Recently President Arthur Levine announced that Ruth Vinz has accepted his invitation to serve the TC community as Interim Dean for the fall semester.

Vinz, Professor of English Education also served the College as Chair of Arts and Humanities, program coordinator, chair of the Untenured Faculty Committee, and member of the FEC for six years (Until Vinz returns as Chair of Arts and Humanities in the spring, Harold F. Abeles, Professor of Music Education, has taken over the position.).

She came to Teachers College in 1992. Before that, she had a long and distinguished career as a teacher of English and Humanities for 23 years. During that time, Vinz chaired an English department for 17 years, served as the district coordinator for writing programs, and directed several projects involving whole school and district-wide strategic planning and curricular reform efforts.

She is the author of numerous books on teaching and learning in English classrooms and the processes and production of literacies and representation. Her books include: Inside Out: On Teaching Writing (1986), Learning the Landscapes (1996), Recasting the Text (1996), On Writing Qualitative Research: Living by Words (1997), Becoming (Other)Wise (2001), and a 6th to12th grade literature/writing series for secondary classrooms. In 1997, Vinz was honored with the Richard A. Meade Award for Research in English Education for her book Composing a Teaching Life. The award, sponsored by the Conference on English Education, "recognizes selected published research that investigates teacher development in the English/language arts of any educational level, of any scope, of any setting." She has published numerous book chapters and articles as well as served a six-year term as editor of the journal, English Education.

At the Master's Degree convocation in May 2001, Vinz introduced Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angela's Ashes, thanking him for sharing his storytelling gift with the world.

Published Monday, May. 20, 2002