D. Ray Reutzel is the Emma Eccles Jones Distinguished Professor and Endowed Chair of Early Childhood Education at Utah State University. Ray is a former Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Southern Utah University; Associate Dean of Teacher Education in the David O. McKay School of Education; and former Chair of the Department of Elementary Education at Brigham Young University. While at BYU, he was the recipient of the 1992 Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Research and Creative Arts Professor Award and was an integral part of developing BYU’s nationally celebrated Public School Partnership, the field–based Elementary Education program, the Center for Improvement of Teacher Education and Schooling (CITES) and the Utah/CITES Balanced Literacy initiative as a part of the U.S. and Utah’s Goals 2000 funding. He has served as technical assistant to the Reading Excellence Act and the Reading First federal reading reform projects in the state of Utah. Several years ago, he took a leave from his university faculty position to return to full–time, first–grade classroom teaching in Sage Creek Elementary School. Ray has taught in Kindergarten, 1st grade, 3rd grade, and 6th grade.
Dr. Reutzel is the author of more than 165 refereed research reports, articles, books, book chapters, and monographs published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Literacy Research, Journal of Educational Research, Reading Psychology, Reading Research and Instruction, Language Arts, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and The Reading Teacher, among others. He has received more than 5.5 million dollars in research/professional development funding from private, state, and federal funding agencies. He was recently awarded a 1 million dollar research grant as principal investigator under the Teacher Quality Research Program of the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
He is the past Editor of – Reading Research and Instruction, the journal of the College Reading Association. He is co–author, with Robert B. Cooter, Jr., of The Essentials for Teaching Children to Read, 2nd Ed, Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the Difference, 5th Edition and Strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction: Helping Every Child Succeed, 3rd Edition published by Merrill/Prentice–Hall. He has written a professional book entitled, Your Classroom Library: How to Give It More Teaching Power with Parker C. Fawson published by Scholastic, Inc. He is or has been a reviewer for The Reading Teacher, Reading Research Quarterly, Reading Psychology, Journal of Educational Research, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Reading Research and Instruction, Journal of Reading Behavior, Journal of Literacy Research and the Elementary School Journal. He was an author of Scholastic Incorporated's Literacy Place, 1996, 2000 ® school reading program
Dr. Reutzel received the A.B. Herr Award from the College Reading Association in 1999 for Outstanding Research and Published Contributions to Reading Education. He was the co–editor of the International Reading Association’s professional elementary section journal – The Reading Teacher – from 2002-2007. He was awarded the Researcher/Scholar of the Year Award by the College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University in May, 2004. And he was elected Vice–President of the College Reading Association in April of 2005 and will serve as that organization’s President in 2007. Dr. Reutzel was recognized as a recipient of the College of Education’s 2006 Distinguished Alumni Award at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming and is the D. Wynne Thorne Outstanding Career University Researcher Award recipient from Utah State University in April 2007. Dr. Reutzel was given the John C. Manning Public School Service Award from the International Reading Association in May 2007. Ray will also serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association from 2007-2010.
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 and then obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Mississippi. After graduation, Mr. Barksdale taught English for one year in a public high school in Jackson 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 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.
Claiborne Barksdale and his wife, Marian, are members of the PTA in Oxford. Marian serves on the Oxford School Board. Claiborne is president of the Board of the Mississippi Childrens’ Museum, is chairman of The Parents’ Campaign, serves on the board of the Boys’ and Girls’ Club in Oxford, and is former chair of the Greater Oxford Community Foundation. Claiborne and Marian have three children (Jack (17), Norma (15) and Mary Bryan (15).
Dr. Kris Kaase is the Deputy Superintendent for Instructional Programs and Services for the Mississippi Department of Education. In this capacity, he oversees curriculum, reading, vocational and technical education, special education, the Mississippi Virtual Public School, and the statewide assessment program. He joined the Mississippi Department of Education in 2002.
Over the last 19 years Dr. Kaase has had a wide variety of experiences involving curriculum, testing, evaluation, research, and school accountability at the school district, state department, and university levels in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Mississippi. In addition to his leadership at the Mississippi Department of Education, Dr. Kaase serves on the State Early Childhood Advisory Council, the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television Board, the Assessment Task Force for the National Center for Education Statistics, and on the National Assessment Governing Board Policy Task Force.
Dr. Kaase has a varied educational background in philosophy, educational administration, and sociology. He has three children that attended public school in Mississippi. He and his wife are adjusting to their children being in college and look forward to their children soon being on their own.
