Lois Thomas Stover

Biography

Lois Thomas Stover is a former teacher of secondary English and drama who became interested in issues of curriculum and instruction while teaching in very different settings and working with beginning teachers in their university field experience placements. As a teacher educator, first at Wittenberg University in Springfield, OH, and then at Towson University in Towson, MD, Stover began to focus her scholarly efforts in two areas: exploring the role of young adult literature in the secondary curriculum (both in English classrooms but also across the curriculum), and exploring the use of writing as a heuristic, within the larger topic of effective pedagogical strategies for secondary students. After helping to develop an M.A.T. program at Towson University, and then creating an M.A.T. for returned Peace Corps volunteers through a grant in collaboration with Baltimore City Schools, Stover took the position of Chair of Educational Studies and Director of Teacher Education at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, where she taught courses in secondary methods and instructional design, educational psychology, and children’s and young adult literature while transitioning the former certification program for K-12 teachers into M.A.T., the College’s only graduate program, and overseeing initial and on-going accreditation for that program. She also helped to create the professional development school collaborative between the College and the St. Mary’s County Schools. She served three years as Associate Provost for Student Affairs, initiating the program that became the DeSouza Brent Scholars Program. She retired from St. Mary’s in 2013 to take the position of Dean of the then School of Education and Human Services at Marymount University. She has continued to teach for the Educational Studies Department and supervise student interns for the College when requested. Stover received the Homer S. Dodge Award for Service to the College. She also was honored with the Ted Hipple Award for Service to the Field of Young Adult Literature from the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English, of which she served as president and for which, for 5 years, she was a member of the national Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee, which selects each year a young adult novel characterized by literary excellence, high readership appeal, and a message of hope. She edited the “Young Adult Literature” column for The English Journal for three years, and is the author or co-author and editor of six books about young adult literature and related pedagogical issues. Her article, with Connie Zitlow, “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Adult: Who is the Real Me” received the inaugural Donelson-Nielson Award for the best article in a given year in the ALAN Review. She also served as a member of the National Council for the Accreditation of Colleges of Teacher Education’s Board of Examiners for five years, and as chair of NCTE’s Standing Committee on the Preparation of Teachers of English Language Arts, 2002-2006. In this capacity, Stover served as Editor for The Guidelines for the Preparation of Teachers of English Language Arts. Stover also is honored to have received a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship to Cyprus, where she taught at the University of Cyprus on the Greek side of the island, and taught English to Turkish high school students on Turkish Cyprus.