LINDA THURSTON, Ph.D. Director Vita: Click here to view

Email: lpt@ksu.edu Phone: 785.532.5930

Linda P.Thurston, founding Director of OEIE, has professional training and experience in the fields of general and special education, clinical psychology, and applied behavior analysis. She has been working with adults, developing parent training programs, and teaching educators and psychologists to work with parents for twenty five years.

Linda holds a doctorate degree in developmental psychology and is currently an Assistant Dean in the College of Education, a professor of special education, and Director of the Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation at Kansas State University. She is the author of over 50 research publications in the areas of rural education, gender equity in education, life skills and parent training, and adult and teacher education. She is a co-author of Collaboration, Consultation, and Teamwork, a textbook for graduate students in education which is in its fourth edition. She has presented papers at various national and international conferences about child, family, and education issues. Linda has received grants that were funded for a total of over $10 million (special education, gender equity, multimedia training) and she developed specialty programming for rural teachers for which she and the Kansas State University College of Education were awarded the Exemplary Teacher Preparation Program of 1991 by the American Council on Rural Special Education. Included in the projects she has spearheaded at KSU are the Kansas Child Welfare Project, a program of 10 hypermedia modules using computer training and videodiscs for pre-service and in-service training of human service professionals, the Life Skills Training Program for Special Educators, the Computer Gender Equity project, Multi-Cultural special education program, and the Rural Special Education Teacher Training Project, for which she was awarded the Model Rural Teacher Training Program of 1990 by the American Council on Rural Special Education.

Linda is the developer and founder of the Survival Skills programs and the president of Survival Skills Education and Development, in Manhattan, Kansas. Linda initiated Survival Skills for Women in 1979 to assist low-income women to develop life skills and job skills necessary for economic self-reliance and personal well-being. These basic education programs for women, men, and youth are now in 45 states and 2 countries and have given over 150,000 persons positive direction and renewed hope for their lives. Her program, Survival Skills for Women, is nationally-recognized for its success in developing social support and life skills for single mothers, welfare recipients, and women in crisis or transition.

Dr. Thurston is listed in Who’s Who in American Education and International Who’s Who of Business Women and is a member of various professional organizations such as the American Psychological Association and the International Association for Behavior Analysis. She was the founding chair of Women’s Intercultural Network, and has been on the board of several other national and local organizations. For three years, she served as the National Co Coordinator of the American Council on Rural Special Education. In 1999, she was awarded the Bonnie Nelson Leadership Award by the University Women’s Caucus for outstanding leadership and mentoring for women on the Kansas State University campus and the community.

In 2002, Linda received the Michael C. Holen Outstanding Leadership Award, presented by Kansas State University Leadership Studies and Programs. The award honors those who embody the Leadership Studies and Programs mission to "Develop knowledgeable, ethical, caring leaders for a diverse world". Also in 2002, Dr. Thurston was recognized for outstanding achievement in her professional, business, and voluntary activities in the last 10 years on behalf of human rights and the status of women by Soroptimist International of Kansas City. She was honored with the Women of Distinction award.