Academics - Education Studies Faculty & Staff

Dr. Michele Pittard, who is the Chair of the Education Studies Department and Director of the Secondary Licensure Program, came to Wabash in 2002 as a Lilly Teaching Fellow and visiting assistant professor of Education. She was hired in a tenure track position in 2004 and was awarded tenure in 2010. A proud alumnus of Butler University, she received her undergraduate degree (BA in English) from Butler sometime after the Tony Hinkle era and before the Brad Stephens' era began. After teaching English for a number of years at Lafayette Jefferson High School, she completed her MS and PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Adolescent Literacy from Purdue University.  Dr. Pittard and her family (including a daughter and son in college and a daughter who is a high school senior and her husband, Jeff) live in Lafayette. The Pittards enjoy hosting Wabash students for dinner, and when she is not at one of her own kids’ athletic events, Dr. Pittard, an avid sports fan, enjoys attending Wabash events and Indianapolis Colts games.  

Over the last 12 years, Dr. Pittard has taught every class in the Education Program and she continues to work with student teachers every semester. Two of her favorite teaching assignments outside of the Education Studies Department are Freshman Tutorial and Enduring Questions.  Over the years at Wabash, she has taught five Freshman Tutorials: topics range from athletics and education to the role of humor in our lives to the origin of life. She was a member of the committee that developed the Enduring Questions course for freshmen, has taught it 3 times, and currently serves as an EQ faculty co-chair. 

Active with and committed to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Dr. Pittard’s most recent research projects include: examining the relationship between liberal arts education and teacher preparation and classroom-based research for pre-service teachers.  In collaboration with her former colleague in Education, Dr. Deborah Butler, she co-edited and contributed a chapter to a monograph entitled, Liberal arts education and teacher education: A lasting relationship, and co-wrote an article published in MoutainRise, an online journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, entitled, “Creating and supporting mixed-level inquiry communities.”  She is a regular presenter at the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

When the Department of Education Studies added middle school licensing programs, Dr. Pittard decided to spend part of her sabbatical (Spring, 2012) teaching and researching how best to teach research skills to low achieving 8th grade social studies students at Tecumseh Junior High School in Lafayette.  Her sabbatical was funded through the GLCA's New Directions Initiative and also allowed her to pursue an old dream of writing a young adult novel, which she continue to pursue. One of her favorite genres to read is Young Adult Literature and she finds opportunities to include YAL fiction in her Education classes.