Margaret E. Bausch, Ed. D.
Assistant Professor
meb@uky.edu

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Brian Bottge
Professor, Endowed Chair
brian.bottge@uky.edu
Vita (PDF)

Dr. Brian Bottge is the William T. Bryan Endowed Chair in Special Education in the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling. Prior to his appointment at UK, he was Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he was given Emeritus status.

Dr. Bottge is best known for Enhanced Anchored Instruction (EAI), which is a strategy for teaching math to low-performing adolescents. EAI provides rich and engaging contexts (i.e., computer and hands-on applications) where students develop their computation and problem-solving skills. Dr. Bottge’s work has been supported by grants from the McDonnell Foundation Cognitive Studies in Educational Practice, the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) (Cognition and Student Learning). Dr. Bottge’s research is highlighted in the U. S. Department of Education “Doing What Works” website and has been reported in various education and technology publications.

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William Calderhead
Assistant Professor
wjcald2@email.uky.edu

Dr. Calderhead is currently involved in research related to (a) strategies to improve instruction in the elementary grades, (b) high school reform, and (c) teacher professional development. Since 2006 Dr. Calderhead has served as a co-PI on an IES-funded randomized trial of the efficacy of teaching the logic of the scientific method to fourth graders. In the areas of school reform and teacher professional development, he has evaluated a school-wide intervention called Positive Behavior Support (PBS). Dr. Calderhead has analyzed the effects of PBS on teachers’ perceptions of their teaching behavior and student discipline during the first two years of district-wide implementation in rural Oregon.

In addition, he also has studied the needs of students at risk for failure in high school by (a) conducting focus group interviews with ninth graders at high schools in Oregon and Illinois for the purpose of measuring the effectiveness of supports for middle school students transitioning to high school; and (b) interviewing teachers and students about behavior problems confronted by rural high schools.  

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Belva Collins
Professor
bcoll01@email.uky.edu
Vita (PDF)

A former rural special education teacher, Dr. Collins earned a master’s degree from the University of Virginia and a doctoral degree from the University of Kentucky with a focus in Severe Disabilities. She has been on faculty in the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling since 1990. Dr. Collins helped develop the department’s distance education program in Moderate and Severe Disabilities with the support of numerous federal grants to prepare special education personnel in rural Kentucky. She also was instrumental in developing UK’s gradate certificate in Distance Education and has been successful in securing several federal grants to prepare future faculty with skills in distance education delivery.

Her present research interests are in three primary areas: (a) systematic instruction of functional core content with students with moderate and severe disabilities, (b) distance education to prepare rural special education personnel, and (c) inclusion of persons with special needs in their faith communities.

Dr. Collins is a past chair of the American Council on Rural Special Education (ACRES) and currently serves as editor of the organization’s refereed journal, Rural Special Education Quarterly. She is the author of Moderate and Severe Disabilities: A Foundational Approach, as well as over 85 book chapters or publications in refereed journals. In addition, she regularly presents her research at a international and national professional conferences.  

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William Gustashaw
Assistant Professor
bgustashaw@uky.edu

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Karen Hager
Assistant Professor
karen.hager@uky.edu

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Robert McKenzie
Professor
rmcke2@email.uky.edu
Vita (PDF)

Prior to receiving his doctorate at the University of Iowa in 1981, Dr. McKenzie served as a public school secondary social studies teacher and special education resource teacher.  Since arriving at the University of Kentucky in 2002, he has been a member of the Learning & Behavior Disorders program faculty and served as that program’s Faculty Chair from 2004 - 2008.  Dr. McKenzie’s area of instructional expertise is the assessment of learning and other mild disabilities, and his current research focuses on improving the quality of collaborative, co-teaching models of instruction and issues related to response-to-intervention models.  

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John W. Schuster
Professor
jwschu01@email.uky.edu

Currently, Dr. Schuster is a Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling. He
earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama and completed his master's at Columbia University and then his doctorate at the University of Kentucky.

His research areas of interest are in moderate and severe disabilities and effective instructional strategies, as well as in single subject research.

Since being at UK, Dr. Schuster has chaired more than 70 thesis committees and over 10 doctoral committees.  He currently is on the University's
Institutional Review Board and serves on the editorial boards for several professional journals including Education and Treatment of Children, Rural Special Education Quarterly, and Journal of Behavioral Education.

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Deborah Bott Slaton
Professor
deborah.slaton@uky.edu
Vita (PDF)

Dr. Slaton has been on the faculty in the UK College of Education since 1984. She is the College of Education’s Associate Dean for Research and Graduate studies and from 2003-2007 served as chair of the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling. Her teaching and research interests involve academic interventions for students with learning disabilities. Dr. Slaton earned a B.S. Ed. in a dual major program, elementary education/language and learning disabilities, from Texas Tech University and did her graduate work at the University of Florida where she earned both an M.Ed. and a Ph.D. in special education. She taught students with learning disabilities in public and private schools in Texas, New Mexico, and Florida.  

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