Dr. Tiffany A. Flowers is an associate professor of education at Georgia State University Perimeter College. She is a native Chicagoan and a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University where she earned a B.S. in psychology and a M.A.T. in early childhood education. Tiffany also earned an M.A. in social and philosophical foundations of education and a Ph.D. in language, literacy, and culture from the University of Iowa. Dr. Flowers is a member of the Diversity Scholars Network at the University of Michigan. She is a West Chester University Frederick Douglas Teaching Fellow and an Indiana University Minority Faculty Fellow. Dr. Flowers is also a 2014 NCTE Early Career Educator of Color award recipient. As an Education Program Specialist for State Reading in Georgia, she co-coordinated the two largest K-5 and 6-12 remedial education programs in the state.
Dr. Flowers has ten years of experience collaborating, planning, and executing community engagement programs. As a classroom teacher in Florida, she planned literacy nights for her elementary schools. During the 3-years of her teaching, she wrote grants for her community engagement projects which include The Kindergarten Reading Readiness Project and the Kindergarten Multi-ethnic Project. As a lecturer at Clemson University, during her 2-year term she wrote grants to foster service learning with her students such as the African American Read-In Project which was a partnership between students in area preschools and elementary schools, and the Charles H. Houston Center for the Study of the Black Experience in Education. Additionally, she wrote a grant to co-author the Tolerance Project curriculum for incarcerated youth in a youth development camp in South Carolina. Through this project, she studied the experiences of youth counselors using controversial books during literature circles. She also wrote a grant for the buddy readers project to connect preservice teachers, preschoolers, and diverse books in a full partnership with schools and childcare centers. As a faculty member at Georgia State University Perimeter College, she continues her community engagement initiatives by building new partnerships. Since 2018, Dr. Flowers created two new service-learning projects which include the Homework Assistance project and #EliminatingBookDeserts. The Homework Assistance project was about partnering with La Amistad for 2 years to serve migrant students who need assistance with literacy homework. The #EliminatingBookDeserts project is a partnership between 3 school sites, two university libraries, and preservice teachers to build the library collections at 3 school sites. In 2021, Dr. Flowers started the #booksforincarceratedyouthinga project to build the prison library through curated donations to the site.
Further, she works with school districts, community centers, and schools to consult and provide professional development on working with families, struggling readers, implementing high-interest and engaging books, the reading and writing workshop, literature circles, guided reading, vocabulary development, creating school and district-wide K-12 literacy plans, and the African American Read-In. Dr. Flowers research interests include urban education, African American Literacy Development, children’s and young adult literature, field placement, family literacy, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. You can find some of her published work in Teachers College Record, the Journal of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the High School Journal, The Journal of Literacy Innovation, and Urban Education. Dr. Flowers is the co-editor and co-founder of the Literacy and Urban Schools journal. Further, she is currently working on several book projects pertaining to literacy, teaching, and urban schooling experiences.
