Coordinator of Teacher Certification
Office: 110 Jewett Hall, Augusta Campus
Phone: (207) 621-3192
Email: cynthia.dean@maine.edu
Office Hours:
About
Cynthia (Cindy) Dean earned an Ed.D and a M.Ed. in Literacy Education and a M.A. in English from the University of Maine and is especially interested in the identity issues encountered by writing tutors in high school writing centers as well as issues related to the teaching of literacy in education, particularly in grades 7-12.
Her dissertation, “The Ecology of Peer Tutoring: Perspectives of Student Staff at One High School Writing Center” won the John Schmitt award for Outstanding Research at the Graduate Level given by the New England Educational Research Organization. She is an Assistant Professor of Education and the Coordinator of Teacher Certification and is presently engaged in constructing a secondary teacher certification pathway for University of Maine at Augusta students.
An honors graduate of UMA, she has spent the past eleven years as a high school English teacher, a Literacy Specialist, an Instructional Coach, and a Writing Center director. In addition, she has taught college composition and graduate courses in literacy and young adult literature at the University of Maine. She has conducted research on the identity shifts of writing center tutors and contributed a chapter entitled “Rewriting and Revising Roles: Exploring the Challenges of Peer Tutors in a High School Writing Center” to a book devoted to High School Writing Centers. She has presented at the national, state, and regional levels on literacy, composition, and writing centers. In November 2011, she presented her research on tutor identity at the annual National Council of Teachers of English Convention in Chicago. In addition, she has conducted several literacy workshops for elementary, secondary and post-secondary teachers across the state.
