By Steve Hooker, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

I am excited and honored to join the staff of Arcadia and become a member of this academic community. Throughout my tenure in education, I have served as a teacher and administrator, and worked as a curriculum and staff development specialist for the Indiana Department of Education. My most recent experience has been teaching in the online education program for Ohio Dominican College in Columbus, Ohio. I currently hold a teacher license, in addition to my principal and superintendent’s certification.

I received my undergraduate degree in Communication Education and Theatre from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., and my master’s degree in Educational Foundations from the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati. I received my doctorate in Urban Educational Leadership from the University of Cincinnati in June of 2010. For two years, I was a research assistant in the communication department at the University, where I conducted research studies, analyzed data, and prepared manuscripts for publication. My research interests include urban educational leadership, social justice in education, gay and lesbian issues in education, educational policy, change and the change process, and gender identity in children and media.

My dissertation was titled “Closeted or out? Gay and lesbian educators reveal their experiences about their sexual identities in their K-12 schools.” The purpose of this study was to determine how gay and lesbian teachers negotiated their identities and how it affected their relationships in school, as well as what effect their sexual orientation plays on their professional practices, roles, and responsibilities. Four gay and lesbian teachers and two gay administrators were interviewed about their experiences in their school communities. Additionally, a focus group consisting of five gay and lesbian Catholic school educators, including a soccer coach and a football coach from an all-boy’s Catholic school, was conducted. I have presented this research at local, regional, and national education conferences, and have presented another research project, Children and education television, at a regional conference.

While in my doctoral program I was the Education Chair for the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). This included supervising the activities of the Education Team. The chair of the Education Committee develops an agenda, holds monthly meetings and produces the minutes to be disseminated to the committee members and the GLSEN Board, as well as reporting monthly updates to the GLSEN Board of Directors regarding the Education Committee projects. Additionally as the director, I supervised and participated in our committee’s projects, which included developing and disseminating diversity resources and materials to schools, facilitating school trainings, and coordinating days of action activities, involving No Name Calling Week, Day of Silence, and National Coming Out Day. Additionally, I have worked with the political sub-committee of the Human Rights Campaign. Our purpose was to develop activities to promote political awareness among marginalized communities and develop town hall meeting about gay and lesbian current issues, such as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, etc