The Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education (CLASE) is located in 125 Aderhold Hall. Contact us at clase@uga.edu, at the phone numbers below, or by fax at 706-583-8207.
Pedro R. Portes is The Goizueta Foundation Distinguished Chair of Latino Teacher Education, Professor in the Department of Counseling and Human Development Services, and the Executive Director of CLASE. A past Fulbright Scholar to Peru, Dr. Portes received the prestigious American Educational Research Association’s 2005 Research Award in Human Development and is the author of Making Kids Smarter (1998). He has published scores of research articles on human development, learning, home environment and intellectual growth. In April 2005, he authored Dismantling Educational Inequality: A Cultural-Historical Approach to Closing the Achievement Gap. Portes’ interests center on linking primary prevention practices to human development within a cultural-context perspective, improving teacher and counselor education, and educational policy. Portes joined the University of Louisville faculty in 1982 as an assistant professor in the department of educational and counseling psychology after serving as a counselor for adolescents and their families at several treatment facilities in Florida. He was made professor in 1995 and had been acting chairman of his department since 2003 prior to coming to UGA in July 2006. A native of Havana, Cuba, Portes received his Ph.D. in educational psychology from Florida State University. He received his master’s in counseling psychology from Nova University and a B.S. in psychology from the University of Iowa.Contact Information: portes@uga.edu 706.583.5561
Paula J. Mellom is an Assistant Research Scientist for CLASE. As such, she is responsible for seeking funding for CLASE’s array of programs as well as researching their impacts. In addition, Dr. Mellom takes the lead on CLASE’s “Steps to College” program, a summer science enrichment course for ELL high-school students, and “Content and Culture in Latin America”, an international professional development experience for in-service teachers from Georgia. In 2007, Dr. Mellom was tapped to be one of the inaugural faculty at Georgia Gwinnett College, the first new 4-year public college of the 21st century in the United States, where she was Assistant Professor of English and ESL. Before beginning her doctoral work, Dr. Mellom lived in Costa Rica for 10 years, arriving as a Rotary International Scholar. During her residence in Central America, she was an elementary classroom teacher at a bilingual school, the director of the English language program for the graduate school at CATIE (Center for Tropical Agricultural Research and Teaching) and that center’s official translator. Dr. Mellom has also served as the On-site Support Coordinator for UGA’s TELL (Teachers of English Language Learners) grant and was a CLASE/The Goizueta Foundation Graduate Scholar. Dr. Mellom earned her Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Georgia and received an AB in Spanish and English (with honors) from Occidental College in Los Angeles (Barack Obama’s alma mater!). Her research interests include code-switching in the classroom and the ways in which globalization and issues of identity construction impact language acquisition and use.Contact information: pjmellom@uga.edu
125 Aderhold Hall
Sandy Smith is the Administrative Specialist for CLASE, providing essential support for operations. With over 20 years experience at UGA, Sandy has also worked for the Office of Research, Technology & External Affairs, the School of Professional Studies, and the Department of Educational Psychology in the College of Education. Prior to the College of Education, Sandy worked in Human Resources Employment Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Office.Contact Information: sandys@uga.edu
125 Aderhold Hall
(706) 542-3997