Patricia Ruggiano Schmidt, a reading teacher for 25 years, earned her master of education degree from the University of Massachusetts and her doctorate from the Reading and Language Arts Center, Syracuse University, New York, USA. Her dissertation, Cultural Conflict and Struggle: Literacy Learning in a Kindergarten Program, a classroom ethnography, won recognition by the International Reading Association in 1994 and was published by Peter Lang Publishing Co. in 1998.

Now an associate professor of literacy in the Education Department of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, Patty concentrates her research, teaching, and service around the “ABCs of Cultural Understanding and Communication,” a model she has developed to help pre- and inservice teachers with home-school communication and culturally sensitive pedagogy. Numerous education programs in the United States and elsewhere have successfully adapted the model for teacher preparation. Additionally, she has authored numerous journal articles and has served as a coeditor of two books related to multicultural literacy: Reconceptualizing Literacy in the New Age of Multiculturalism and Pluralism (with Peter Mosenthal) and Exploring Values through Literature, Multimedia, and Literacy Events (with Ann Watts Pailliotet) were published in 2001.

In 1996, Patty was honored with the Le Moyne College Matteo Ricci Award for service and achievement related to campus diversity. In 2000, she received the Minerva Award presented to an alumna or alumnus of Potsdam College for outstanding professional achievement. She lives with her husband, Tom, next to a golf course, rolling hills, and a beautiful spring-fed lake in central New York.

Updated July 2002