Rate My Professor Rick Lybeck

Rick Lybeck is an Associate Professor of Education in the Department of Educational Studies: K-12 and Secondary Programs at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he serves as department chair. He holds a Ph.D. in Literacy Education from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, an M.A. in English from the University of Minnesota, an M.A. in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Minnesota, and a B.A. in Scandinavian Languages and Literature from the University of Minnesota. Prior to his current position, Lybeck served as an Assistant Professor of English at St. Cloud State University from 2016 to 2018. His research examines white public pedagogy, particularly how white American communities construct narratives around their racially violent pasts, including the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. Lybeck's work integrates sociocultural theory, critical discourse analysis, critical race theory, and settler colonialism to analyze discursive barriers to social justice education.

Lybeck's key publications include the book Critical Social Justice Education and the Assault on Truth in White Public Pedagogy: The US-Dakota War Re-Examined (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), which features chapters such as 'Introduction: “Official Perspective” and the Two Senses of Justice,' 'Managing Perspectives, Keeping History “Good” and Safe,' and 'Reopening the Wounds of 1862.' Recent articles comprise 'Cornell Notes from Underground: Whiteness, Neoliberalism, and AVID for Higher Education' (Teachers College Record, 2023), 'Undoing Whiteness to Diversify Teacher Education and the Teaching Force' (2022, co-authored with Andrew P. Johnson and Maria-Renee Grigsby), and 'A Public Pedagogy of White Victimhood: (Im)Moral Facts, Settler Identity, and Genocide Denial in Dakota Homeland' (Qualitative Inquiry, 2017). Earlier works include 'The Rise and Fall of the U.S.-Dakota War Hanging Monument: Mediating Old-Settler Identity Through Two Expansive Cycles of Social Change' (Mind, Culture, and Activity, 2015). His research interests encompass critical literacy, critical pedagogy, social justice education, English education, and public history. Lybeck has earned the Professional Excellence Research Torch at Minnesota State University, Mankato and contributes to discussions on literacy education and social justice through faculty responses and conference presentations.