University News
Adams Receives Nat'l Multicultural Educator Award
October 29, 2009
MACOMB, IL -- J.Q. Adams, educational psychology professor in Western Illinois University's department of educational and interdisciplinary studies (EIS), will receive the 2009 G. Pritchy Smith Multicultural Educator Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) Saturday, Oct. 31 at NAME's annual conference in Denver, CO.
The prestigious award is given each year to an educator who has demonstrated a "long-term, scholarly commitment to teaching from a multicultural perspective;" and who teaches the many facets of diversity, including race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation and exceptionality; models multicultural ideals in his life and work; and blends theory and practice effectively.
Adams joined Western's faculty in August 1988. Before coming to WIU, he served as director of Minority and Intercultural Affairs at Joliet (IL) Junior College, and at Illinois State, where he was the first director of the College of Education's Urban Education Program. He also was the community coordinator and team leader for ISU's Teacher Corps Project.
At Western, Adams regularly teaches "Multicultural and Social Foundations of Education," a required course for education majors. Among the graduate courses he teaches are "Implications of Diversity for Educational Leaders" and "Social Change and the Multicultural Aspects of School, " courses he helped create and implement.
Shortly after being appointed a faculty associate in WIU's Office of Faculty Development (now the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Research), Adams led a small group of faculty in the development and approval of a course in cultural diversity, "Group Diversity, CAS 210," which became a multicultural requirement in WIU's general education curriculum.
In the 1990s, Adams developed and taught "Dealing with Diversity," a 24-hour teleclass produced at Governors State University (GSU) and distributed through the PBS Adult Learning Service. The PBS Adult Learning Service also distributes the revised 2001 version of the course. Because of the success of the first two versions, a third has recently been produced and is currently being offered online through GSU.
Adams co-authored the grant, "Expanding Cultural Diversity in the Curriculum and in the Classroom," which the Illinois Board of Higher Education awarded Western annually for more than 10 years before adding the $50,000 to WIU's annual fiscal budget. Projects sponsored through the grant have included eight anthologies that Adams co-edited, more than 15 annual conferences he co-directed, and several video and DVD initiatives for which he served as researcher and on-screen instructor or interviewer. Adams' "Effective Strategies for Learning and Teaching about Diversity in the USA," a 10-hour course on DVD, offers an in-depth exploration and evaluation of the structure of society as it impacts schooling.
In addition, Adams has co-directed Western's annual Dealing with Difference Institute, and he has led numerous cultural diversity workshops both on- and off-campus.
"Dr. Adams' commitment to multiculturalism encompasses a willingness and an ability to review regularly new scholarship and research related to cultural diversity and education, to weigh its value in furthering an understanding and appreciation of diversity and to re-examine and revise his own thinking and approaches accordingly," said Janice Welsch, English professor emeritus and co-director of the Dealing with Difference Institute. "Over three decades of work in multicultural education, he has paid close attention to the overarching trajectories of cultural diversity as they have evolved nationally and globally and has been able to be a student as well as a teacher."
Adams recently received the WIU Provost's 2009 Excellence in Multicultural Teaching Award, and in 2008 the College of Education at Grand Valley State College (MI) recognized his accomplishments through its Distinguished Alumni Leadership In Education Award.
Adams earned his bachelor's degree in social studies and psychology from Grand Valley State College, his master's degree in alternative education and psychology from Indiana University and his doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Posted By: Darcie Shinberger (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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