Jill Williams, Ph.D., will receive the Innovative Leadership Award during the opening session of the annual convention of the Conference on English Leadership (CEL) on Sunday, November 18, in Houston, Texas. Dr. Williams is a secondary English language arts and social studies curriculum specialist for Westerville City Schools and an adjunct lecturer at The Ohio State University in the School of Teaching and Learning.
The CEL Innovative Leadership Award recognizes an early- or mid-career leader and National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) member who has shown innovative leadership at the local, regional, and/or national level or for innovative approaches to teaching and/or professional development through new and progressive methods and delivery models. Recipients exemplify:
- Innovative leadership activities that impact local and/or regional and/or national teaching practices; and
- Innovative approaches to teaching and/or professional development through new and progressive methods and delivery models.
Dr. Williams taught high school English for 16 years and was named the 2011 Teacher of the Year at Westerville Central High School. She is a coauthor and editor of Acting Out!: Combating Homophobia and Heterosexism in Schools, recognized in 2010 as an “Outstanding Academic Title” by the American Library Association and winner of the National Association of Multicultural Education Philip C. Chinn book award; and is coauthor of Stepping Up! Teachers Advocating for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Schools (2018). Current projects include facilitating middle school book clubs for girls of color and a peer reading program using diverse books with elementary and middle school students. She resides in Columbus.
Also presenting at the NCTE conference will be Westerville’s Kate Mantenieks, Language Arts/Social Studies Curriculum and Instruction, and Latresa “Tre” Rieves, Elementary English Language Facilitator. Their session is called See Me and I will See You: How ELA and ESL Teacher Leaders Created a Learning Community to Empower Teachers to have Culturally Responsive Conversations Surrounding Multicultural Literature.