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The following article originally appeared in the 2020 edition of the School of Education magazine, advancing. For a PDF, please click on the magazine to the right. |
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In Memory of Carol McDonald Connor
Chancellor’s professor remembered for her brilliance and selfless devotion to students, colleagues, and children.
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Dr. Carol McDonald Connor was a leading academic, a guiding light for disadvantaged children, and a friend and mentor to innumerable students, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty. She passed away peacefully in May after a valiant battle with ovarian cancer.
A chancellor’s professor at UCI since 2016, Connor devoted her life to studying language and literacy development. At the UCI School of Education, Connor led the Center for Creating Opportunities through Education (CCOE), a university-wide center focused on creating economic mobility for disadvantaged children. Over decades of work, she fought for supporting the needs of others – teaching, mentoring, conducting research, creating interventions, and securing a U.S. patent that generated individualized plans for children learning to read. “To say Carol made an indelible impact would be an understatement – she passionately mentored students and early career professors and helped millions of children with her unique educational programs,” said Richard Arum, dean and professor, UCI School of Education. |
Carol M. Connor (1953 - 2020)
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Connor’s research examined the links between children’s language, cognitive, social-emotional, and literacy and mathematics development from preschool through the elementary grades. Most recently, her research interests focused on children’s learning in the classroom, with a focus on reading comprehension and mathematics, children living in poverty, and how technology might improve the instruction they receive.
Over the course of her career, Connor developed online assessment tools, which she coupled with specific instructional modules. Utilizing these, teachers were able to assess each of their students’ current learning needs, plan instruction using a dynamic lesson planner, deliver the appropriate instructional modules, and monitor the student’s progress.
“Carol was one of the most brilliant and innovative scholars I have ever known,” said Professor Mark Warschauer. “She was able to combine her deep knowledge of language, literacy, and educational psychology with creative new approaches to digital learning and data science to develop highly effective and personalized approaches to reading instruction.”
“Carol was a phenomenal researcher like no other,” said Young-Suk Kim, professor and senior associate dean. “Carol turned a long-held wishful idea in the field of reading into a reality – a systematic approach to differentiated instruction.”
Prior to her career in academia, Connor worked as a speech and language pathologist. In 1992 she began work at the Cochlear Implant Center at the University of Michigan. She earned a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy & Culture, Special Education from the University of Michigan, and began her professorial career at Florida State University. Immediately prior to joining UCI, Connor was a professor of Psychology and a Senior Learning Scientist at the Learning Sciences Institute at Arizona State University.
“Despite the fact that she was a real star as a scholar, she was always ready to roll up her sleeves and do her share to contribute to the school and was always willing to take a colleague under her wing,” said Professor Emerita Carol Booth Olson. “I’ve enjoyed my collegial relationship with Carol but I will miss her as a personal friend even more.”
Connor served as principal investigator for the Individualizing Student Instruction (iSi) Lab. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences and the National Institutes of Health, the iSi Lab applies rigorous research to design, develop, and evaluate literacy interventions that are individualized based on students’ learning needs using both classroom instruction and technology.
“Carol had such an appetite for research,” said Deborah Lowe Vandell, chancellor’s professor emerita and founding dean of the UCI School of Education. “All of her projects had qualities in common – they were audaciously bold, methodologically rigorous, and highly innovative.”
Over the course of her career, Connor developed online assessment tools, which she coupled with specific instructional modules. Utilizing these, teachers were able to assess each of their students’ current learning needs, plan instruction using a dynamic lesson planner, deliver the appropriate instructional modules, and monitor the student’s progress.
“Carol was one of the most brilliant and innovative scholars I have ever known,” said Professor Mark Warschauer. “She was able to combine her deep knowledge of language, literacy, and educational psychology with creative new approaches to digital learning and data science to develop highly effective and personalized approaches to reading instruction.”
“Carol was a phenomenal researcher like no other,” said Young-Suk Kim, professor and senior associate dean. “Carol turned a long-held wishful idea in the field of reading into a reality – a systematic approach to differentiated instruction.”
Prior to her career in academia, Connor worked as a speech and language pathologist. In 1992 she began work at the Cochlear Implant Center at the University of Michigan. She earned a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy & Culture, Special Education from the University of Michigan, and began her professorial career at Florida State University. Immediately prior to joining UCI, Connor was a professor of Psychology and a Senior Learning Scientist at the Learning Sciences Institute at Arizona State University.
“Despite the fact that she was a real star as a scholar, she was always ready to roll up her sleeves and do her share to contribute to the school and was always willing to take a colleague under her wing,” said Professor Emerita Carol Booth Olson. “I’ve enjoyed my collegial relationship with Carol but I will miss her as a personal friend even more.”
Connor served as principal investigator for the Individualizing Student Instruction (iSi) Lab. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences and the National Institutes of Health, the iSi Lab applies rigorous research to design, develop, and evaluate literacy interventions that are individualized based on students’ learning needs using both classroom instruction and technology.
“Carol had such an appetite for research,” said Deborah Lowe Vandell, chancellor’s professor emerita and founding dean of the UCI School of Education. “All of her projects had qualities in common – they were audaciously bold, methodologically rigorous, and highly innovative.”
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“Carol was doing some of the most innovative research on classroom instruction in the world,” said Distinguished Professor Jacquelynne Eccles. “Her approach to using informatics to help teachers identify exactly which skills each child needed to perfect in order to master what they were learning was exactly what the field of instruction needed.”
Over the course of her career, Connor readily collaborated with colleagues and served as a mentor to many early-career professors and doctoral students, including several at the UCI School of Education. “Carol was generous with her time and had great insights about work and life,” said Elizabeth Peña, professor and associate dean of faculty development and diversity. “She was a fabulous mentor, leader, and innovator in the field of reading research, but what is striking about her is how committed she was to the people around her.” “I used to jokingly refer to Carol and her husband as ‘Auntie Carol’ and ‘Uncle Jay,’” said Assistant Professor Brandy Gatlin-Nash. “They welcomed me and my family into their home with open arms. I loved the way Carol’s eyes would light up when she talked about her own family, especially her grandchildren.” |
Connor at the 2019 UCI Building Partnerships to Improve Education Symposium
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“I am forever grateful to have had the opportunity to know Carol as a friend and mentor – she is one of the most brilliant, compassionate, and dedicated people I have ever known,” said Assistant Professor Katherine Rhodes.
“Carol was a mentor unlike any other – she was unbelievably kind, generous, and supportive of her students and anybody that wished to learn from her,” said Stephanie Day, who worked with Connor for 15 years, first as a research assistant, then doctoral student, postdoctoral scholar, and served as her project director for the past eight years.
In 2016, Connor was named a fellow of the American Psychological Association. A year prior, she was named a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. In 2007, she received the Richard C. Snow Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association.
Connor also received the 2006 President’s Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PRECASE), given by the U.S. Department of Education to “the most promising researchers in the nation within their fields.”
Connor is survived by her mother, Ann-Eve McDonald, her husband, Joseph (Jay) Connor, along with their children, Jessica and Bill Hudak, Kerianne and Nick Lentz, and Patrick and Sarika Connor, and their grandchildren, Josephine, Lillian, Jacob, and Wyatt.
“Carol was a mentor unlike any other – she was unbelievably kind, generous, and supportive of her students and anybody that wished to learn from her,” said Stephanie Day, who worked with Connor for 15 years, first as a research assistant, then doctoral student, postdoctoral scholar, and served as her project director for the past eight years.
In 2016, Connor was named a fellow of the American Psychological Association. A year prior, she was named a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. In 2007, she received the Richard C. Snow Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association.
Connor also received the 2006 President’s Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PRECASE), given by the U.S. Department of Education to “the most promising researchers in the nation within their fields.”
Connor is survived by her mother, Ann-Eve McDonald, her husband, Joseph (Jay) Connor, along with their children, Jessica and Bill Hudak, Kerianne and Nick Lentz, and Patrick and Sarika Connor, and their grandchildren, Josephine, Lillian, Jacob, and Wyatt.
