Newswise — President George W. Bush has announced his nomination of Timothy Shanahan, professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, to the National Institute for Literacy Advisory Board.
If approved by the Senate, Shanahan will serve for the remainder of a three-year term that expires Nov. 25 of next year.
The National Institute for Literacy, a federal agency, provides leadership on literacy issues, including the improvement of reading instruction for children, youth and adults.
The institute's advisory board, as established by the Workforce Investment Act, is composed of 10 individuals appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate.
Shanahan is best known for his service with the Chicago Public Schools' Chicago Reading Initiative. In that role, he was director of reading for the city's 437,000 children and 26,000 teachers.
He is director of the UIC Center for Literacy, a research and service unit within the College of Education, and an important contributor to programs such as Project FLAME, a family literacy program serving Chicago's Latino communities.
A member of the National Reading Panel that advises Congress on reading research, Shanahan is also chairman of the Family Partnership in Reading Project.
Among his other appointments, Shanahan is a member of the White House Assembly on Reading and member of the reading committee for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. He has chaired the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth since 2002.
In May, Shanahan was named president of the International Reading Association, the world's largest professional organization devoted to literacy education.
He is the author of more than 100 books, articles and chapters on reading education and has received the Albert J. Harris Research Award for his work on reading disabilities. A former first grade teacher, Shanahan earned his Ph.D. at the University of Delaware.
For more information about the UIC College of Education, visit http://www.uic.edu/educ/index.html.
NOTE: Please refer to the institution as the University of Illinois at Chicago on first reference and UIC on second reference. "University of Illinois" and "U. of I." are often assumed to refer to our sister campus in Urbana-Champaign.
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