School of Education Announces New Director of Hartman Literacy Center

Released: 6/12/07

[Other School of Education News]

The School of Education is pleased to name Dr. Kathleen Clark will be as Director for the Hartman Literacy & Learning Center. Dr. Clark will continue the work of Dr. Lauren Leslie, who retired after 33 years of dedicated service to the School and University.

Dr. Clark is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Leadership where she teaches courses in literacy education.  Prior to earning her doctorate, Dr. Clark worked as a classroom teacher at the elementary and secondary levels and as a special education teacher with students requiring learning, emotional, and behavior support.  She completed her doctoral degree at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, having been awarded the 1996-1998 Guy Bond Reading Research Fellowship.  Her doctoral dissertation was supported by the International Reading Association’s Jeanne S. Chall research fellowship and was a finalist in that organization’s outstanding dissertation competition.  Dr. Clark’s research interests are in the relation between the nature of instructional talk and learning and comprehension strategy acquisition in authentic learning contexts.  Her work has appeared in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, The Reading Teacher, and Elementary School Journal.  

The Hartman Center is a teaching, research and service site that houses the Family Literacy Project. The Literacy Project is designed to improve the quality of literacy instruction provided by teachers, and the literacy acquisition of urban children. Undergraduate teachers-in–training serve as tutors for children from inner-city Milwaukee schools. Faculty reviews lesson plans and supervises the tutoring sessions. Research examines factors that relate to growth in the children’s reading abilities. Research is also conducted to investigate the effectiveness of our teacher training in literacy instruction by following graduates into their classrooms.