Doctoral Student Jennifer Mann Will Engage Students in Critical Literacy Project Through Phi Kappa Phi Love of Learning Award

Jennifer Mann, a doctoral student in the NC State College of Education’s Ph.D. in Teacher Education and Learning Sciences’ literacy and English language arts concentration, has been awarded the Phi Kappa Phi Love of Learning Award.

The Love of Learning Award provides $500 in funding for professional development to active members of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines. Mann is one of 200 students selected to receive the award. 

“Winning this award means that others believe in the value of my research and support the vision I have, which I believe has the potential to truly impact lives,” Mann said. 

Mann will use the funding from the award for her dissertation research, entitled Young Adults Acting on the World. Through this work, she will engage young adults from refugee and immigrant backgrounds in a critical literacy project that is intended to provide them with the knowledge, opportunity and resources to use literacy to take action on issues of inequity and injustice in their communities.

Making education more equitable, especially for students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, is why Mann chose to pursue a doctoral degree at the College of Education, where she feels she is being prepared to use her research to make a difference in K-12 schools. 

“Being in this program has taught me how to engage in high-quality research that has the potential to greatly impact theories and ideas that are used to make decisions about how students are taught,” she said. “There are many scholars here who meaningfully engage with the community and whose research has practical implications and positive outcomes for students.”