Skip to main content

Katherine Schultz

University of Colorado Boulder

Katherine Schultz is Dean and Professor of Education at the University of Colorado, Boulder School of Education. Prior to this appointment, she was Dean of the School of Education at Mills College. She served as professor and director of the teacher education program at the University of Pennsylvania from 1997-2010 where she founded and directed the Center for Collaborative Research and Practice in Teacher Education. From 2008-2010, she was a member of a three-person empowerment (school) board of the Chester Upland School District, a high poverty school district outside of Philadelphia. During this time, she was also the faculty director of the Philadelphia Writing Project. Her three-year term as Vice President of Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education of the American Education Research Association began in April 2016. She served as President of the Council on Anthropology and Education from 2010-2011. Her goal as scholar, researcher, and practitioner has been to understand how to prepare and support teachers to enter and remain in challenging urban contexts. In particular, her work has focused on the research, development, and dissemination of pedagogical practices that support new and veteran teachers working with marginalized populations in high poverty areas. Her two recent books address these issues. In Listening: A framework for teaching across differences, she elaborated a framework for conceptualizing teaching as fundamentally based on listening to students. Rethinking classroom participation: Listening to silent voices adds to this work through an exploration of the meanings and uses of silence in teaching and learning. Her current research projects analyze new teachers’ perspectives on learning to teach across multiple pathways. Related to this work is an interest in professional development that supports and sustains teachers in urban settings in the U.S. and across the world. She is currently working on a book on the role of distrust in educational reform drawing on her work in Oakland and as a school board member and leader of professional development in international settings. As Dean of Mills College School of Education, she was actively engaged in the Oakland community, establishing the Center for Urban Schools and Partnerships, co-chairing the Oakland Education Cabinet with the mayor and superintendent, and serving on several advisory committees including the leadership team for full service community schools. A co-founder of the Urban Teacher Educators Consortium and Deans for Justice and Equity, she is committed to the preparation and ongoing support of teacher educators through thoughtful research and practice.

Email Katherine Schultz at: Katherine.Schultz@colorado.edu