Loukia K. Sarroub named chair of teaching, learning and teacher education

06 Jul 2021    

Loukia K. Sarroub has been named chair of the Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, effective July 1.

“Loukia brings leadership experience to the role, and she is committed to working with faculty, staff and students to achieve the department’s goals and vision,” said Sherri Jones, dean of the College of Education and Human Sciences. “I look forward to working with her and the department to further enhance the positive impact the unit is making on Nebraska’s classrooms and schools.”

Sarroub has been at Nebraska since 2001. She is a full professor who has served as graduate chair in teaching, learning and teacher education since 2018. She has been the recipient of a College Distinguished Teaching Award from the university, a UNL Parents’ Recognition Award, and a National Society for Collegiate Scholars Distinguished Membership.

“I appreciate the opportunity to serve and lead, as well as contribute my energies to the well-being and success of TLTE in collaboration with colleagues in CEHS and UNL,” said Sarroub. “I am committed to collaborating with on- and off-campus partners to strengthen TLTE’s positive intellectual, research, teaching, and land grant mission trajectory in education and P-12 schools as well as the Big 10 community.”

Her goals as department chair include fostering department cohesion within and across TLTE programs, building on the strengths of the department faculty and students to promote equity, access, diversity, and inclusion in K-16 education, and forging collective fiscal strength and growth.

Sarroub’s primary areas of interest in research and teaching include literacy studies and adolescent literacies; language and culture and sociolinguistic analyses; anthropology and education; cross-cultural studies; immigrant communities in the US and Europe; youth cultures; Middle Eastern populations in the US; ethnography and qualitative research methods, discourse analysis, language and gender in education; education policy and social analysis.

She is the author of All American Yemeni Girls: Being Muslim in an American Public School, which was the recipient of the Literacy Research Association’s Edward Fry Outstanding Book award. She is also the lead editor and author of Doing Fieldwork at Home: The Ethnography of Education in Familiar Contexts. Her research about schools, classroom life, and young people’s achievement in and out of schools appears in numerous research articles and book chapters. Sarroub holds a courtesy appointment in the School of Integrative Studies (anthropology) at Nebraska and is affiliated with the Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools, the Qualitative, Quantitative, and Psychometric Methods program, and Women’s and Gender Studies.

Sarroub earned a bachelor’s degree in linguistics from the University of Chicago, and a doctorate in curriculum, teaching and educational policy from Michigan State University.

The Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education prepares teachers for tomorrow’s schools and communities. The department offers undergraduate programs in elementary education (K-6) and secondary education (7-12), which feature innovative curriculum and hands-on learning experiences. Graduate programs serve all professional educators at all stages of their careers and offer programs that generate educators, researchers, and leaders who work with research-grounded ideas to improve the human condition across all educational settings. The department’s research and outreach programs address emerging educational challenges and opportunities.

To learn more about the Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education, visit https://cehs.unl.edu/tlte/.