Family and Community Education Expert Karen Mapp to Join Harvard Graduate School of Education Faculty

Karen L. Mapp, an expert on families and communities in education will join the Harvard Graduate School of Education as a Lecturer on Education beginning January 1, 2005, for a multi-year term.

Mapp joins HGSE from the Boston Public Schools (BPS), where she has served as the Deputy Superintendent for Family and Community Engagement since September 2003. With the BPS, Mapp helps to lead efforts to create and implement policies and practices that forge partnerships with families and the community to support student achievement. As Deputy Superintendent, she oversees three Family Resource Centers and the Title I Training Center.

While working with the BPS, Mapp continued to fulfill her duties as president of the Institute for Responsive Education (IRE), a position she has held since 1998. IRE is a research, policy, and advocacy organization in Boston that conducts research on how school, family, and community partnerships effectively support children's learning. Mapp joined IRE as project director for the Boston Community Partners for Students' Success initiative, which focused on the development of activities and programs to familiarize parents with the recently established Boston Citywide Learning Standards.

"Karen Mapp brings an enormous amount of experience in how to best engage families, communities, and school systems," said Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, Charles Warren Professor of the History of American Education and dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "As we reorganize the School to meet 21st-century education challenges, we are seeking to identify new faculty who can forge connections across different programs, fill important gaps in the curriculum, and add depth to current research strengths of the School. Karen will be a great complement to our existing faculty, especially in our efforts to enhance research on how communities can influence schools."

In 1997, Mapp was awarded a Spencer Dissertation Fellowship for her research on how and why families are involved in their children's educational development. She is the author of "Making the Connection between Families and Schools," published by the Harvard Education Letter (1997). She co-authored with Anne Henderson A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement, published by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (2002). Most recently she published "Family Engagement" in Helping Students Graduate: A Strategic Approach to Dropout Prevention (2004).

Previous work experience also includes serving as Assistant Director of the Massachusetts Prevention Center in Framingham, MA, and Associate Director of Admissions at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Parents for Public Schools, Inc.

Mapp holds a doctorate and master's of education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy; a master's in counselor education from Southern Connecticut State University; and a bachelor's degree in psychology from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.

Contact Greer Bautz at 617-496-1884 or Greer_Bautz@gse.harvard.edu .