THE AUTHORS

Roger Hiemstra is Professor and Chair, Adult Education, Elmira College. He received his B.S. degree in agricultural economics from Michigan State University (1964), his M.S. degree in extension education from Iowa State University (1967), and his Ph.D. degree in adult community education from the University of Michigan (1970). He was a Mott Intern in the community education program in Flint, Michigan, for a year.

Hiemstra served from 1964 to 1967 as county extension agent for the Iowa Cooperative Extension Service, where he first began working with adults as learners. From 1970 to 1976, he taught adult education at the University of Nebraska. He has since served as professor and department chair of adult education at Iowa State University (from 1976 to 1980) and Syracuse University (from 1980 to 1996). He holds the position of professor emeritus from Syracuse University. Dr. Hiemstra was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame in 2000. For a complete resumé, go here.

His longtime interest in community adult education led him to write The Educative Community (1972, last updated in 1993). His interest in adults' potential to assume the primary responsibility for their own learning was the impetus for work on such writing projects as Lifelong Learning (1976), Self-Direction in Adult Learning: Perspectives on Theory, Research, and Practice (1991), Environments for Effective Adult Learning (1991), and Overcoming Resistance to Self-Direction in Learning (1994).

He has also served as editor of Lifelong Learning: The Adult Years and of the Adult Education Quarterly. He teaches courses on an introduction to adult education, contemporary issues in adult education, research, adult learning, and distance education.

Burton Sisco is Dean, College of Education, Rowan University. He received his B.A. degree in history from the University of Vermont (1973), his M.Ed. degree in teacher education, also from the University of Vermont (1977), and his Ed.D degree in adult education from Syracuse University (1981).

Sisco first worked with adult learners as a Kellogg Foundation intern at the Community College of Vermont (1976-77). After completing his doctoral studies, he was a research associate on a National Institute of Education research project investigating the learning efforts of rural, undereducated adults (1979-1981) and, at the same time, worked as an administrator in the Division of Continuing Education at the University of Vermont and taught adult education courses at Saint Michael's College in Wionooski, Vermont. From 1983-1985, he was assistant professor of adult education at Syracuse University. From 1985-1998 he worked at the University of Wyoming in various academic and administrative roles.

Sisco's primary research interests are adult cognition, self-directed learning, teaching effectiveness, and the historical foundations of adult education, and he has taught courses in these field, among others. He has served on the steering committee of the Adult Education Research Conference of North America and has held numerous leadership positions with the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education and the Mountain Plains Adult Education Association. He is past editor of the MPAEA Journal of Adult Education and book review editor of Adult Literacy and Basic Education, and has served on the editorial board of the Adult Education Quarterly. He also co-authored Confronting Controversies in Challenging Times: A Call to Action.

Return to the book's index page

Return me to your first page