Laura Rutter Strickling Ph.D.

I grew up running around on our thirteen acres in Gold Hill, Oregon, graduated from Crater High School, then went on to complete undergraduate work at Brigham Young University in Art and Music. That was in 1977.   Four kids later, I finished a Spanish degree with secondary teaching certification  from Augusta State University, Georgia. That was in 1997. In between those two decades we all lived  in Spain, home schooled kids off and on, and I taught high school Spanish. Then I went back to school again and received an M.A. in Intercultural Communication and Spanish, and a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Linguistics from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. My research focused on the impact of educator’s attitudes toward students who speak African American English and I developed a model that explains the process of reframing a linguistic mindset. Then I was fortunate to  complete a two-year post-doctoral position in Urban Education where I participated in evaluating the efficacy of Turnaround interventions in low performing schools in Baltimore and two other counties. Currently I am adjunct faculty for Spanish at Carroll College, and I teach Spanish for Brigham Young University, Idaho as well. Now that my husband has retired, we live in Helena, Montana where I like to spend time knitting and spinning, and playing with our eight grandchildren when they come to visit.