Thursday is showtime for researchers at WSU Vancouver. Taking center stage at the eighth annual Research Showcase will be Associate Professor Stephen Kucer, winner of the 2011 Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence.

Chancellor’s Award winners are chosen for their research quality, quantity and impact on the community. There’s no question about the potential social impact of Stephen’s research passion: improving reading skills. He’s taken his message about literacy to the halls of Congress.

The title of his 4:15 p.m. Showcase talk will be “What is the Link Between Discourse Processing and Discourse Comprehension? Or, Do Reading Mistakes Really Interfere With Understanding?”

His research poster, one of 100 that will be on display from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Firstenburg Student Commons, is titled  “Going Beyond the Author: What Retellings Tell Us About Comprehending Narrative and Expository Texts.”

There also will be posters from four other Department of Teaching and Learning faculty:

• Tonda Liggett, “Teacher education, critical pedagogy, and the influence of neoliberalism”
• Tamara Nelson (with David Slavit, Angie Deuel and Michele Mason), “Secondary Science & Mathematics Teachers’ Interactions around Student Learning Data during Collaborative Inquiry”
• June Canty, “Teacher Induction in SW Washington: The Stories of Four Beginning Teachers”
• Susan Finley (with Morgan Parker), “At Home At School: Service Learning and Community Engagement Approaches to a Socially-Just Pedagogy”