Pitt Education Professor Wins Distinguished Woman In Education Award

PITTSBURGH—Shirley Biggs, associate professor in the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education, will receive the 2005 Jean E. Winsand Distinguished Woman in Education Award at a noon luncheon April 21 in Room 2501 of Pitt's Posvar Hall, 230 S. Bouquet St., Oakland.

Biggs will receive the award for her outstanding work as Pitt School of Education affirmative action officer and for her contributions to literacy education. Her research and teaching interests focus on literacy for students at middle, high school, adult, and college developmental levels. She has studied student strategies in comprehension and also is interested in the effects of tutoring and mentoring relationships on reading.

In 1999, the Tri-State Area School Study Council authorized an annual award to be presented to a woman in education whose achievements are widely recognized as exemplary. Named in 2003 the Jean E. Winsand Distinguished Woman in Education Award, this award is symbolic of the type of leadership Winsand displayed through her work in the Tri-State Area School Study Council. A Pitt associate professor of education, Winsand, now deceased, was Tri State's associate executive secretary from 1985 to 2001.

Biggs earned the Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education at Duquesne University in 1960, the Master of Arts degree in reading/psychological services at the University of South Carolina in 1972, and the Ed.D. degree in education and language communications at the University of Pittsburgh in 1977.

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