Becoming a Multicultural Educator: Developing Awareness, Gaining Skills, and Taking Action

Becoming a Multicultural Educator: Developing Awareness, Gaining Skills, and Taking Action is the core text for pre-service and in-service PK-12 educators in courses on multicultural education and diversity. Responding to the growing need for better training for teachers in how to work with a diverse population, increase academic achievement, and prepare students for a global workplace, authors William A. Howe and Penelope L. Lisi address how teachers can incorporate the knowledge they gain about other cultures into more effective classroom practice. The text begins by focusing on essential questions and theoretical concepts about multicultural education, and then leads readers through experiences to heighten their own cultural awareness, knowledge base, and skills set. The goal of the text is to prepare teachers to apply the concepts they learn in the text in their own classrooms and in schoolwide settings.

William A. Howe has over 45 years of experience as an educator and professional staff developer from elementary grades to higher education in Canada and the United States. He has taught courses in multicultural education at the University of Hartford, University of Connecticut, Quinnipiac University, and most recently at Albertus Magnus College.

He was the former program manager for multicultural education, bullying, and civil rights at the Connecticut State Department of Education. From 1998 to 2015, he was the Connecticut State Title IX Coordinator, overseeing compliance in sexual harassment and gender equity. In addition to conducting workshops on Title IX, he has served as an expert witness on sexual harassment in schools.

He is a regular presenter at state and national conferences and has appeared on both radio and television on diversity issues. In addition, he has been quoted in The New York Times, Associated Press, Christian Science Monitor, Hartford Courant, CampusSafety, and other news publications and journals. He has conducted over 600 workshops and speaking engagements for 24,000 attendees on multicultural education, cultural competence, and diversity. He has chaired nine national conferences and 18 regional conferences on multicultural education.

He is past president of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). He is a founding member of the Asian Pacific American Coalition of Connecticut (APAC) and past chair of the Connecticut Asian Pacific American Commission.

In 2006, he was named Multicultural Educator of the Year by NAME. He was an honoree at the 11th annual “Immigrant Day” at the Connecticut State Capitol in 2008, a day to honor immigrants from throughout Connecticut who have made valuable contributions to their communities and/or professions. In 2012, he was recognized by the Pakistani American Association of Connecticut (PAACT) for his service to the community. On May 2, 2015, Dr. Howe received an Official Citation from the Connecticut General Assembly in recognition of a Commitment and Leadership to the Connecticut Asian Pacific American Community in Higher Education and Public Service.

In 2015, he has was recognized by Teachers College/Columbia University as a Distinguished Alumni. In 2019, he received the Ebenezer D. Bassett Distinguished Humanitarian Award for Civil Rights and Equity from Central Connecticut State University and the Ebenezer D. Bassett Memorialization Committee.

He is on the editorial board of Multicultural Perspectives, the official journal of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). His textbook on multicultural education, coauthored with Dr. Penelope Lisi, Becoming a Multicultural Educator: Developing Awareness, Gaining Skills, and Taking Action (4th ed., 2023, SAGE) received the 2013 Philip C. Chinn Multicultural Book Award from NAME. The textbook is also published in Chinese. In addition, he is a coauthor of the Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity Through Education (2nd ed., 2007, Routledge).

Penelope L. Lisi is professor emerita at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). Between 1994 and 2018, she taught in CCSU’s graduate-level programs in educational leadership, served as director of the doctoral program between 2014 and 2018, and taught in CCSU’s master’s degree program in Montego Bay, Jamaica, for 20 years. In her faculty position at CCSU, Dr. Lisi served for 20 years as director of the Center for Multicultural Research and Education. As director, she implemented professional development projects to support faculty in addressing equity issues in the university classroom. She directed the Diversity in Teaching Network (DITN), a federally funded three-year project to recruit diverse students into CCSU’s teacher preparation program. The Center for Multicultural Research and Education was a primary sponsor of and collaborator for the annual New England Conference for Multicultural Education (NECME) for 18 years.

Dr. Lisi’s scholarly work has focused on leadership for social justice, leadership for teaching and learning, and leadership in international school settings. In 2000, Dr. Lisi received a Fulbright Scholar Award to the University of Iceland. Over the next 16 years, she received 12 research grants and made more than 25 trips to Iceland to investigate educational leadership in a changing environment. Dr. Lisi has delivered more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in the United States, Ireland, Cuba, England, Finland, Portugal, Hungary, Switzerland, Jamaica, Iceland, and Ukraine. Since 2005, she has been an adjunct professor for The College of New Jersey’s Global Studies Program in Palma de Mallorca.

Prior to her work at CCSU, Dr. Lisi taught at the elementary, middle, and high school levels in the United States and for three years in international schools in Norway and Denmark. For five years, she served as executive director of the Connecticut State University Center for Educational Excellence, a systemwide faculty development resource. A primary outcome was the initiation, development, and implementation of Project IMPACT, a professional development project to support faculty on the four state university campuses in transforming university-level courses to include diverse perspectives and content. Dr. Lisi received her bachelor’s degree in education and French at DePauw University, her master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and her doctoral degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Between 1998 and 2018, Dr. Lisi served as senior editor of Multicultural Perspectives for the National Association for Multicultural Education and currently serves on the editorial board for that organization. Her textbook, coauthored with Dr. William A. Howe, Becoming a Multicultural Educator: Developing Awareness, Gaining Skills, and Taking Action (4th ed., 2023, SAGE) won the 2013 Philip C. Chinn Multicultural Book Award from NAME.