ITEP Faculty

Charles Tesconi, Jr., Director of ITEP (Ed.D., University of Cincinnati) Dr. Tesconi is a Professor of Education at American University, Washington, DC, where he served as Dean of the School of Education from 1989-1993 and 1996-2000. He was Dean of the College of Education and Social Services and Professor of Education at the University of Vermont (1978-1989), served on the faculties of Ithaca College, University of Illinois (Chicago), and has been a Visiting Professor at the Ohio State University. Tesconi is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of six books and numerous articles emphasizing the relation between socioeconomic background and educational opportunity. His most recent book, Good Schools (Hampton Press), examines the local policy environments of public schools unusually successful with economically poor students. With Janice Wright, he is completing a book, Schooling for What: Conserving, Transmitting, Rectifying, Expanding, and working on a new book-length project, Child Poverty, Schooling, and Lost Possibility. Tesconi has served on the editorial boards of major social and educational journals, and has held appointive and elective office in professional and scholarly associations, including service as the elected President of the American Educational Studies Association. He consults for state and federal agencies, schools, universities, and foundations.

Lynn C. Cohen, Associate Director of ITEP (B.A., International Relations, University of Pittsburgh, 1977; M.Ed. International Education, University of Pittsburgh, 1980) Since 1980, Lynn has worked in the field of international education. She started as a teacher educator in Liberia as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1980-1982, and continued in the field consulting for such international agencies as UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP, USIS and the World Bank. In addition to Liberia, Lynn has worked or conducted research in many countries including Kenya, Israel, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Azerbaijan, and her work has focused on education sector analysis, teacher education and professional development, school leadership and parent/school partnerships, nonformal and adult education, participatory educational management, and education in emergencies and recovery. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lynn worked in education both during the war and for several years in the post-war recovery period.

Elizabeth Anderson received her PhD in international education from New York University in 2006. Her dissertation explores the role of history education in creating a post-Soviet national identity in the Republic of Moldova. Funded by an IREX postdoctoral fellowship, Anderson will return to Moldova next summer to continue her research. From 2005 to 2006 for the Social Science Research Council, Anderson conducted ethnographic case studies of Title VI-funded Middle East study centers at six American universities. The survey explored the challenges of teaching and studying in a post-9/11 environment. This past year, she served as a visiting assistant professor of international education at New York University. Anderson's interests include international development education and exchange and training, citizenship, national identity, nationalism, and civic and history education.

Michael Gibbons (Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Development, Fieldings Institute) Michael Gibbons has worked in basic education, community development and social justice since the mid 1970s in Asia, Africa, Latin America and low-income areas of the USA . He specializes in basic and nonformal education, child development, adult learning processes, training of educators and organizational learning. He holds a Ph.D. from the Fielding Institute in human and organizational development, with a focus on organizational learning processes within educational programs. He is particularly interested in the role learning plays in personal development and social transformation. Currently, Mr. Gibbons teaches courses in the International Training and Education Program ( ITEP ) at the American University School of Education, coordinates the Education Partnership for Children on Conflict at the Council on Foreign Relations and has begun “Leadership <> Learning”, a program supporting inter-agency learning in basic education. Michael has also served as deputy director of basic education programs at Save the Children US, guiding field staff in 40 country programs design and implement basic education projects worldwide.

Frederic Jacobs (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) Dr. Jacobs has held positions as the Dean of Faculties, Dean of the School of Education, and Director of the Doctoral, Educational Leadership, and Specialized Studies programs at American University; provost and academic vice president at John Jay College, City College of New York; and Assistant Dean at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.  He is a contributing author to The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives; Report and Analysis of Barriers to Adult Participation: Findings from the National Household Education Survey of 1991 and 1995; Accentuating the Positive: Effective Teaching and Evaluation Strategies for Traditional and Non-Traditional Learners; and Selected Papers on CreativeTeaching with S. Hundley.  His research and teaching interests include the role, function, and impact of higher education; theory and practice in adult learning; public policy and education; and quantitative research.