Disciplinary Interests: Literacy

Maureen T. Matarese
Maureen Matarese is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY. A graduate of Teachers College, Columbia University with a doctorate in International Educational Development (Language, Literacy, and Technology), she has focused her work around issues of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and literacy in multicultural, institutional settings. She has taught on the graduate level at Teachers College and at Long Island University, teaching courses in Sociolinguistics, TESOL, and Bilingual Education, and on the undergraduate level she taught Freshman Composition at North Carolina State University, and she teaches Academic Critical Reading and Language & Culture (LIN100/ANT115) at BMCC. She also taught ESL, Literacy, and GED Preparation in a transitional homeless shelter in Washington Heights, where she worked for many years. Professor Matarese's research focuses on sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. She has conducted sociolinguistic research in North Carolina, West Virginia, the Bahamas, and in New York City, and she has conducted qualitative research on teacher response techniques (particularly when students use nonstandard dialect features in their writing). Discourse analysis, and specifically institutional linguistic ethnographies, are her area of expertise. In this vein, she has conducted research on caseworker-client interaction in a New York City shelter. That study speaks to the ways in which institutional hierarchies and their policies are enacted in everyday practice by street-level bureaucrats who negotiate between the needs of the client and the needs of the administration/policy. This research additionally speaks to the ways in which language diversity (Spanish language) were addressed in everyday practice by individual caseworkers. This research has implications for both policy and practice, as well as for street-level bureaucrats of other institutional types (e.g. school teachers). She is currently working on a linguistic ethnography in Academic Critical Reading classrooms. Professor Matarese has published within and outside the field of (socio)linguistics and has presented at many national and international academic conferences where her work has been well received. In all facets of her work, she has worked with linguistic minorities (and/or minoritized languages/dialects), and she continues to be interested in exploring the relationship between institutions, talk, policy, and practice.
Alyson Vogel
Academic program developer, coach and project manager with significant expertise in course design, curriculum planning, online teaching, training, coaching & mentoring and major event logistics & execution. In depth knowledge of media education and of integrating the Internet and new media into teaching & learning. Researching, developing, administering and evaluating large and small scale adult education courses, conferences, seminars and study tours. Design and teach workshops for teachers on web and data mining, document publishing, grant writing and the use of social media tools. My experience in course programming and media education spans nearly 10 years. Most recently I was a Program Development Specialist for Teachers College, Columbia University until our organization was closed as a result of restructuring. At Teachers College I liaised with faculty and administration to research, develop, administer and evaluate hundreds of large and small scale adult education courses, conferences and study tours. I am best known for my soup to nuts approach to academic project management, and I add a unique blend of coaching and mentoring support to thought leaders in their field who want to communicate for ultimate impact with their students in the new millennium.
Rashmi Watson
Rashmi Watson is a Senior Lecturer in Perth, Western Australia.
Sharon Weiner
Sharon A. Weiner is a Professor of Library Science and holds the position of W. Wayne Booker Chair in Information Literacy at Purdue University. She is Vice-President of the National Forum on Information Literacy
Mary G. Filice
Mary Filice is tenure-track faculty and coordinator of the Media Concentration of the Arts, Entertainment, and Media Management Department, Columbia College Chicago. As an independent filmmaker and consultant Mary recently assisted Percolator Films (formerly Reetime Film and Video Forum) on their first film festival, The Talking Pictures Festival, which took place in Evanston, IL May 1-3. Mary is also a media literacy advocate conducting a series of media literacy/filmmaking workshops for middle-school children in conjunction with the alternative filmmaking group Split Pillow. Mary has a MA in Film/Video from Columbia College and BA in Theater from Loyola University.
marie ahmadi
M.Ahmadi is a tenured faculty at Al-Zahra University in Tehran in the English Department. Simultaneously, am working on my doctorate dissertation on literacy.
Suzanne M.
Suzanne M. Risley, MLS, is the Vice President for Library and Information Technology Services and Chief Information Officer at Mitchell College in New London, Connecticut
Jeremy W. Donald
Jeremy Donald is a reference/instruction and GIS/Government Documents librarian at the Trinity University Coates library in San Antonio, TX. He serves as the library liaison to the departments of Communication, Political Science, Economics, and Urban Studies.
Della Curtis
Della Curtis is currently the Coordinator of the Office of Library Information Services for the Baltimore County Public Schools, the 24th largest school district in the United States. She is also a part time instructor at Towson University in the College of Education, Department of Instructional Technology and developer of many Maryland State Department of Education inservice courses for library media specialists and teachers. She received a B.A. degree from Salem-Teikyo University in Library Science, Secondary Education, and English (1968) and a M.S. degree from Towson University in Instructional Technology (1981). She has received many awards among which are: the 1998 Towson University's College of Education Dean's Recognition Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education; named by eSchool News as one of the top 30 technology leaders in the United States (Impact 30, 1999); the CyberAngels Distinguished Librarian (1998); Wired Kids Internet Safety Award (2002); the Baltimore County Public Schools' Outstanding Contributions Award (1996 an 1998); and, the Who's Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges (1964). Among her many accomplishments as the leader of 166 school library media programs in Baltimore County Public Schools, she has provided the vision to launch school libraries into the Information Age. As early as 1981, she envisioned "libraries without walls" by connecting all secondary school libraries to online networks where students could located full text magazine and newspaper articles and other information for class assignments and research. By 1991, all school libraries were connected to the Internet, and, she along with a colleague, conducted a 30-hour staff development training program for 175 librarians to teach the technical aspects as well as how to utilize this powerful new technology for teaching and learning. In 1996, she provided leadership in the design and development of the county's first website - onLINE: The Librarians' Information Network for the Essential Curriculum < www.bcps.org/offices/lis >. She developed another comprehensive website to support school library media specialists in their roles as teacher, instructional partner, information specialist, and program administrator is the Baltimore County School Librarians' Online Procedures Manual < www.bcps.org/offices/lis/office >. In the July 2003 issue of School Library Journal, she was recognized in the Innovator's Spotlight feature article.