As the 2020-2021 academic year comes to a close, we would like to wish a fond farewell to the current Lurie College faculty who are moving on to their next chapters and extend a warm welcome to the incoming Lurie College faculty who will join our community beginning in the Fall 2021 semester!
Faculty Departing Lurie College After Spring 2021
Elaine Chin | Teacher Education Department
Elaine Chin is retiring from SJSU at the end of this academic year. Elaine has been a part of the Lurie College community since 2007, serving as the associate dean, the dean, and a professor in the teacher education department. She is thankful and grateful to all of the staff and faculty who have worked with her to make the Lurie College the great place it is.
Becca Cruz | Special Education Department
Rebecca Cruz, assistant professor in the special education department, has accepted a position at Johns Hopkins University for this upcoming school year. Throughout this past year, Rebecca had a chance to co-teach several classes with some amazing faculty, learn about our many programs and credentials, and support the emancipatory framework embraced by the university. Rebecca is honored to have been a part of the college this past year. The support and community developed and sustained throughout a difficult year have been invaluable, and she hopes to continue her many collaborations in research and teaching into the future.
Faculty Arriving at Lurie College in Fall 2021
Veneice Guillory-Lacy | Educational Leadership Department
Dr. Veneice Guillory-Lacy recently earned a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and Social Thought in Education with an emphasis in Educational Leadership from the College of Education at Washington State University. As a Black woman with Nez Perce Tribal descendency, Dr. Guillory-Lacy brings a rich background and unique lived experiences from the K-12 and higher education sectors. She has served as a high school English teacher in San Jose, CA., a high school varsity basketball coach, a high school principal in the Pacific Northwest, a tribal college instructor, university lecturer and academic coach.
Dr. Guillory-Lacy’s research focuses on amplifying the voices of women of color in K-12 educational leadership, promoting social justice leadership, and centering race and gender. She uses critical qualitative methods, while drawing from Critical Race Theory (CRT), Critical Race Feminism (CRF), Intersectionality, Black Feminist Thought, and Indigenous epistemologies.
Dr. Guillory-Lacy is excited to join the Lurie College of Education’s Educational Leadership Department and Transformational Leadership Master’s Program. She looks forward to building a transformational program that will help student leaders experience first-hand inside knowledge of the schooling system, address issues of culture and power in schools, and develop scholars and practitioners who will stimulate positive change in the educational system, and throughout their respective schools and communities. Dr. Guillory-Lacy’s goals and passion as a professor are to put critical theoretical frameworks to practice through deep engagement with research, schools, students, their families and the community to grow and have a larger impact for greater justice.
Sudha Krishnan | Special Education Department
Sudha Krishnan, Ed.D., has taught students with extensive support needs in middle school for 18 years. She has been an adjunct faculty with San Jose State University for eight years, teaching courses in the Education Specialist credential and Master’s degree programs.
Her interest in special education was sparked by her experiences with children with disabilities during her early years in India and further cultivated when her son was diagnosed with autism. Her recognition of deficit thinking and ableism as she navigated the educational system fueled her research in this field. Her research interests are focused on how implementing literacy practices using pedagogies based on socio-cultural theory can provide challenging and empowering education for students with disabilities. She is interested in research in the disability studies field, particularly participatory action research with individuals with disabilities. She is also examining the use of constructivism in special education, anti-deficit thinking, and teacher perceptions of ability in students with extensive support needs.
Sudha is keen to forward the equity and justice orientation of the College of Education and engage with all the faculty in special education and the college of education. A great start has been her involvement with the disability studies strand in the Institute of Emancipatory Education. Sudha is looking forward to the challenge of training new teachers in evidence-based practices while simultaneously imbibing them with a zeal for transformative leadership.
Tiffani Marie | Teacher Education Department
Tiffani Marie is the daughter of Sheryll Marie, granddaughter of Dorothy Wilson and Annette Williams, and the great-grandaughter of Artelia Green and Olivia Williams. She comes from a long line of Arkansas educators. She is passionate about learning with and from youth, sewing, music production, and connecting to the natural world. Tiffani is also excited about joining the Teacher Education Department and working with Ethnic Studies faculty colleagues at San Jose State University, particularly for the emerging collaborations and collective energy around supporting schools and communities to ensure that every child is seen and treated as a blessing.
Wanda Watson | Teacher Education Department
Dr. Wanda Watson is a teacher-scholar committed to liberatory education and teacher preparation. She is a Black woman first-generation college graduate from Harlem, New York who attended Public School 92, the Mary McLeod Bethune School and Frederick Douglass Academy. Her range of educational and life experiences instill in her a paradoxical understanding of the deep-rooted ways oppression manifests in schools and society as well as the transformative potentialities of education. Dr. Watson’s current research centers Black feminist pedagogies as embodied through political clarity, spiritual connectedness, and transgressive teaching and learning. She maintains an Ethnic Studies teacher-inquiry group with TK-8 th grade teachers in the Bay Area which was initially funded through the Spencer Foundation. Her scholarship also explores anti-racist education in youth organizing and informal learning as conduits for social and political change. She has taught primarily elementary through middle school in Oakland, Harlem and Washington Heights. She earned her BA in Human Biology and credential and MA at Stanford University. She earned her Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching and completed her dissertation titled “Putting Up a Fight: Exploring the Social Justice Praxis of Youth Organizers of Color” while at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Watson remains visionary and pragmatic in her work; seeking paradigm shifts and moving beyond the “master’s tools” to educate young people while attending to the present sociopolitical and economic conditions under which children learn. She’s been a teacher educator for the last 10 years and is joining SJSU as an Associate Professor in the Teacher Education Department. She’s most looking forward to working collaboratively with colleagues and various stakeholders to create educational experiences and structures that foster freedom for and with Black, Brown, and Indigenous children and communities.
