Rate My Professor Stephanie Richards

Stephanie J. Richards serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction within the College of Education at Tennessee Technological University, where she is involved in the 2+2 Program with Motlow State Community College at the Tullahoma campus. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Southern Mississippi, where her doctoral research focused on student perceptions of violence at school, an additional degree in Educational Administration from the same institution, and a B.A. in English from Millsaps College. Prior to her appointment at Tennessee Tech, Richards held leadership positions as a superintendent in Alaska, principal of a junior/senior high school in Colorado, and English teacher in an urban high school in Mississippi.

Richards teaches methods courses in mathematics, science, and social studies, along with assessment and edTPA courses, supervises residency and practicum students, and serves as the Tennessee Tech liaison at her 2+2 site. Her expertise includes developing empathy to address bullying, using readers' theatre to increase reading comprehension, and working with students of poverty. Committed to promoting education, she sponsors teacher clubs, attends recruitment and career fairs, presents at career fairs, chaperones field trips, and creates promotional items like onesies stating 'Future difference maker - Future teacher!'. In 2015, she received the College of Education and Human Sciences Faculty Award for Service. Richards serves as higher education representative for middle Tennessee on the Tennessee Association for Middle Schools Board and editor of the TAMS Journal, and sits on the College of Education and Human Sciences Recruitment and Retention Committee. She co-authored 'Bibliotherapy to prevent bullying' with Kristen Pennycuff Trent in J.U. Gordon's 2018 edited volume Prevention of Bullying (Springer, pp. 37-52).