After attaining her Ph.D. in 1971, Grannis accepted a teaching position at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Education where she worked for fourteen years, becoming the Founding Dean of UIC's Honors College in 1982.[4]
In 1985, Grannis left Chicago to become the Dean at the School of Education at Queens College, City University of New York. During this time she was also a professor at Queens College's Department of Education and Community Programs.[5] After five years at QC, Grannis became the dean at the graduate school of the Bank Street College of Education in Manhattan, and held that position until 1995.[6]
In 2003, Grannis left Norwich University and founded the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization CHABHA, Children Affected by HIV/AIDS, where she served as executive director until 2010. She opened a CHABHA office in Kigali, Rwanda, and as well as a vocational school. CHABHA supported over two thousand children in Burundi, Rwanda, and South Africa, coordinating with local children's associations and training young adults orphaned by AIDS as leaders at community-based programs.[1]
Publications
Books
Pflaum, S.W. (Ed.) (1978). Aspects of Reading Education. National Society for the Study of Education. Berkeley: McCutchan Publishing.[8]
Pflaum, S.W. (1986). The Development of Language and Literacy in Young Children. Third edition. Columbus: Charles E. Merrill. Second edition, 1978. First edition, 1974.[9]
Pflaum, S. W. (Ed.) (1992). Health Education: Health Educators and Teacher Educators Collaborate. Bank Street College. (Funded by grant from New York State Department of Education)[10]
Pignatelli, F. & Pflaum, S.W. (Eds.) (1991). Thought and Practice: The Journal of the Graduate School of Bank Street College of Education. New York: Bank Street College.[11]
Pignatelli, F. & Pflaum, S.W. (Eds.) (1993). Celebrating Diverse Voices: Progressive Education and Equity. Newbury Park, CA: Corwin Press.[12]
Pignatelli, F. & Pflaum, S.W. (Eds.) (1994). Experiencing Diversity: Toward Educational Equity. Newbury Park, CA: Corwin Press.[13]
Bishop, P. A. & Pflaum, S. W. (2005). Reading and Teaching Middle School Learners: Asking Students to Show What Works. Newbury Park, CA: Corwin Press.[14]
Grannis, S. W. (2011). Hope Amidst Despair: HIV/AIDS-Affected Children of Africa. London: Pluto Press. (Distributed in the US by Palgrave Macmillan)[15]
Grannis, Susanna (2013). A Bovine Memoir. Self-published.[16]
Grannis, Susanna (2015). I Was Naughty, Too, Some of the Time. Self-published.
Papers
Grannis led and participated in research concerning children's reading difficulties and published many papers in educational research journals. Of these, the paper she co-authored with E.T. Pascarella, "Interactive effects of prior reading achievement and training in context on the reading of learning disabled children" (Reading Research Quarterly, 1980),[17] was the recipient of the Albert J. Harris Research Award for Outstanding Research on Reading Disabilities, International Reading Association (now the International Literacy Association), 1981.[18]
As well, she wrote papers on her research on children's sense of control and their reading behaviors, such as "The interaction of children's attribution and level of control over error correction in reading instruction," by Grannis and Esther T. Pascarella (Journal of Education Psychology, 1980),[19] and "Student perceptions of reading engagement: Learning from the learners," by Grannis and Penny A. Bishop (Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 2004).[20]
Grannis also wrote papers about diversity issues in teacher education, like "Diversity in education: Implications for teacher preparation" with Anne Francis-Okongwu, in Grannis' publication with Frank Pignatelli, Celebrating Diverse Voices: Progressive Education and Equity (Corwin Press, 1993).[21]