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Alvermann Receives Career Achievement Award from International Reading Association Writer: Angela Hains, 706/542-5889, anicole7@uga.edu Contact: Donna Alvermann, 706/542-2718, dalverma@uga.edu
Donna Alvermann, a Distinguished Research Professor in the College of Education's department of language and literacy education, has been awarded the 2006 William S. Gray Citation of Merit by the International Reading Association (IRA) for her outstanding contributions to the field of reading education.
“This award is especially meaningful to me because Dr. Ira Aaron, who founded the department of reading education in the College of Education in the mid-1950s, received the William S. Gray Citation of Merit in 1994,” she said.
Alvermann's research focuses on youth's multiple literacies in and out of school. From 1992 to1997, she co-directed the National Reading Research Center, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. With more than 100 articles and chapters in print, her books include Content Reading and Literacy: Succeeding in Today's Diverse Classrooms (4th ed.), Popular Culture in the Classroom: Teaching and Researching Critical Media Literacy, Bridging the Literacy Achievement Gap, Grades 4-12, and Adolescents and Literacies in a Digital World.
Past president of the National Reading Conference (NRC) and co-chair of the International Reading Association's Commission on Adolescent Literacy, she currently edits Reading Research Quarterly, one of the most important and widely circulated international research journals in the field of education.
She was elected to the Reading Hall of Fame in 1999 and is the recipient of the NRC's Oscar Causey Award for Outstanding Contributions to Reading Research, the Albert Kingston Award for Distinguished Service, the College Reading Association's Laureate Award, and the H.B. Herr Award for Contributions to Research in Reading Education.
She was appointed to the Rand Corporation/U.S. Department of Education's Reading Research Study Panel in 2000, named a Spencer Research Foundation Mentor from 1997-98, and was invited to give a 75th Anniversary Celebration Colloquium at Rutgers University Graduate School of Education in 1999. She guest edited the Journal of Educational Research 's Special Year 2000 issue on “Reading Research and Instruction,” was elected chair of the board of directors of the American Reading Forum in 2000, and served as director of the College Reading Association Board from 1997-2000. She was appointed to the National Panel of Advisors for the Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts in 1997 and received Syracuse University 's School of Education Honored Alumna Award in 1995.
Alvermann, who will receive the award before more than 20,000 of her reading education colleagues May 3 at the IRA's annual convention in Chicago, is grateful for the professional support she has found at UGA.
“I recognize that without the excellent support and interest of my colleagues and students in the College of Education, this award would not have come my way,” she said. “They deserve to share in this recognition.”
Alvermann joined the UGA faculty in 1982 and became a full professor in 1990. She was named a UGA Distinguished Research Professor in 1993. She earned her doctorate at Syracuse University in reading and language arts education and her M.A. and B.S. in education from the University of Texas.
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