College of Education's Baumgartner wins 2021 AAACE Cyril O. Houle Award

Lisa M. Baumgartner, a professor in the Department of Counseling, Leadership, Adult Education and School Psychology at Texas State University, and Sharan B. Merriam, professor emerita of adult education and qualitative research at the University of Georgia, have received the 2021 AAACE Cyril O. Houle Award for their book Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide (4th ed).

The award is presented annually by the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE).

Baumgartner's research and writing focus on adult learning and development in marginalized populations. A recipient of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Cyril O. Houle Scholars Research Grant for Emerging Scholars in Adult Education, she completed a study on civil rights activist Septima P. Clark’s lifelong contributions to adult education. She received the Houle O. Cyril Award for Outstanding Literature in Adult Education for the co-authored text Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide (3rd ed). She was a co-editor of Adult Education Quarterly from 2011-2014 and serves on the numerous editorial boards. In 2019, she was awarded the Circle of 50 Award from the Learning, Leadership and Organizational Development Program at the University of Georgia. Her research and scholarship have appeared in Adult Education Quarterly, Learning, Culture, and Social Interaction, Gender, Work and Organization, Journal of Transformative Education, Qualitative Health Research, Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research, Dialogues in Social Justice, The Qualitative Report and Adult Learning.

The Cyril O. Houle Award was established in 1981 to honor the scholarship and memory of Cyril O. Houle, professor of adult education at the University of Chicago. It is given annually by the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) for a book published in English in the previous year that reflects universal concerns of adult educators. Nominated works exemplify outstanding literature in adult education.