Message from the Literacy Research Association Newsletter
We extend congratulations to Dr. Fenice Boyd, recipient of the 2016 Albert J. Kingston Award, in recognition for her service to the Literacy Research Association. Fenice Boyd is currently a Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Instruction and Teacher Education at the University of South Carolina. Previously, she was an Associate Professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction in the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo.
She earned a B.S. in Music Education and M.S. in Reading Education from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. She earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy with a specialty in Literacy Studies from Michigan State University.
Boyd’s scholarship focuses on equity and pushes the field toward a complex understanding of the historical, social, economic and political underpinnings of culture and language, and its relation to literacy learning and practices. She has a steadfast commitment to social justice teaching and a transformative mission that is instantiated in the implementation of an emancipatory curriculum.
She is a renowned scholar who has made significant and substantial contributions to the LRA organization and to the literacy field. Boyd’s track record clearly demonstrates evidence of a strong, deep, and lasting commitment of service to LRA throughout her career at different levels of the organization.
She has served on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Literacy Research (1996-2006) and has been an executive board member for the LRA Board of Directors from 2010-2013.
Without fail Boyd advances LRA members’ thinking by presenting her cutting-edge research on topics of multicultural and multi-literacies at the LRA Conference each year. Not a year has gone by that she has not presented one or more papers at the conference. Often, she has presented with students or beginning scholars who she has mentored into the LRA family. A true leader, Boyd’s mentees have gone on to make their own substantial contributions to LRA and to the field. Boyd has long exemplified a high level of commitment to providing service to LRA. She clearly recognizes the impact that LRA has on the field of literacy research and practice, and she has been steadfast in “giving back” to the organization at all levels. She has given decades of service to LRA, and has provided both distinguished service and leadership. Her efforts have continually inspired other scholars to follow her lead.