On Saturday, October 12, Dr. Jack Cassidy, received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Literacy Education at the annual conference of the Texas Association for Literacy Education (TALE). Also, the TALE Board voted to name the award in his honor. The award will now be called the “Jack Cassidy Lifetime Achievement in Literacy Education Award.”
Cassidy was one of the founders and the first President of TALE in 2011-2012. Texas is the second largest state in land area, and coincidentally Cassidy is one of the founders and first elected President of the Diamond State Reading Association (DSRA) in Delaware, the nation’s second smallest state in land area.
In the almost forty years between his first and second state presidencies, Cassidy was elected president of the International Reading Association and the Association for Literacy Education and Research (ALER - formerly the College Reading Association). In 1994, he received the IRA Special Service Award, which is given, from time to time, for unusual and distinguished service to the International Reading Association recognizing admirable service to the organization in some specific capacity or capacities, requiring special skills, knowledge, and creative effort. In 2007, ALER gave him the A.B. Herr Award for distinguished service in reading. It recognizes a professional educator who has made outstanding contributions to the field of reading. In 2010, Cassidy was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame, considered one of the most prestigious awards granted to those in literacy education.
Cassidy has over 100 national publications including over 50 nationally refereed journal articles, books, and book chapters. In addition, he has been an author, editor or consultant on over a dozen series of texts and materials for children and youth. For 18 years, with various co-authors, he has written a column, “What’s Hot What’s Not in Literacy." The most recent column appears in the August/September 2013 issue of Reading Today. Longer discussions of literacy trends and issues (also with various co-authors) appear in a number of refereed journals, the most recent of which is the September 2013 issue of the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (“What Was Hot–and Not–in Literacy: What We Can Learn”). He has worked as a consultant for Educational Testing Service and was part of the Verbal Advisory Panel for the Scholastic Aptitude Test. In addition to hundreds of presentations in the United States, Cassidy has also presented papers in Australia (two times), Belgium, Canada (five times), Czech Republic, Croatia, France, Hungary (two times), Ireland (three times), New Zealand (two times), Philippines (two times), Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
In 2011, Cassidy retired as associate dean in the College of Education at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He is also Professor Emeritus at Millersville University (PA). Cassidy has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with an emphasis in reading from Temple University in Philadelphia.