Dr. Donna
McKusick

Dr. Donna McKusick is a lifelong educator, primarily within the public community college system. She has written and taken part in many grant projects and research studies, gathering and analyzing data to determine student outcomes. Her dissertation, An Analysis of Academic Literacy Tasks Required in Introductory Psychology Courses in Community College, spearheaded a lifelong interest in the context of literacy and the validity of developmental education. She taught reading and writing for 20 years and co-authored an integrated reading-writing textbook, Making Sense with Integrated Reading and Writing, now in its second edition. She has also studied contextualized and integrative learning, about which she wrote a monograph in 2012, Cross Paper #15, Making It Real: Using Contextualization for Student Success, published by the League for Innovation in the Community College.

Dr. McKusick’s greatest professional achievement in developmental education has been in the conceptualization and implementation of the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP), which is now practiced in over 200 colleges across the country. Her portfolio has also included work in libraries, tutoring, learning communities, equity, and honors. Dr. McKusick’s career has been grounded in a central belief that education provides a powerful path to social and economic equity.