TCALL Welcomes a Record Six New Doctoral Fellows
for 2009-2010 Academic Year
by Harriet Vardiman Smith, TCALL Director
Beginning in 2005, The Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy & Learning (TCALL) obtained grant funding to support fellowship research projects of doctoral students at Texas A&M University who are engaged in research, writing, and development of resources and presentations in topics relevant to literacy.
Two distinct fellowship opportunities have evolved at TCALL, one focusing on topics relevant to family literacy with funding from the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, and one focusing on adult literacy that is funded as an activity of the Texas Adult Literacy Clearinghouse Project.
TCALL recently selected graduate students Merlissa Alfred and Rhonda Goolsby as TCALL Adult Literacy Fellows for 2009-2010; and selected Priya Darshini Kurup, Tiffany Lipsett, Rose Anna Santos and Jeeyoung Shin as the 2009-2010 Barbara Bush Family Literacy Fellows. Each fellow will receive a one-year award of $25,000, which may be used to offset the cost of travel expenses to conferences, dissertation research, and/or tuition, fees and maintenance while enrolled at Texas A&M University. During their fellowship year, students will have the opportunity to present their work at national family literacy conferences and to work toward publishing their research in peer-reviewed journals.
TCALL Adult Literacy Fellowships are funded as part of the Texas Adult Literacy Clearinghouse Project, an adult education state leadership grant from Texas Education Agency, supported by the state adult education office, Texas LEARNS. The Barbara Bush Fellows are funded with generous support of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. The 2009-2010 Barbara Bush Fellows were formally announced by former First Lady Barbara Bush at the Houston Celebration of Reading in April.
Merlissa Alfred is a doctoral student in human resource development (HRD) in the department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development. She will investigate the intersection between the professional field of HRD with its goal of developing individual and organizational performance, and the practice of workforce literacy in programs that are designed to serve low-literate adults.
Rhonda Goolsby, a doctoral student in the department of Teaching, Learning and Culture, focuses on health literacy. Her dissertation research is being advised by faculty of the Texas A&M Health Science Center as well as the College of Education and Human Development. She will explore making life-saving health information more accessible to low-literate adults, including English-language learners.
Priya Darshini Kurup, a doctoral student in human resource development, proposes to investigate the effect of work-life balance on parental participation and retention in family literacy programs, a challenge for many family literacy program organizers.
Tiffany Lipsett, a doctoral student in curriculum and culture with an emphasis on visual literacy, plans to examine the interaction between parents and children, and the social and cultural context in which literacy skills are learned in the home.
Rose Anna Santos, a doctoral student in higher education administration, is interested in literacy development, especially how fathers facilitate literacy development within their families. She will research how fathers in family literacy programs, specifically Hispanic fathers, view parenting and literacy role-modeling to their children.
Jeeyoung Shin, a doctoral student in English as a Second Language, will conduct an intervention study with language-minority families using a conceptual framework to identify key issues to understand literacy patterns and experiences of language-minority families.
  
|
