Catherine Emihovich, dean of the College of Education at the University of Florida, has been elected president of the Holmes Partnership, a consortium of local and national education interests dedicated to equitable education and reform in teaching and learning.

Emihovich, formerly the group’s vice president for research, only started her presidency in January, but she voices high hopes for what she believes the organization can accomplish during her three-year term and beyond.

“The Holmes Partnership can lead the way in providing a new vision for public education that is more inclusive and attentive to the needs of students and their families as they struggle to adapt to a rapidly changing global economic environment,” she said.

The consortium unites educators from universities, public school districts, teachers associations and other organizations working together to create a powerful, unified voice in educational reform. The group tackles issues such as equal access and social justice in education and—through the Holmes Scholars program--provides scholarship and leadership placement opportunities for underrepresented doctoral students seeking academic careers in higher education.

Emihovich has been a Holmes Partnership member since 1994 and has an impressive track record in building strong school-university partnerships during her academic career.

She has been dean of education at UF since 2002. She is the college’s 12^th dean and the first woman to lead the college. She holds a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, with a strong grounding in anthropology and linguistics. Prior to returning to graduate school, she taught high school English for four years in New York state.

Her scholarly pursuits match up well with the humanistic mission and activities of the Holmes Partnership. Her major research interests include race, class and gender equity issues; literacy education and school-university partnerships. She is a past president of the Council on Anthropology and Education within the American Anthropological Association, and a past editor of Anthropology and Education Quarterly.

Emihovich is a prominent advocate of “engaged scholarship,” a philosophy espousing scholarly activities—done for the public good—that contribute directly to improved scholastics or address important social or community issues. The action-oriented research concept is a burgeoning movement in higher education that she has infused as a core principle of a faculty-led transformation of the UF College of Education’s research and teaching programs.