The Edgar W. Couper Endowment Fund for Educational Excellence provides Couper Fellowships annually to one or more full-time students in Binghamton University's doctoral program in Educational Theory and Practice and supports the annual Couper Lecture.
The fellowships and the lecture honor the late Edgar W. Couper, a successful businessman, recognized community leader and pioneer of New York public higher education. Chairman of the "Committee of 100" that was responsible for the founding in 1950 of what is now Binghamton University, State University of New York, he was a member of the New York State Board of Regents from 1951 to 1968, and served as its chancellor from 1961 to 1968.
Following his death at age 88 in 1988, Couper's family and friends honored him for his educational vision and leadership by establishing the Edgar W. Couper Endowment Fund for Educational Excellence at Binghamton University.
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Cancelled due to COVID-19 (2020)
As a result of COVID-19, there was no 2020 Couper Lecture.
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Carol D. Lee (2019)
Carol D. Lee is the Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education in the School of Education and Social Policy and in African-American Studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, U.S.A. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She is a past president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), AERA's past representative to the World Educational Research Association, past vice-president of Division G (Social Contexts of Education) of the American Educational Research Association, past president of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy, and past co-chair of the Research Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English. She is a member of the National Academy of Education in the United States, a fellow of the American Educational Research Association, a fellow of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy, and a former fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences. She is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the National Council of Teachers of English, Scholars of Color Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association, the Walder Award for Research Excellence at Northwestern University, the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Illinois-Urbana, The President's Pacesetters Award from the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education and an honorary doctorate from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She has led three international delegations in education on behalf of the People to People's Ambassador Program to South Africa and the People's Republic of China. She is the author or co-editor of three books, the most recent Culture, Literacy and Learning: Taking Bloom in the Midst of the Whirlwind, 4 monographs, and has published over 62 journal articles and book or handbook chapters in the field of education. Her research addresses cultural supports for learning that include a broad ecological focus, with attention to language and literacy and African-American youth. Her career spans a 48 year history, including work as an English Language Arts teacher at the high school and community college levels, a primary grade teacher, and a university professor. She is a founder of four African centered schools that span a 40 year history, including three charter schools under the umbrella of the Betty Shabazz International Charter Schools where she serves as chair of the Board of Directors.
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Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie (2018)
Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie is Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Sam Houston State University. In addition, he is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg. He teaches doctoral-level courses in qualitative research, quantitative research, and mixed research, as well as teacher education courses and educational psychology courses. His research areas primarily involve social and behavioral science topics, including disadvantaged and under-served populations such as minorities, children living in war zones, and students with special needs. Also, he has conducted numerous research studies on factors that predict educational achievement at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. Dr. Onwuegbuzie is passionate about mixed methods research (i.e., combining quantitative and qualitative research approaches), writing numerous book chapters, encyclopedia chapters, and articles on this topic across several disciplines. Dr. Onwuegbuzie has secured the publication of more than 400 works, including more than 300 journal articles, 50 book chapters, and 3 books. Additionally, he has delivered more than 750 presentations and 100 workshops worldwide that include more than 50 keynote addresses across six continents. Many of his articles have been the most read and cited among articles in their respective journals. For example, his mixed research article published in ER is the most cited ER article ever. Dr. Onwuegbuzie received an AERA Distinguished Scholar Award from the Stress and Coping Special Interest Group for his contribution to the field of stress and coping. Also, he served as a Distinguished Mentor for the Community of Interest on Mixed Methods Research for Division D. Currently, he serves as President of the Mixed Methods International Research Association. As a person of color with an extensive publication record and, as an active member of AERA, Dr. Onwuegbuzie is in a unique position to pursue his overall goal, which is to be a role model for beginning researchers and students worldwide—especially those who characterize underrepresented populations (e.g., minorities).
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Ernest Morrell (2017)
Ernest Morrell is the Macy Professor of Education and Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is also a Class of 2014 Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and a Past-President of the National Council of Teachers of English. Dr. Morrell's research focuses on drawing upon youth's interest in popular culture and participatory media technologies to promote academic and critical literacy development, civic engagement and college access. He is also recognized nationally for developing powerful models of teaching and learning in classrooms and non-school environments and for engaging districts, schools, and communities in the project of educational reform.
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David C. Berliner (2016)
David C. Berliner is Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Education at Arizona State University. He has taught at the University of Arizona, University of Massachusetts, Teachers College and Stanford University, as well as universities in Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.
Berliner is a member of the National Academy of Education (NEA), the International Education Academy (IEA), a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a past president of both the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Division of Educational Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA). He is the recipient of awards for distinguished contributions from APA, AERA and the National Education Association (NEA).
Berliner is co-author (with B. J. Biddle) of the best seller The Manufactured Crisis, co-author (with Ursula Casanova) of Putting Research to Work, and co-author (with N. L. Gage) of six editions of the textbook Educational Psychology. He is co-editor of the first Handbook of Educational Psychology and the books Talks to Teachers, and Perspectives on Instructional Time. His newest book, Collateral Damage (with Sharon Nichols) is about the corruption of professional educators through high-stakes testing. Berliner has also authored more than 200 published articles, technical reports and book chapters.
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Jonathan Zimmerman (2015)
Jonathan Zimmerman is professor of education and history, serving jointly in the Department of History (FAS) and in the Department of the Humanities and Social Sciences in the Professions (Steinhardt). His research has focused on the ways that state schools shape citizens and cultures in the 20th century. He is currently working on two books: a global history of sex education and a history of academic freedom in American public schools. Zimmerman is the co-editor of two book series: American Institutions and Society (Cornell University Press) and History and Philosophy of Education (University of Chicago Press). Zimmerman has authored more than 300 oped pieces in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major newspapers and magazines. He is also featured on a bi-monthly radio show, "That's History," on Philadelphia's National Public Radio affiliate. -
Christine Sleeter (2014)
Christine E. Sleeter is professor emerita in the College of Professional Studies at California State University Monterey Bay, where she was a founding faculty member. She has served as a visiting professor at Victoria University in New Zealand, San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, and the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research focuses on anti-racist education and multicultural teacher education. She has published over 100 articles in edited books and journals such as Journal of Teacher Education, Race Ethnicity & Education, and Teaching and Teacher. Her most recent book is Power, Teaching, and Teacher Education (Peter Lang). Awards for her work include the American Educational Research Association Social Justice Award, the Division K Teaching and Teacher Education Legacy Award, and the Chapman University Paulo Freire Education Project Social Justice Award. Sleeter Presentation
2013 - The 2013 Annual Couper Lecture was cancelled due to illness of the presenter.
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Maris Vinovskis (2012)
Maris Vinovskis holds academic appointments in both the Department of History and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. His work is in many areas including the history of education, public policy, and population and adolescent pregnancy issues. He has authored ten books and edited seven others. His most recent book is entitled From a Nation at Risk to No Child Left Behind. He served on the U.S. House Select Committee on Population in 1978 and was a consultant to the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the early 1980s. He also worked in the U.S. Department of Education in both the Clinton and Bush (II) administrations. -
Russell Skiba (2011)
Russell Skiba is a professor in the School Psychology program at Indiana University. He received his doctorate in special education from the University of Minnesota in 1987. He has worked with schools across the country in the areas of disproportionality, school discipline, and school violence, has been project director or principal coordinator on numerous federal and state grants, and has published extensively in the areas of school violence, zero tolerance, and equity in education. Skiba is currently Director of the Equity Project, a consortium of research projects offering evidence-based information to educators and policymakers on equity in special education and school discipline. He was a member of the writing team that produced the U.S. Department of Education's document on school safety Early Warning, Timely Response, and a member and lead author of the American Psychological Association's Task Force on Zero Tolerance. In Indiana, he served in 2008 as co-chair of the Education Subcommittee of the Indiana Commission on Disproportionality in Youth Services, a statewide commission that led to the passage of three bills addressing disproportionality in education. Skiba has testified before the United States Civil Rights Commission, spoken before both Houses of Congress on issues of school discipline and school violence, and in 2008, acted as a special consultant to OSEP on issues of disproportionality and equity in special education. He was awarded the Push for Excellence Award by the Rainbow Coalition/Operation PUSH for his work on African American disproportionality in school suspension. In his current research, he is seeking to implement a statewide network of culturally responsive positive behavior supports to address issues of disciplinary disproportionality, and conducting case study research to better understand the factors that contribute to racial and ethnic over-representation in suspension and expulsion. -
Daniel T. Willingham (2010)
Daniel T. Willingham earned his BA from Duke University in 1983 and his PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Harvard University in 1990. He is currently professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1992. Until about 2000, his research focused solely on the brain basis of learning and memory. Today, all of his research concerns the application of cognitive psychology to K-12 education. He writes the "Ask the Cognitive Scientist" column for American Educator magazine, and blogs at the Washington Post. He is also the author of Why Don't Students Like School? (Jossey-Bass). His writing on education has been (or is being) translated into Chinese, French, Korean, Thai, Portuguese and Russian. -
William J. Reese (2009)
William J. Reese is the Carl F. Kaestle WARF Professor of Educational Policy Studies and History. He teaches courses on the undergraduate and graduate levels on the history of American education and the history of childhood and adolescence. Recent books include America's Public Schools: From the Common School to "No Child Left Behind" and a co-edited volume entitled Rethinking the History of American Education. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. -
James A. Banks (2008)
James A. Banks is the Kerry and Linda Killinger Professor of Diversity Studies and Director of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington, Seattle. Banks has pursued questions related to education, racial inequality and social justice in more than 100 journal articles and 20 books. His books include Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies (8th edition), Educating Citizens in a Multicultural Society (2nd edition), Diversity and Citizenship Education: Global Perspectives, and Race, Culture, and Education: The Selected Works of James A. Banks. He is the editor of the Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education (2nd edition), and the forthcoming Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education.
Widely regarded as a founder of multicultural education, Banks holds honorary doctorates from the Bank Street College of Education (New York), the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, DePaul University, Lewis and Clark College, and Grinnell College. His research on how educational institutions can improve race and ethnic relations has greatly influenced schools, colleges and universities throughout the Untied States and the world. During fall semester 2007, Banks was the Tisch Distinguished Visiting Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. -
Lee Galda (2007)
Lee Galda has taught children’s and adolescent literature since 1979, and is currently a professor at the University of Minnesota. She is a national expert on children’s literature and coauthor of one of the definitive textbooks for preparing new teachers, Literature and the Child. Her influence has spread to hundreds of schools, school districts, state departments of education, universities and national organizations. Galda has been fascinated by the way young people read and respond to the literature available to them, and, beginning with her dissertation research, has been exploring young people’s responses since 1980. Galda has studied how three fifth-grade readers created meaning in what they read, conducted longitudinal research with middle-school readers in fourth to ninth grade, observed children learning to read and write in a literature-based classroom across the course of their first-grade year, and spent a year documenting what happened in a second-grade book discussion group. She volunteers in the public schools, working on literacy tasks with elementary school children and with their teacher on infusing more literature into the curriculum. This work directly connects to her teaching at the University.
She has written 10 books on children’s literature and teaching, 34 articles in scholarly journals, 36 book chapters, and many reviews of children’s and adolescent literature. She served on the 2003 Newbery Award selection committee. Galda very much enjoys writing with her current and former graduate students and does so frequently. -
Lisa D. Delpit (2005)
Lisa D. Delpit is the executive director/eminent scholar for the Center for Urban Education & Innovation at Florida International University, Miami, Florida. She is the former holder of the Benjamin E. Mays Chair of Urban Educational Excellence at Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia. Originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she is a nationally and internationally-known speaker and writer whose work has focused on the education of children of color and the perspectives, aspirations and pedagogy of teachers of color. Delpit's work on school-community relations and cross-cultural communication was cited as a contributor to her receiving a MacArthur Genius Award in 1990. Delpit describes her strongest focus as "...finding ways and means to best educate urban students, particularly African-American, and other students of color." She has used her training in ethnographic research to spark dialogues between educators on issues that have impact on students typically least well-served by our educational system.
Delpit is particularly interested in teaching and learning in multicultural societies, having spent time studying these issues in Alaska, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and in various urban and rural sites in the United States. She received a BS degree from Antioch College and an MEd and EdD from Harvard University. Her background is in elementary education with an emphasis on language and literacy development. Her book, Other People’s Children, has received the American Educational Studies Association’s “Book Critic Award,” Choice Magazine’s Eighth Annual Outstanding Academic Book Award, and has been named A Great Book” by Teacher Magazine. Some of her other publications include: The Real Ebonics Debate: Power, Language, and the Education of African-American Children; and The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom. -
Andy Hargreaves (2004)
Andy Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair of Education in the Lynch Graduate School of Education at Boston College. Before this he was the founder and co-director of the International Centre for Educational Change at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto). Until he moved to North America in 1987, Hargreaves taught primary school and lectured in several English universities, including Oxford. He has held visiting professorships and fellowships in England, Australia, Sweden, Spain, the United States, Hong Kong and Japan. He is holder of the Canadian Education Association/Whitworth 2000 Award for outstanding contributions to educational research in Canada. His book, Changing Teachers, Changing Times received the 1995 Outstanding Writing Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Among his other recent books are Teaching In The Knowledge Society: Education In The Age Of Insecurity, and Learning to Change: Teaching Beyond Subjects and Standards, Jossey-Bass, 2001 (with Lorna Earl, Shawn Moore and Susan Manning).
Hargreaves was the invited editor of the 1997 ASCD Yearbook, he initiated and coordinated the editing of the International Handbook of Educational Change (Kluwer 1998) and he is founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Educational Change (published by Kluwer). Hargreaves’ work has been translated extensively into more than a dozen languages. His current research interests include the emotions of teaching and leading and the sustainability of educational change and leadership. He is married, with two adult children. He is an avid hiker and inveterate supporter of Burnley Football Club in the UK. -
Michelle Fine (2003)
Michelle Fine is a professor of social psychology, urban education and women’s studies at the Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York.
Her research interests revolve broadly around the questions of social injustice: when do we perceive social arrangements as unjust, and when do we blame victims? What are the contexts in which injustice is most pronounced and what are the ideological conditions in which unjust arrangements appear simply fair or deserved? These are the questions she asks in her work with public high schools, prisons and youth in urban communities. More specifically, she is a social psychologist engaged with both qualitative and quantitative methods, studying when injustice is perceived, when it is resisted and how it is negotiated by those who pay the most serious price for social inequities. Her research is typically participatory, with youth and/or activists, drawing from feminist, critical race and critical theories. All of her projects are collaboratively conducted with graduate students, and one of her great professional pleasures is helping to nurture the next generation of critical intellectuals. -
Margaret D. LeCompte (2002)
Margaret D. LeCompte is professor of educational foundations and sociology in the Graduate School of Education, University of Colorado-Boulder. She is internationally known as one of the leading proponents of qualitative and ethnographic research and evaluation in education.
She is the co-author of Ethnography and Qualitative Design in Educational Research, co-editor of The Handbook of Qualitative Research in Education, and co-author and co-editor of the seven volume set, The Ethnographer's Toolkit. Her research also includes studies in the problems of school reform and school organization, and retention of at-risk, ethnically diverse, gifted and language minority students. This work can be found in published articles and book chapters, as well as in the books Giving Up On School and The Way Schools Work.
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Carl Glickman (2001)
Carl Glickman is university professor, professor of social foundations of education and chair of the program for School Improvement at the University of Georgia. Glickman serves in leadership roles on university, state and national commissions to improve schools, teacher education and academic programs. He is on the board of the National Commission of Learning In Deed — a countrywide initiative to revitalize democratic citizenry by connecting student academic learning with service to local communities.
Glickman has authored 12 books and numerous articles, studies and essays. His books have been cited as standards for all those committed to the public purpose of education. His lecture, "Dichomotizin Education: Why No One Wins and America Loses," explained the criteria of "public," varying conceptions of an educated student and core aspiration of members of schools and communities.
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James Paul Gee (2000)
James Paul Gee is the Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Prior to coming to Madison, he was a professor of linguistics at the University of Southern California and later the Jacob Hiatt Professor of Urban Education at Clark University. He has conducted research in psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and applications of linguistics to literacy and education. In his most recent work he has focused on the so-called "new capitalism" and its cognitive, social and political implications for literacy and schooling. Gee has published widely in journals in linguistics, psychology, the social sciences and education. His books include Sociolinguistics and Literacies; The Social Mind; The New Work Order: Behind the Language of the New Capitalism (co-authored); and An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. -
Nel Noddings (1999)
Nel Noddings is Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education, emerita, at Stanford University and professor of philosophy and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is past president of the Philosophy of Education Society and of the John Dewey Society and has authored nine books, among them, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, Women and Evil, The Challenge to Care in Schools, Educating for Intelligent Belief or Unbelief, and Philosophy of Education. She is the author of more than 125 articles and chapters on various topics ranging from the ethics of care to mathematical problem solving.
Noddings spent 15 years as a teacher, administrator and curriculum developer in public schools; she served as a mathematics department chairperson in New Jersey and as director of the Laboratory Schools at the University of Chicago. At Stanford, she received the Award for Teaching Excellence three times, most recently in 1997. She also served as associate dean and as acting dean at Stanford for four years. Her lecture was titled "Pulling Back from the Brink: Re-Thinking Standards."
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Gloria Ladson-Billings (1998)
Gloria Ladson-Billings is professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ladson-Billings is well known for her influential book, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children (1994), in which she explores the notion of "culturally relevant pedagogy." She is also co-editor (with Carl Grant) of the Dictionary of Multicultural Education (1998). Her lecture was titled "Can I Ask You a Hard Question?: Preparing to Meet the Educational Needs of All Students." -
Yvonna S. Lincoln (1997)
Yvonna S. Lincoln is professor of educational administration at Texas A&M University. Lincoln has co-authored (with Egon Guba) Effective Evaluation (1981) and Naturalistic Inquiry (1985), as well as co-edited (with Norman Denzin) the Handbook of Qualitative Research (1994). She has been honored with awards by the American Evaluation Association, the American Educational Research Association, the Association for Institutional Research and the Association for the Study of Higher Education. Her lecture was titled "From Understanding to Action: New Imperatives, New Criteria, New Methods for Interpretive Researchers." -
Ann Lieberman (1996)
Ann Lieberman, professor and co-director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST) at Teachers College, Columbia University, was the 1996 Couper Lecturer. Lieberman served as president of the American Educational Research Association in 1992 and has published books including Building a Professional Culture in Schools (1988), Staff Development for Education in the '90s: New Demands, New Realities, New Perspectives (1991, with Lynne Miller), and The Work of Restructuring Schools (1995). Lieberman's lecture was titled "Tensions of School Reform: Problems and Possibilities." -
Maxine Greene (1995)
Maxine Greene is professor emerita of philosophy and education and William F. Russell Professor in the foundations of education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Greene is the author of several books, including The Public School and the Private Vision (1965), Teacher as Stranger (1973), Landscapes for Learning (1978), The Dialectic of Freedom (1988) and Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts and Social Change (1995). Her lecture was titled "Dialogues, Plurality and the School: Opening Spaces." -
Michael W. Apple (1994)
Michael W. Apple, professor of curriculum and instruction and educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was the second Couper Lecturer. Apple is the author of numerous books, including Ideology and Curriculum (1979), Education and Power (1982), Teachers and Texts: A Political Economy of Class and Gender Relations in Education (1986) and Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age (1993). His lecture was titled "The Politics of Educational Reform."
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Vera John-Steiner (1993)
Vera John-Steiner, professor of educational foundations and linguistics at the University of New Mexico, gave the first annual Couper Lecture on April 26, 1993. A prolific author, John-Steiner received the prestigious William James Award from the American Psychological Association for her book Notebooks of the Mind (1990). She is also the translator and co-editor of Lev Vygotsky's Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Her lecture was titled "Cognitive Pluralism in a Culturally Diverse Society."
