Awards

James R. Squire Award

 

2020 Recipient:Linda Flower, Carnegie Mellon

 

 

Linda Flower is a Professor of Rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon whose work combines inquiry into cognition and local public rhetoric. Her initial research into social-cognitive processes lead to studies of how students actually thought their way through a writing task, pointing to new ways to teach the art of rhetorical problem-solving (Problem-Solving Strategies for Writing in College and Community; The Construction of Negotiated Meaning: A Social Cognitive Theory of Writing; and  Learning to Rival: A Literate Practice for Intercultural Inquiry).

With the creation of Pittsburgh’s Community Literacy Center, these insights supported community writers as rhetorical agents engaged in social action (Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Public Engagement). Her research in intercultural inquiry helped the CLC organize deliberative local publics on problems facing urban workplaces, schools, and colleges. Designed as a cross-hierarchy, cross-cultural practice, these Community Think Tanks have given an articulated presence to the unrecognized expertise of people from nursing aides, to high schoolers dealing with a learning disability, to low income “independent” college students (www.cmu.edu/thinktank). Working with college students in these endeavors led to a new study of the lasting impact and unrecognized outcomes community engaged education offers. The study (Engaged Education: From Transfer to Transformation) describes a variety of methods for these tracking learning outcomes, up to 10 years later, with case studies of students who often go beyond transfer to self-consciously transforming their experience into socially valued skills, from leadership to collaborating across difference.

Learn more about Linda Flower.

 

Award Details

Overview:
The James R. Squire Award, formally called the NCTE Executive Committee Award, was established in 1967. In 1999, the Executive Committee renamed the award to honor former Executive Secretary, James R. Squire, for his contributions to NCTE and the profession at large.

This award is given by the Executive Committee in recognition of outstanding service, not only to the stature and development of NCTE and the discipline which it represents, but also to the profession of education as a whole, internationally as well as nationally.

Criteria:
The James R. Squire Award is a special award given to an NCTE member who has had a transforming influence and has made a lasting intellectual contribution to the profession. We remind nominators, nominees, and selection committee members that members of NCTE Conferences—CCCC, CEL, ELATE, LLA, and TYCA—are members, by definition, of NCTE.

Current NCTE Executive Committee members are not eligible for this award. Recipients for this award are not eligible to receive any other Executive Committee approved awards in the same year, nor in the following year.

The NCTE James R. Squire Award does not need to be awarded each year. This award should be bestowed only when the subcommittee decides that nominations warrant presentation of the award. Only one recipient will be selected each year.

Nomination deadline is May 1

Selection Committee:
The selection committee will consist of the outgoing Past President and a committee of three Past Presidents of the Council appointed by the outgoing Past President.

New for 2020: In order to widen the candidate pool, the selection committee welcomes nominations from NCTE members.

The James R. Squire award selection committee will select an award recipient and the Executive Committee will approve the committee’s selection at an Executive Committee meeting.

 

The nomination period will open in the spring of 2021. Please contact NCTEAwards@ncte.org with any questions.