faculty
Shirley Pauler
Professor
Academic Preparation:
A native of upstate New York, Shirley Pauler completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at Houghton College, with a liberal arts music major, and minors in French and psychology. Following her graduation from Houghton, Dr. Pauler taught in public school at the elementary level for a total of 7 years, and completed an MS degree in elementary education at the State University of New York at Oneonta. By the time she entered a Ph.D. program at the University of Georgia, Dr. Pauler had completed 3 years of teaching in higher education and 13 years of teaching in various elementary grades, including 4 years teaching and serving as elementary department coordinator at Dalat School, a school for the children of missionaries and other expatriate families located in Penang, Malaysia. As a doctoral candidate at UGA, Dr. Pauler was awarded a university-wide assistantship during 2 of her 3 years and served as an editorial assistant for The Reading Teacher during her final year. Upon her graduation from the Ph.D. program in reading education, Dr. Pauler began her teaching in the education department at Asbury College.
Instructional Areas and Professional Interests:
Currently, Dr. Pauler’s responsibilities in the education department include teaching children’s literature and reading/language arts/social studies methodology courses for undergraduate elementary education majors, one literacy course in the special education graduate program, teaching the graduate ESL Practicum course, coordinating an embedded practicum for another ESL course, and teaching several courses in the Master of Science/Reading and Writing endorsement program. Other responsibilities are: Membership on the Teacher Education and Graduate Education committees, Cultural Diversity Action Plan committee chair, coordinator of education student participation in the Black Achievers program, and presenter for student teachers concerning culturally responsive teaching. Dr. Pauler has also initiated and continues to serve as instructor for the department’s ED 393, Cross Cultural Teaching/South Korea course.
Dr. Pauler serves on a variety of campus-wide committees, as a faculty sponsor for T.A.G., and as co-director of the Summer Youth Leadership Institute—a residential summer program for high school youth. She has an interest in and has served as faculty advisor for Mu Kappa, a student organization for Third Culture Kids and international students.
During her time at Asbury, Dr. Pauler has provided professional development for Chinese teachers of English as a foreign language for eight summers on university campuses in a variety of cities in the People’s Republic of China, as a team leader in the Summer Teaching Program, a six-week intensive English program of English Language Institute/China. During a sabbatical in fall 2001, Dr. Pauler was a guest lecturer at the Beijing Institute of Technology and co-authored an expanded version of Educator’s English, the main text used in the Summer Teaching Program, adding a program component specifically for the training of Chinese teachers of English at the elementary level. Since then, Dr. Pauler has co-authored a revised version of the text and its accompanying teacher’s notes.
Personal and Family Interests:
Besides being an avid student of other cultures and an international traveler and teacher educator, Dr. Pauler’s professional interests include children’s literature, literacy teaching and learning, and ESOL. Dr. Pauler loves to read for both pleasure and information, and to spend time in the presence of children and their pre-service and in-service teachers out in the schools. She also enjoys co-leading a ladies’ Bible study, and serving her church as a member of the leadership board and teacher in children’s ministries.
Email Shirley Pauler
