Ploghoft speaker reaches out to at-risk students

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Dr. Reulan Levin

Dr. Reulan Levin, professor of education at Avila University in Kansas City, will deliver the spring Ploghoft Lecture at Northwest at 7 p.m. Monday, March 17, in Charles Johnson Theater.

Levin, who grew up in a poverty-ridden section of Chicago’s South Side, teaches undergraduate and graduate classes at Avila. Over a 36-year career marked by conspicuous success as a scholar, teacher and consultant, she has become best known as an advocate for at-risk and socially disadvantaged students.

Late last year Levin was the subject of an article by “Kansas City Star” higher education reporter Mará Rose Williams, who described her as “passionate in her belief that most children can succeed if given a hand.”

Wrote Williams: “That’s why … Levin tutors students and listens and prays for them when they bring her their academic and personal struggles. It’s why she teaches urban teens in Upward Bound, which allows high school students to take classes on a college campus. It’s why Levin teaches other teachers how to connect with students who seem unlikely to succeed.”

Levin, who joined the Avila faculty in 1996, is a former Fulbright Scholar who wrote curriculum for Senegal, West Africa, for the United States Department of Education. She has also taught in England, where she researched integrated thematic curriculum throughout the United Kingdom.

Her academic specialties at Avila, where she teaches and serves as an advisor for education majors and student teachers, include multiculturalism, at-risk education and curriculum and instruction.

Earlier in her career Levin worked as an elementary and secondary social studies teacher and administrator, including a two-year stint as principal of Lincoln College Preparatory Academy in Kansas City.

A popular keynote speaker and conference presenter, Levin is a consultant for the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education. She has led workshops on such topics as diversity; educational equity; and strategies for developing self-esteem, high-level thinking skills, multiculturalism, integrated curricula and pedagogy relating to alternative learning styles.

At least once a year, the Ploghoft Lecture Series brings speakers to Northwest who have compiled a distinguished record in promoting multiculturalism, diversity and educational excellence.

The series is made possible through the generosity of Dr. and Mrs. Milton Ploghoft. Ploghoft graduated from Northwest in 1949, and his wife, Zella, attended Horace Mann Laboratory School, which is located in Brown Education Hall on the University campus.

For more information, please contact:

Anthony Brown,
News Bureau Manager
E-Mail: abrown@nwmissouri.edu
Phone: 660.562.1704
Fax: 660.562.1900

Northwest Missouri State University
219 Administration Building,
800 University Drive
Maryville, MO 64468

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