Four candidates running for seats on TAA Council
TAA members Kevin Patton, Claudia Sanchez, Michael Spiegler and Lisa Storm are running for three open positions on the TAA Council, the association’s governing body.
Ballots were mailed to TAA members this week. Ballots must be postmarked by April 1 to ensure counting. Terms begin July 1, 2011.
 Kevin Patton |
Kevin Patton is currently serving his first one-year term as at-large-member of the TAA Council, where he has served on several committees. He is a founding faculty member of St. Charles Community College, where he is a professor of life science. He recently retired from a secondary appointment at St. Louis University Medical School. Patton has won a number of teaching awards, including the Missouri Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is president emeritus of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS) and was the founding director of HAPS Institute, a graduate-level education program for anatomy and physiology professors. He has authored and co-authored several popular textbooks, reference books, and lab manuals in human anatomy and physiology, including two TAA McGuffey Award winners. Kevin lives in Missouri near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
Patton’s position statement:
“TAA and its members have provided me with invaluable resources to enhance my textbook authorship. After many years of enjoying the benefits of TAA membership, this year I stepped up to serve a one-year term on the TAA Council, where I’m doing my small part in serving the organization that has served me so well. The leadership and service skills that I’ve acquired through decades of organizational involvement in other societies may be helpful in keeping TAA on the road of continuous improvement and expanded member services. Most importantly, I want to help ensure that we work hard to build and maintain a vibrant, diverse, and welcoming community of authors actively supporting one another’s growth as professional text and academic authors. If elected to serve on the TAA Council, I promise to listen carefully to the needs of our members, to consider them thoughtfully, and respond to them constructively.”
 Claudia Sanchez |
Claudia Sanchez is associate professor in the department of teacher education at Texas Woman’s University. Prior to her appointment at TWU, she taught and pursued graduate studies at Texas A&M-College Station, where she graduated with an M.S. in Curriculum and Instruction and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. As an academic author, her research interests include multicultural teacher competency, teaching methodologies, Spanish language literacy, and parental involvement in K-12 education. Sanchez is an active member of the American Psychological Association (APA), the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the International Reading Association (IRA), and the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) association. She has also authored and directed three federal grants totaling over 4 million dollars. The focus of these grants is the preparation of teachers in critical need areas for the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Sanchez’s position statement:
“I am currently a Council Member, and it is a great honor to serve TAA in this capacity.
I have been fortunate to work side by side with wonderful colleagues and mentors at TAA and it is my hope to continue to work together in order to fulfill TAA’s mission. As a Council Member, I would like to grow as a textbook author while promoting TAA among our new generations of text and academic authors. I have a special interest in attracting authors from diverse backgrounds to our Association because I strongly believe that the more diverse we are, the higher our potential for success, and the greater we can become. Thank you for considering my nomination. I look forward to continuing to work with TAA’s Council and our growing membership.”
 Michael Spiegler |
Michael Spiegler is professor of psychology at Providence College. He has been a successful textbook and academic author for more 40 years with several leading textbooks, including Contemporary Behavior Therapy (5/e) and Personality: Strategies and Issues (8/e). For 17 years, he has promoted excellence in college textbook writing through workshops and courses presented nationally and internationally. He regularly reviews manuscripts for publishers, is a consultant/mentor to college textbook authors in diverse disciplines, and is writing a comprehensive Handbook for College Textbook Writing. His contributions to TAA include offering TAA-sponsored textbook writing workshops, recruiting members, presenting and mentoring at the conference, presenting a TAA audio conference, and representing TAA as a consultant for a project to provide accessible e-books for college students with special needs. He has served on a variety of TAA committees, including three conference planning committees and the current Search Committee for a full-time executive director.
Spiegler’s position statement:
“Although I attended only one day at my first TAA conference, it was the most stimulating professional conference I have experienced. I was hooked and immediately became president of TAA—president of its Fan Club, that is. Since then, I’ve been actively involved in TAA in numerous ways (see my bio). I feel privileged to have served on TAA’s Council and Executive Council and am seeking another term so that I can continue contributing to TAA. Among the initiatives I will sponsor are TAA’s being more proactive in protecting authors’ rights (financial and otherwise); broadening TAA’s purview to other scholarly endeavors, including discipline-based writing for the public and conference presentations; recruiting more K–12 authors; further exploring the role of e-books; involving more TAA members who are not on the Council to serve on committees; and pairing new with ‘old’ members as welcoming ambassadors, which also might boost new-member retention.”
 Lisa Storm |
Lisa Storm is an author, educator, and attorney. She has taught Administration of Justice at Hartnell College since 1992. Along with her teaching responsibilities, she has been active on a plethora of campus committees and independent associations and consortiums. She is currently the chairperson of the campus Distance Education Committee, which enhances her expertise in the area of technology and online teaching pedagogy. She teaches online, hybrid, and face-to-face courses, and developed the only online Degree and accelerated online Degree Hartnell College offers. Storm recently wrote and published her textbook, Criminal Law, with Flat World Knowledge, Inc. Criminal Law can be read online, is interactive, and contains embedded links, videos, and multiple illustrations to target various learning styles. She hopes to inspire other academic authors to experiment with online interactivity and accessibility to expand the current educational landscape.
Storm’s position statement:
“If I am selected to be a member of the TAA Council I will do my utmost to advance the textbook and academic authoring industry. I have 20 years of experience serving on committees, and I understand the importance of research, communication, and collegiality. As a new author facing new challenges I hope to stay abreast of the groundbreaking developments in textbook publishing, and share my knowledge with the TAA Council. Technology, social media, online and hybrid courses, open education, and open educational resources will certainly alter textbook and academic writing and publishing as we know it, and it is imperative to stay engaged and informed. I would be honored to advocate for the textbook and academic authors community, and smooth the way for the valued members of this profession.”
TAA Governance Committee
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John Wakefield, Chair - jwakefie@msn.com Click for Bio |
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Fred Kleiner fsk@bu.edu Click for Bio |
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Robert Christopherson Click for Bio |
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Steve Gillen sgillen@whepatent.com Click for Bio |
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Ron Pynn rpynn@comcast.net Click for Bio |
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