COE Faculty Profile

Judith A. Cochran, Ph.D.
E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Tutorial Education
Division of Educational Leadership and policy studies

Email: CochranJu@msx.umsl.edu
Office: 305 Marillac Hall
Phone: 314-516-7302

Dr. Judith Cochran received her Bachelor’s degree in English/Speech from the University of Colorado Boulder. Her first teaching position was as a high school English teacher at Santa Maria High School, in Santa Maria California. On a Ford Foundation Grant, she was chosen as one of six teachers to develop individualized math, English, science and social studies curriculum for the entire district. Dr. Cochran left Santa Maria to get her masters in Curriculum Development at the University of California, Los Angeles. She supported herself during this time working as an English teacher in a summer Upward Bound Program and as a Director of the educational program at a Los Angeles Probation Camp for Men.

Dr. Cochran was given a Graduate Assistantship to obtain her doctorate before arriving at Arizona State University. The second year of her doctoral work in reading/literacy, she was hired as an Assistant Dean of Students in the office of Student Affairs. She held that position a year after getting her doctorate to show her appreciation for the university’s financial support of her dissertation, “A Preventative Drop-Out Program for Low Income Minority Freshmen.” Her dissertation was national success with minority student retention that she gathered information on student retention that she presented it and subsequent work to the National Conference of Association of Land Grant Colleges and Universities, published four articles in the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and served on NIE’s Commission on Women and Minority Retention.

Since obtaining her doctorate, Dr. Cochran has had two Fulbright Senior Lectureships in the Middle East, a grant to study in China, published three books and over 30 articles on education, student retention, literacy and technology. She produced a PBS TV series, three instructional video series and served on national review boards for the Fulbright Commission, the Department of Education and the International Reading Association. For the past five years, Dr. Cochran has been the Director of the E. Desmond Lee Regional Institute of Tutorial Education: a collaborative of six St. Louis Universities and ten of the largest youth serving agencies in the area. The purpose of the collaborative is to provide academic, program and social support to under-served youth in the region. She recently completed for the state of Ohio, a 5-year study comparing effective reading instruction in 12 school districts and appropriate teacher education in 56 universities. Dr. Cochran has obtained numerous grants throughout her career and currently is the PI on a 5 year collaborative 21st Century Learning Center Grant with the YMCA of Greater St. Louis and Wellston School District.

Based upon her publications on education in the Middle East, Dr. Cochran was invited to be a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas (Summer 2005) and at the College of Education and CMES at University of Arizona (Spring 2006). In April 2005 Convergence, The International Journal of Adult Education, published Dr. Cochran’s “Adult Education Providing Leadership in Peace in Palestine and Israel.” A chapter in Managing Play in Early Childhood “Play Therapy as Means of Bringing Families Together” was published in 2006. July 2006, Dr. Cochran gave presentations on Distance Education and Play Therapy at the Pacific Rim Conference of Early Childhood and on Women’s Leadership and on Assessment at Kongju University in South Korea.

My research interests are:

• International Education
• Urban Education
• Literacy
• Women’s Issues
• Administration
• Parent Education
• EFL
• Distance Education
  

• Achievement
• Adolescence
• Adult Education/Development
• Assessment
• At-Risk Students
• Bilingual/Bicultural
• Comparative Education
• Curriculum
• Desegregation
• Dropouts
• Educational Policy
• Educational Reform
• Gender Studies
• Gifted Education
• High Schools
• International Education/Studies
• Language Comprehension / Development
• Law/Legal
• Literacy
• Mentoring
• Peace Education
• Program Evaluation
• Reading
• Research Utilization
• Retention
• Rural Education
• School/Teacher Effectiveness
• Teacher Assessment
• Teacher Education/Development
• Teacher Research
• Tutoring
• Urban Education
• Validity/Reliability
• Vocabulary
• Women's Issues
• Writing