Marlissa Hughes Stauffer, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Education, joined Ohio Dominican
University as full-time faculty in the fall of 2008. She currently serves as the Chair
of the Division of Education and the program director of the Adolescence to Young
Adult Education program.
During her own undergraduate education, Dr. Stauffer earned a teaching certificate
but was still unsure if the teaching profession was for her. Once she realized that
her passion to love others for Jesus could be fulfilled as she gave herself wholeheartedly
to her students, she knew she had found her calling. She taught English, Biblical
and Religious Literature and debate in public schools for 11 years in Evansville,
Indiana, and she credits that experience as inspiring her now to help ODU teacher
candidates prepare to make a lasting difference in the lives of their own students.
During her time as a high school teacher, Dr. Stauffer was awarded the Armstrong Teacher
Award from Indiana University; was an awardee of the U.S. Department of Education’s
Teacher Recognition Award, Presidential Scholars Program; was named an Indianapolis
Star and Indiana Department of Education Academic Mentor; and won the Diamond Coaching
award for debate.
During her time at ODU, Dr. Stauffer has taught both undergraduate and graduate classes,
with a particular emphasis on the foundations course where she and her students wrestle
with issues of justice in the history, policies, ideas, and practices of education.
Dr. Stauffer anticipates that each of her students will go on to work for a more just
learning environment within their own classroom. Some of her own work in the area
of justice in education is aligned with serving on the board of the Masters Preparatory
Academy, a boarding school for African-American males in Central Ohio that is still
in developmental stages.
Dr. Stauffer has worked on multiple grants, but she is currently the principal investigator
on ODU’s $1.2 million NSF Noyce Teacher grant, which is designed to prepare teacher
candidates to teach high school mathematics and science in high needs school districts.
Dr. Stauffer holds a BA in English/Secondary Education from Indiana Wesleyan University,
a MA in Secondary Education from University of Southern Indiana, and a Ph.D. from
Indiana University in Curriculum and Instruction.
