Because of his efforts to improve access to education and literacy, West Virginia University alumnus David A. Jolliffe is being honored with the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Recognition Award.

Jolliffe, who has a distinguished career as a scholar and educator, has demonstrated civil leadership and the importance of life-long learning through a variety of outreach efforts in West Virginia and Arkansas.

Jolliffe will accept his award on his visit to campus on Oct. 27 at 4:30 p.m. in the Gold Ballroom of the Mountainlair.

In his address upon receiving the award entitled “Literacy—Urban, Rural, Suburban: What’s the Difference, and What Difference Does it Make?”, Jolliffe will provide an overview of what many commentators characterize as ‘the literacy problem’ in contemporary culture.

He will then clarify a definition of literacy that focuses on a person’s ability to recognize and deal with situations in his or her life that involve substantial reading and effective writing, and he will explain the degree to which several features of urban, suburban, and rural communities support the development of this critical literacy.

He will offer five specific recommendations to help residents of different kinds of communities confront the literacy demands that 21st-Century life and work present.

The Eberly College alumni award recognizes individuals whose life reflects the commitment and excitement that those broadly educated in arts and sciences bring to their life pursuits. The award seeks to acknowledge the important contributions Eberly alumni are making in their communities and within their professions.

Jolliffe is professor in both the Department of English and the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Currently, he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the history, theory and teaching of literacy, and is also the Brown Chair in English Literacy. In this role, he has dedicated himself to developing two community literacy outreach projects aimed at impoverished and underserved populations throughout Arkansas.

One of his outreach projects, the Arkansas Delta Oral History Project, encourages undergraduate and graduate students to work in online, collaborative writing groups with rural area high school students to conduct oral history investigations. Together, they write essays, stories, poems and plays about what they have learned. Last year, the program helped increase the college-going rate of high school seniors in the area by 63 percent. Similarly, the Augusta Community Literacy Advocacy Project brings together citizens from the small Arkansas Delta town in cooperation with schools, churches, libraries and not-for-profit organizations to emphasize the importance of reading and writing in the region.

Jolliffe is the author of numerous books on writing and has directed several composition programs and writing-across-the-curriculum initiatives. Recently, he participated in WVU’s National Writing Project to help forge links between universities and K-12 school systems in the state.

He received a bachelor’s degree in English from Bethany College in 1974, a master’s degree in English from WVU in 1980 and a doctoral degree in English from the University of Texas in 1984. Previously, he taught for 10 years at the University of Illinois at Chicago and 11 years at DePaul University.

Eberly College established this recognition to bring the continuing value and importance of an arts and sciences education in the 21st Century to the attention of the WVU campus, the surrounding community and the nation. The college created this award in 1998 upon the recommendation of its advisory board. The first awards were presented in 1999, and the college encourages individuals to nominate graduates for the Alumni Recognition Award.

Recipients are invited to campus to accept their awards. During their visits, they are able to meet and discuss ideas and issues with students and faculty. To ensure permanent recognition, a plaque with the names of the award recipients is mounted in Woodburn Hall.

For more information, contact Bonnie Fisher at (304) 293-4611 or Bonnie.Fisher@mail.wvu.edu.

-WVU-

lp/2/11/10

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