Robert B. Cooter, Jr. | Claiborne Barksdale | Laurie Parker
Dr. Robert B. Cooter, Jr. holds the position Distinguished Professor of Urban Literacy Research at The University of Memphis. Professor Cooter teachers courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels in reading/literacy education, and mentors master’s and doctoral-level students interested in Reading/Literacy Education research, policies, and practices in urban settings. His primary research focus pertains to research-based reading instruction for children living at the poverty level. In November 2007, Robert Cooter, and colleagues J. Helen Perkins and Kathleen Cooter, received the 2007 Urban Impact Award from the Council of Great City Schools for their work creating and implementing the Memphis Literacy Academy for teacher capacity-building in high poverty schools.
In March of 2006, Robert Cooter and J. Helen Perkins, also of The University of Memphis, were selected by the International Reading Association to serve as editors through 2011 of The Reading Teacher, the largest literacy education journal in the world.
In higher education administration, Professor Cooter has previously served as departmental chair at Texas Christian University (Curriculum & Instruction), Southern Methodist University (Teacher Education), and The University of Memphis (Instruction and Curriculum Leadership). Dr. Cooter also served as Dean of the College of Education at Austin Peay State University (Tennessee).
Professor Cooter founded the award-winning Memphis Literacy Academy, an outreach program in Memphis City Schools dedicated to raising the expertise and of hundreds of inner-city teachers of reading, and is also co-principal investigator for the Memphis Striving Readers Program (grades 6-9 content areas), a $16 million middle school literacy research project in Memphis City Schools funded under a major grant by the U.S. Department of Education for 2006-2011. Dr. Cooter formerly served as the first “Reading Czar” (associate superintendent) for the Dallas Independent School District (TX) and engineered the district’s highly acclaimed Dallas Reading Plan involving the training of approximately 3,000 teachers in “comprehensive literacy instruction.”
Cooter has authored or co-authored more than 60 journal articles and some 19 books in reading education. His books include the best-selling Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the Difference, 5th ed. (Merrill/Prentice Hall), an evidence-based reading (SBRR) text currently used at over 200 universities; Strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction: Helping Every Child Succeed (Merrill/Prentice Hall) which is at present the top text in reading assessment in the U.S., Perspectives on Rescuing Urban Literacy Education: Spies, Saboteurs, & Saints (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), The Flynt/Cooter Reading Inventory for the Classroom (Merrill/Prentice-Hall), and the new Comprehensive Reading Inventory (Merrill/Prentice Hall), a norm-referenced reading assessment for classroom use.
Claiborne Barksdale is CEO of the Barksdale Reading Institute in Oxford, Mississippi. Mr. Barksdale, a native of Jackson, graduated from the public schools in Jackson then obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Mississippi. After graduation, Mr. Barksdale taught high school English for one year and then attended the University of Mississippi School of Law, from which he graduated in 1974.
Mr. Barksdale practiced law in Jackson, worked in Washington, D. C., for U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, and clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Mr. Barksdale served as Associate General Counsel for BellSouth Cellular Corporation in Atlanta, Georgia, before assuming his present position as CEO for the Barksdale Reading Institute in August of 2000.
The Barksdale Reading Institute was endowed by Jim and Sally Barksdale in January 2000 to work with Mississippi public schools to improve the reading skills of preK-3rd grade students.
Claiborne Barksdale and his wife, Marian, are members of the PTA in Oxford. Marian serves on the Oxford School Board. Claiborne is co-chair of the Boys’ and Girls’ Club in Oxford and former chair of the Greater Oxford Community Foundation. Claiborne and Marian have three children (Jack (15), Norma (13) and Mary Bryan (13).
Back to top.Starkville, Mississippi native and resident Laurie Parker received her degree in Elementary Education in 1985 from Mississippi State University, where she later also studied Engineering. But Parker is an artist at heart, and for the past fifteen years has made her living being just that! She has enjoyed writing rhyming narratives, lyrics, and verse since early childhood. Another of her long-time favorite pastimes is cutting and pasting paper to create collages. These talents have translated into her writing and illustrating ten books. Being an author supplements her primary source of income, which is selling her artwork at juried art shows and retail events throughout the South. A fellow member of the Mississippi Craftsmen's Guild, Laurie is known by many for her popular line of whimsical handmade pins. She also sells matted prints of her unique collage artwork.
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