Dr. Sandra Ann Vavra earned her B.A. (1971) in English from SUNY, Binghamton, and completed her graduate work in Curriculum and Instruction, earning an MAT (1993) and a Ph.D. (1995) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is a professor in the Department of English and Mass Communications at North Carolina Central University, where she directs the English Education program. She has received two UNC-system awards for teaching excellence. Her scholarly writing involves an examination of the connections between culture, communication/ rhetoric, and pedagogy and the way the interplay among them affects literacy and learning. Recent publications include an edited collection entitled Closing the Gap: English Educators Address the Tensions between Teacher Preparation and Teaching Writing in Secondary Schools (2007); The Perfect Norm: How to Teach Differentially, Assess Effectively, and Manage a Classroom Ethically in Ways that Are "Brain-Friendly & Culturally Responsive (2009); and CLASH!: Superheroic Yet Sensible Strategies for Teaching 21st Century Literacy (2011).

Dr. Sandra Ann Vavra earned her B.A. (1971) in English from SUNY, Binghamton, and completed her graduate work in Curriculum and Instruction, earning an MAT (1993) and a Ph.D. (1995) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is a professor in the Department of English and Mass Communications at North Carolina Central University, where she directs the English Education program. She has received two UNC-system awards for teaching excellence. Her scholarly writing involves an examination of the connections between culture, communication/ rhetoric, and pedagogy and the way the interplay among them affects literacy and learning. Recent publications include an edited collection entitled Closing the Gap: English Educators Address the Tensions between Teacher Preparation and Teaching Writing in Secondary Schools (2007); The Perfect Norm: How to Teach Differentially, Assess Effectively, and Manage a Classroom Ethically in Ways that Are "Brain-Friendly & Culturally Responsive (2009); and CLASH!: Superheroic Yet Sensible Strategies for Teaching 21st Century Literacy (2011).

PhD	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill	1995
MAT	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill	1993
BA	State University of New York at Binghamton	1971