Linda McCuen
Department chairwoman, College of Education for Children with Exceptional Needs
Anderson University
Anderson

Linda McCuen has devoted all of her professional life to helping children. For more than 30 years, she taught children with special needs in the suburbs of Atlanta. After retiring in 2003 from the public system, McCuen came to Anderson University, where she sponsors the Anderson University Education Club and the Anderson University Chapter of the Council of Exceptional Children and is professor of a variety of courses for pre-
service candidates majoring in special education. McCuen also is a board member for both the Success by Six Program and the Community Impact Board for the United Way. McCuen volunteers for the Special Olympics and for the annual Buddy Walk of Anderson.

Janis McWayne
Assistant professor of education
Francis Marion University
Florence

Janis McWayne is also the coordinator of the gender studies program. McWayne joined the FMU faculty in 2003, after  completing her doctorate in health promotion education and behavior from the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. She also earned a master’s degree from USC and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado. A native of Benson, Vt., she also has been a clinical researcher with Medical Health and Research Associates in New York, N.Y., a clinical assistant at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Md., and an interviewer with Battelle Survey Research Associates at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

mutindi mumbua kiluva ndunda
Associate professor
Department of Educational Foundations in the School of Education, Health and Human Performance
College of Charleston
Charleston

Born in Kenya, mutindi mumbua kiluva ndunda received enough financial support from her brother to pursue a high school education. She received a doctorate in educational policy studies from the University of British Columbia and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and chemistry. She has taught in high schools in Kenya and in Canada, with the goal of intervening for all students to give them educational opportunities similar to the ones she received. Through the Center for Partnerships to Improve Education, ndunda has worked with students and math teachers at Burke High School, supporting the teachers to design learning environments and to use strategies that make mathematics accessible to their students. In December 2007, ndunda is leading a group of College of Charleston students on a service learning program to Kenya to build an orphanage and clinic for children, most of whom have lost their parents to AIDS.

Michael J. Padilla
Director, Eugene T. Moore School of Education and associate dean of educational collaborations, Clemson University
Clemson

Michael J. Padilla is a recent president of the National Science Teachers Association, the world’s largest
science-teaching organization. He’s been principal investigator of three National Science Foundation and other grants for more than $32 million in funding with a focus on English Language Learners through the Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education. Padilla was recognized as the Aderhold Distinguished Professor in the College of Education and received the Walter B. Hill Award for Distinguished Achievement in Public Service and the NSTA Distinguished Service Award. Under his leadership, the School of Education will focus on literacy, math, science and technology.  

Russell R. Pate
Professor, exercise science
University of South Carolina-Columbia

Russell R. Pate is a professor in the Department of Exercise Science and director of the Children’s Physical Activity Research Group, Arnold School of Public Health. He has more than 25 years of experience studying physical activity and physical fitness in children and youth. Pate’s research focuses on helping children and adolescents, and particularly girls and young women, to become more physically active. Pate is also the principal investigator of the South Carolina field center of the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls, a NIH-funded multi-center study designed to increase physical activity in middle school girls. 

Ron Prinz
Professor, psychology
University of South Carolina-Columbia

Ron Prinz is a Carolina Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology and the director of the USC Research Consortium on Children and Families. Prinz is co-editor-in-chief of the Springer scientific journal Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, and has served on NIH grant review panels and several journal editorial boards. He is directing grant research projects on parenting interventions, media-based family interventions, and long-term prevention of social, emotional and behavioral problems in childhood and adolescence, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lesley Quast
Assistant academic dean
Furman University

Lesley Quast, an assistant academic dean at Furman, has taught in the education department since 1976. She has served as chair of the department, director of Teacher Education and coordinator for the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. Her research focuses on the education of students who display exceptionalities in the classroom, and how to prepare teachers to be culturally responsive. Quast helped initiate the state’s “Teacher to Teacher” program in 1999, and has served as the liaison between South Carolina and the National Network for Educational Renewal (1991-2006). A graduate of St. Andrews Presbyterian College, she received her master’s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and her Ed.D. from the University of Alabama.

David Reinking
Professor, Clemson University
Clemson

Gary Senn
Assistant professor, School of Education
University of South Carolina-Aiken

Gary Senn is director of the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center, a cooperative effort by USC Aiken, local schools and local business and industry to enhance science and mathematics education in the Central Savannah River Area. The center offers workshops and seminars for teachers as well as hands-on science and mathematics programs for students in the area. In 2006-2007, more than 70,000 participants took advantage of the center’s programs and events.

Denise Shaw
Professor
University of South Carolina-Union

Denise Shaw focuses her research on Southern literature, particularly violence against females throughout Southern literature. She recently had a book accepted for publication, “The Rape Narrative and the American South.”  Following the model of other communities, she is working with the Union County Public School District and the Carnegie Library to create a “Big Read” project in Union to stimulate interest in reading. She developed the concept of a writing center last year and, in collaboration with the USC Union Opportunities Scholars Program, implemented a program to offer students writing assistance.

Michael Svec
Assistant professor of education
Furman University

Before joining the Furman Education Department in 1998, Michael Svec was an assistant professor of education at Rockhurst College in Kansas City. At Furman, he teaches all levels of science teaching methods and high school math methods, as well as supervising the elementary and high school teaching internships. He also teaches graduate courses in astronomy and physics for teachers. Svec serves on the board of Greenville’s Roper Mountain Science Center and spent the winter and spring of 2005 as a Fulbright Scholar in the Czech Republic, where he taught science education courses at Ostrava and Palacky universities. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in science education from Indiana University.

Julie Dingle Swanson
Associate professor in the School of Education, Health and Human Performance
College of Charleston
Charleston

Julie Dingle Swanson teaches graduate-level courses in gifted education. She has taught in and coordinated gifted programs and has directed two federal demonstration projects designed to improve services for gifted students in high-poverty South Carolina schools. Swanson was awarded the Richard W. Riley Award in 2005 by the S.C. Consortium for Gifted and Talented Education for “service to the gifted children of South Carolina.” Swanson received the Inquiry Award from the American Educational Research Association’s Accelerated School Special Interest Group in 2001. Swanson is seeking funding to create the Center for Fostering Diversity in Gifted Education, which would build capacity of high-poverty districts to identify gifted students and to design and implement programs to develop their academic talents.

George T. Williams
Professor of School Counseling
The Citadel 
Charleston