Alina Slapac Editor

Alina Slapac, Ed.D., is an Associate Professor in College of Education, in the Department of Educator Preparation & Leadership at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. During 2015 -2016, she was a Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) for the 2011 NPD grant, Quality Teachers for English Learners (QTEL). She is also an International Studies Fellow (Center of International Studies, UMSL, 2012-2016), a recipient of the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award (UMSL, 2013-2014) and a recipient of O.L. Davis Counselor of Distinction Award (Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education, 2015). Her research interests include linguistically and culturally responsive teaching (LCRT), LCR competencies of preservice and inservice teachers in the United States and international settings, multicultural education, supports for English Learners and immigrant students, teachers and families, and qualitative research methods.

Sarah A. Coppersmith, Ph.D., has been an Assistant Research Professor in the University of Missouri-St. Louis College of Education and an Adjunct Instructor of Geography in the School of Humanities at Lindenwood University, St. Charles, Missouri. Her recent research includes a focus on in-service and pre-service teachers' application of linguistically and culturally responsive teaching practices with English learners; stress, self-efficacy, and inquiry learning with pre-service teachers; explorations of inquiry learning in the Fur Trade Era in the Mid-Mississippi Valley in an International Baccalaureate Language Immersion setting, and moral agency beliefs of undergraduates studying World Regional Geography.