Gene Diaz

(617) 349-8426
gdiaz@lesley.edu

Gene Diaz is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences at Lesley University and in 2008-2009 she will be serving as Interim Associate Provost of the University. She is a visual artist and ethnographer who teaches courses in curriculum theory, ethnographic research methods, and arts based action research. She presents her ideas on qualitative research methodology and arts integrated curriculum methods at national and international conferences, most recently at the Curriculum and Pedagogy annual conference in October 2006, and at the UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education in March 2006.

In 2002 Gene spent six months in Medellin, Colombia as a Fulbright Scholar, collaborating in research and teaching in the faculty of education at the Universidad de Antioquia. She collaborated with DIVERSER coordinator, Zayda Sierra, in research on young children's perspectives of their lives in communities, home and schools through the use of dramatic play activities. An article about this research, Playing for Real: Drama in Colombian Schools, can be found on the Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism and Practice, Issue 9, on the Lesley website. She has returned to Colombia on several occasions, most recently to Medellin in 2007 to conduct research on DESEARTE PAZ, an arts and pedagogy network of organizations working towards establishing a culture of peace in the region.

Gene is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, the Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, and the Editorial Advisory Board of the International Journal of Education and the Arts. She is co-editor, with Martha McKenna, of Teaching for Aesthetic Experience (Peter Lang, 2004). With McKenna she also created the Curriculum Guide for Make Way for Ducklings for Narrator and Orchestra, an orchestral musical offering by Daniel Pinkham to accompany the popular book by Robert McCloskey. The development of this guide was supported by the Boston Landmarks Orchestra.

She holds an M.Ed and Ph.D. from the University of New Orleans in Curriculum.

Examples of graduate courses taught:

Arts-based Research; Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment; Critical Action Research; Dimensions and Methods of Cultural Exploration

Professional positions at Lesley University:

Interim Associate Provost

Special Assistant to the Provost

Associate Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Social Science (2003 – 2005)

Director, Division of Creative Arts in Learning (1999 – 2003)

American Educational Research Association

American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies

Recent Invited Presentations:

El Arte de la Pedagogía. Conferencia de Redes Artísticas de Medellín (Artistic Network of Medellín). Colombia, October, 2007.

The Power of the Image: Developing Critical Visual Literacy for English Language Teaching. English Language Teaching Conference. Centro Colombo Americano, Medellín, Colombia, September, 2007.

A Community of Recognition. Keynote address for the State of the Arts Leadership in Education Conference, Sacramento, California, May 2007.