Authors Biographies

Karen Backlund is the JOBS Coordinator at Adult Learning Programs of Alaska, where she has worked since 1992. Backlund, involved in ABE since 1984, has also worked as an instructor, trainer, and program manager in ABE programs in Minnesota and Louisiana.

Eileen Barry is a teacher of ESOL, pre GED, and GED at the Worker Education Program, part of the Labor Education Center at Umass, Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Barry, who is currently teaching a Family Literacy class, is also a doctoral candidate at the Reading / Writing / Literacy Program at University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

Bob Bickerton, Director of Adult Education at the Massachusetts Department of Education, has worked as an ABE volunteer coordinator, teacher, teacher-trainer, curriculum developer, and program director in numerous community-based organizations. Bickerton has also served as legislative chair for two national ABE organizations: National Council of State Directors and the American Association of Adult and Continuing Education. Bickerton has been in the ABE field for 26 years.

Kathy Bond has been an ABE instructor at Adult Learning Programs of Alaska since 1991. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. She currently teaches Mathematics, Grammar and Writing on the Computer, and Computer application classes. Bond has also taught all manners of GED subjects in the Open Study Lab.

John Comings is Director of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy. He has 25 years of experience working in adult education in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. His present research and writing is focused on factors that lead to achievement and persistence in adult literacy and secondary education programs.

Glynda Hull is Associate Professor of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Hull has conducted numerous qualitative studies related to adult education, including research on vocational programs, literacy, and high performance workplaces. She co-authored with James Paul Gee and Colin Lankshear The New Work Order: Behind the Language of the New Capitalism (1996, Westview), and her edited collection, forthcoming from SUNY Press, Changing Work, Changing Workers: Critical Perspectives on Language, Literacy, and Skills.

Susan L. Lytle, an associate professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, directs the master's and doctoral programs in Reading / Writing / Literacy and The Philadelphia Writing Project. She has been working with adult literacy educators for over a decade in inquiry-based collaborative field-university partnerships focused on issues of literacy, culture, and social justice.

Juliet Merrifield has been a researcher and an adult educator for 20 years. Formerly Director of the Center for Literacy Studies at the University of Tennessee, she now lives and works as a consultant in Brighton, England, and is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Continuing Education, University of Sussex.

Richard Murnane, an economist, is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For the last three years, Murnane has been studying whether acquisition of a GED improves labor market outcomes for school dropouts. Murnane's newest book, with M.I.T. economist Frank Levy, is entitled Teaching the New Basic Skills (Free Press, 1996).

Cristine Smith, Coordinator of World Education's work for the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy, coordinates dissemination activities under NCSALL and directs a NCSALL-sponsored study exploring the impact of staff development in adult basic education. Smith also oversees World Education's South Asia projects.

Grace Temple, Director of the Adult Literacy Program for Sanilac, Michigan, has been involved in the ABE field for ten years. Temple serves on two state boards, Michigan Adult Curriculum and Coalition of Older Adults and is on the executive planning committee for Commission on Adult Basic Education (COABE) 97.

Thomas Valentine has been in the ABE field for 20 years. He has been a teacher and program director, and now he co-directs ABE staff development for Georgia and is an associate professor of adult education at the University of Georgia.