RONALD D. GLASS, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Glass is a philosopher of education and currently an Associate Professor in the Education Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he is chair of the Social Context and Policy Studies specialization in the Ph.D. program.

Prior to UCSC, Dr. Glass was a member of the faculty at Arizona State University in the College of Teacher Education and Leadership. Dr. Glass formerly taught at Stanford University in the School of Education and also in the Philosophy Department of the School of Humanities and Sciences, where he was Coordinator of the Program in Cultures, Ideas and Values. In addition, he was a Lecturer in Social and Cultural Studies and Founder and Co-Director of The Diversity Project in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. In the 1980s, Dr. Glass directed the San Francisco-based Adult Education Development Project, through which the world-renowned educators for democracy Paulo Freire and Myles Horton collaborated with him in addressing the needs of a broad range of community-based organizations.

Dr. Glass focuses his research, writing, and teaching on education as a practice of freedom, giving particular attention to urban school reform and the role of education in developing a just, pluralistic democracy. He investigates ideological formation (race, class, gender, language, and ability), and the role of public schooling in both reproducing and resisting dominant ideologies. His essays on moral and political philosophy and education have been published in leading journals such as Educational Researcher, Studies in Philosophy and Education, Teacher Education Quarterly, and Reading Research Quarterly. Dr. Glass has made numerous national conference presentations, and given featured keynote addresses, including the Sixth Francis T. Villemain Memorial Lecture in Democracy, Education and Moral Life at California State University at San Jose. He has provided consultation on program development and evaluation, educational reform, and institutional strategic planning for a variety of organizations, schools, districts, and universities. In addition, Dr. Glass has appeared on national and regional television and radio news programs, and he was a frequently quoted expert on education matters in Arizona newspapers.

Dr. Glass has taught a variety of undergraduate courses in education and philosophy, and in university honors programs, and also a variety of graduate courses in philosophy and philosophy of education. Currently, he teaches an undergraduate course on philosophic issues in education that serves as the gateway into the UCSC education minor, and he teaches graduate courses in the philosophy of education, the history of school reform, and the social and political context of education for low-income, culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Dr. Glass is the recipient of numerous honors. He was selected by Stanford education students for the Outstanding Teaching Award (1994), and recognized at ASU with the Excellence in Diversity Award (1998) and the Intergroup Relations Center’s Dondrell Swanson Advocate for Social Justice Award (2000). In addition, the City of Phoenix Human Relations Commission honored Dr. Glass with a Martin Luther King, Jr., Living the Dream Award (2001).

Dr. Glass received a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education and an M.A. in Philosophy from Stanford University, a C.Phil. in Philosophy of Education from the University of California, Berkeley, and an Ed.M. and an A.B. with honors in History and Science from Harvard University.