Jenetta Waddell
Dr. Jenetta Waddell is the Chair of Teacher Education in the Delta State University College of Education. Dr. Waddell received a Doctor of Education Degree in Instructional Leadership from the University of Alabama. Prior to coming to Delta State University, she spent 29 years as a teacher and central office instructional supervisor in public school districts in Alabama, completing most of her years in a rural school district serving students living in poverty. Dr. Waddell has worked at Delta State University since August 2003, serving in the Rural School Leadership and Research Division and in the Division of Teacher Education.
Dr. Waddell’s research interests focus on the development of educator identify in practicing and pre-service educators, concentrating on the use of oral histories and autobiographical life histories as the means of capturing data. Dr. Waddell has presented on these topics at international and national conferences, including the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies annual meeting, the Women in Educational Leadership annual conference, and the Symposium on Educator Dispositions.
Dr. Waddell came to Delta State University to continue her work with students living in poverty by helping to train teachers and school administrators who work with these P-12 students. Rich in history and culture, the Mississippi Delta is also a wonderful place to pursue the collecting of oral histories and autobiographical life histories. In a partnership between a local public school district and the Delta State University College of Education, Dr. Waddell recently helped to coordinate the training of middle-level students to collect oral histories focused on the Civil Rights Era. The first phase of this project has been completed with the collection of the oral histories. The video-taped interviews with informants have been transcribed and the second phase of the project, which focuses on identifying themes found across informant interviews, is beginning.