MARQUETTE — Northern Michigan University English professor Kel Sassi won a research award from the National Council of Teachers of English that includes $1,500 to support a research project that will benefit NMU education students.

“I’m honored and humbled by the award and grateful to be at a university that cares so deeply about preparing future teachers,” Sassi said about her achievement, “and it’s great to be part of a long tradition and contribute to those efforts.”

The NCTE’s Julia E. Berry Research Award is given to teachers and professors, like Sassi, who propose research projects that study “the careers of English majors and/or the role and function of English in career development.”

Sassi’s research will focus on reaching NMU alumni currently teaching English, investigating the struggles they face and finding out what keeps them in the field. Her research proposal was titled “Versatility and Resilience in English Alumni from a Rural-Serving Institution.”

“What is it that helps teachers persevere through times of big challenges like the (COVID-19) pandemic,” she asked. “What are the resources that they have or that they have relied on to support themselves as educators? Because I think that’s important for us to take that information and begin teaching our pre-service teachers about creating that network of support around them even before they go into the profession.”

When collecting preliminary data last fall via NMU alumni surveys, Sassi found those who responded were fairly recent to the field and had survived the 2020 pandemic as teachers.

This study will include context for NMU as a rural-serving institution on the ancestral homelands of the Anishinaabe tribe, which originally began as Northern State Normal School, a college for instructing teachers.

Sassi said she was also inspired by the dedication of her fellow English education instructor Kia Jane Richmond who has a 23-year history with the teaching of education.

“(She) also takes a very holistic view,” Sassi said. “She goes above and beyond in supporting students and in terms of their mental health, their overall well-being, she’s been known to give them gift cards for meals when she knows that they need support and then once they become teachers, she stays in contact with them for a long time.”

One of the challenges of being a modern English teacher, Sassi said, is the prevalence of book banning and censorship.

” … The Office for Intellectual Freedom, which is part of the American Library Association, found that the titles that were challenged just surged, there were 4,240 unique book titles identified for censorship last year,” she said. “And what is particularly alarming is that in those titles, 47% of the titles targeted books representing the voices and lived experience of LGBTQIA+ individuals and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) individuals.”

NCTE has a resource for teachers faced with these challenges. It helps instructors give a reason why they’ve chosen a particular book title, what the merits of it are and how to offer alternatives as well. Sassi has personally been including this resource in her own classes.

Four undergraduate students collaborated on a proposal for a presentation about censorship at the Michigan Council for Teachers of English fall conference in Lansing on Oct. 11. Those students are Erin O’Donnell, Julia Jacklin, Ashley Kluting and Shelby McGlinch, all instructed by Sassi.

Another increasing challenge for English teachers is tension and disagreements with parents or the surrounding community on cirriculum.

“I think that education works best when the teacher, parent, administration and community all work together to support the growth of the child,” Sassi said. “That’s the ideal. And it’s easy for people to develop misunderstandings when they don’t have a chance to meet. I’ve certainly, as a former high school teacher, been in situations where somebody’s upset and I think the best thing we can do is to meet together and put the needs of the child first and to develop a plan that is going to work for that child so that they can reach their full potential.”

Sassi will present her findings at the NCTE Annual Convention 2025. Any interested alumni of NMU’s School of Education currently teaching English can reach out to Sassi at ksassi@nmu.edu.

Alexandria Bournonville can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 506. Her email address is abournonville@miningjournal.net.