Faculty Profiles
Charles Vanover
Associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies
Email Address: vanover@usf.edu
Office Location: USF St. Petersburg campus, HWH 229
Google Scholar Profile
Dr. Charles Vanover is a professor and playwright. His research interests focus on school improvement, school leadership preparation, and qualitative methods. As a post-doc at the University of Michigan's School of Education, as well as during his time at USFSP, Vanover served in the five-year, mixed method longitudinal evaluation of the U. S. National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality; he was second author on the final report. At the University of South Florida, he is the coordinator of the Educational Leadership program's Master's in Urban Education Leadership program and is affiliate faculty for the USF Program in Qualitative Research.
Vanover teaches graduate courses on data analysis and continuous improvement in K-12
schools and other educational organizations. He teaches PhD level qualitative research
methods classes with a focus on qualitative data analysis. Prior to joining USF faculty,
Vanover worked for the Chicago Public Schools for eight years, before receiving a
fellowship to study Educational Administration and Social Policy at the University
of Michigan.
Vanover is also a playwright. His work research-based theatre has been staged more
than 70 times at venues from academic conferences—peer reviewed performances for the
American Educational Research Association, The University Council of Educational Leadership,
and the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. Vanover's plays have also been
performed at universities around the U. S.—including The University of Chicago, The
Ohio State University, and The University of Pennsylvania. He has collaborated with
Bob Devin Jones to stage a series of performances at St Petersburg’s The Studio@620,
funded by USF creative scholarship grants.
Vanover and his colleagues Paul Mihas and Johnny Saldaña recently published an edited volume with SAGE, Analyzing and Interpreting Qualitative Research: After the Interview. Vanover is the inaugural Fulbright scholar to Villa College in Malé, The Maldives, where he will teach qualitative methods and continuous improvement.