2010 Doctoral Marshal: Jacy Ippolito, Ed.M.'01, Ed.D.'09

Jacy Ippolito, Ed.M.'01, Ed.D.'09, recalls it wasn't too long ago that he wondered whether he would ever finish his dissertation.

"Then all of the sudden you are done," he says. "Even though I'm done, it doesn't feel like my relationship with HGSE is done."

That's because for Ippolito, who earned his degree in November 2009, his career in higher education is really just beginning. This past fall Ippolito began working as an assistant professor at Salem (Mass.) State College, where he teaches courses on educational leadership and school change, as well as adolescent literacy and curriculum design. He also continues to work at the Ed School, where he teaches courses on literacy coaching.

"I am lucky enough to have experienced being a teaching fellow at HGSE and teaching my own courses," he says. "That helped me realize that I really enjoy working with students and designing courses and that I wanted to be faculty member in higher education."

Finding work before he finished his dissertation is a testament to HGSE, he adds. "It speaks to the fact that so many opportunities are available to graduating doctoral students even in this economy."

Although working in higher education is a shift from his earlier years in K-12, he admits that it's a welcome one. "It's funny being a new faculty member because many of the same activities that I engaged in during graduate school are continuing," he says. "I'm still teaching - teaching more - still consulting, still writing, and starting a new research project. In some ways, taking the path of becoming a faculty member is the closest extension to being in graduate school, and it's wonderful."

After earning his master's degree in Language and Literacy, Ippolito became a reading specialist. However, after a few years working in schools, he found himself yearning for answers to some lingering questions. This brought him back to the Ed School where his dissertation research examined the relationships between literacy coaches and the teachers they work with.

He knows firsthand the difficulty of transitioning into a role as literacy coach, and going from working solely with students to adults. "I was challenged by that professionally and wanted to explore how others met that challenge," he says. In particular, he conducted a mixed-methods study of 57 literacy coaches in a mid-sized urban East Coast school district to better understand how coaches form relationships with teachers. Ultimately, he discovered that the coaches who feel most successful in their positions reported balancing a directive or more authoritative approach, with a responsive or collaborative approach.

"Balancing these two positions was difficult," Ippolito says whose research will be published this fall in The Elementary School Journal. "There were few coaches who felt able to balance successfully."

As Ippolito prepares for Commencement this week, he is truly honored to have earned the role as marshal for the 2010 class. "I think there are lots of times in the doctoral program where you feel like you are toiling away in isolation," he says. "I think some of the best parts of the whole doctoral experience came from working with colleagues and other doctoral and master's students. It's wonderful to think they valued working with me as well."