The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) awarded its highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award, to professor Carol Lee of Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy. The award was presented on February 19 at AACTE's 62nd Annual Meeting & Exhibits in Atlanta.
On March 26, Lee is also being awarded the President's Pacesetters Award by the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education at that organization's national conference. "The President's Pacesetters Award is given to those individuals whose accomplishments are cutting edge and are unique in their mission and scope by seeking to enhance the Black educational experience," says Sheila Baldwin, president of AABHE.
A forward-thinking educator, Lee has devoted her career to urban education and teacher preparation and development. Her important contributions to education center on the cultural contexts affecting learning and literacy. Active in the school reform movement in Chicago Public Schools, she taught in both public and private schools before assuming a university career, and she co-founded three African-centered schools in Chicago.
Lee is president of the American Education Research Association and a fellow in the National Academy of Education. She is also past president of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy and the chair of the standing committee on research of the National Council of Teachers of English. She is a former trustee of the Research Foundation of the National Council of Teachers of English and former co-chair of the NCTE Assembly on Research. Lee is also the author of Culture, Literacy and Learning: Taking Bloom in the Midst of the Whirlwind and Signifying as a Scaffold for Literary Interpretation: The Pedagogical Implications of an African American Discourse Genre.
"I can think of no one more deserving than Carol Lee of a Lifetime Achievement Award," Dean Penelope L. Peterson told the AACTE. "As director of the African-centered charter schools that her husband and she co-founded, ‘Mama Safisha' has changed the lives of thousands of African-American children and youth in Chicago over the last 30 years. As an internationally renowned researcher in teacher education who developed and implemented ‘cultural modeling' as a way to build on cultural and social strengths that urban youth bring to the classroom, Dr. Lee has profoundly affected the practices of numerous teachers, teacher educators and literacy researchers around the world. As an intellectual leader of numerous groups, professional societies and associations over her lifetime as well as a strong leader and esteemed professor on our university campus, Carol Lee inspires all of us."