the Washburn University Education Department fulltime. Having earned my Masters degree at Washburn years ago, it is very much like coming home to me to be able to serve in the Building Leadership and the District Leadership programs.”
We are very excited about Dr. Myers joining our faculty!
Dr. Judith McConnell-Farmer has two recent books published by Linton Atlantic Press, Cambridge, England. Education of young children, research and public policy, was published in 2009, and her most current book, Adventures, fantasy and dreams in children’s literature, was published in 2010.
Dr. Sandy Tutwiler announces the release of her new book "Teachers as Collaborative Partners: Working With Diverse Families and Communities" published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Dr. Gloria Dye receiving the Ned N. Fleming Excellence in Teaching Award from Dr. Wasserstein.
"Measurement from the Bottom of the World to the Middle School Classroom" By Lee Anne Coester in the April 2004 edition of Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School