Issue No: 475
August 27, 2001
We impact the way America learns.
Previous issues of Monday Report are available at http://www.emich.edu/coe/monday. Send items and comments to jerry.robbins@emich.edu.
The College of Education Fall Conference will be held on September 4 at Eagle Crest.
FACULTY/STAFF NOTES
The Continuing Education Board of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) recently granted John Tonkovich the Award for Continuing Education. This award is made to those ASHA members who voluntarily accrue at least 70 clock hours of continuing education over a three-year period.
"Rockin' and Rappin' the Walls Down: Communication with Youth About Health" by Kay Woodiel and Jeff Schultz has been accepted for presentation at the American School Health Association convention in Albuquerque.
Sue Grossman is a member-at-large of the board of the Michigan Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators.
Ellen Hoffman and doctoral student Deb Dunbar led two workshops on technology planning last week, sponsored by the Michigan Department of Education and broadcast to intermediate school districts throughout the state.
Jon Margerum-Leys and Ellen Hoffman hosted a session in the Porter Building last Friday to train judges from throughout the state for the Michigan Certificate for Outstanding Teaching with Technology (MCOATT) credential. The summer award cycle is for the newly implemented certificate for practicing teachers, parallel to a program started last year for preservice teachers. Teachers submit electronic portfolios to highlight their accomplishments.
The following COE faculty members were recently awarded Faculty Travel Grants: Bill Cupples, Dibya Choudhuri, Peggy Daisey, Sue Grossman, Rebecca Martusewicz, Olga Nelson, Jeff Schulz, Lizbeth Stevens, Pat Williams-Boyd, Judy Williston, and Kay Woodiel. Murali Nair recently successfully defended his dissertation at the University of Virginia.
Nancy Dahl recently published a poem in "The Plowman."
Don Staub's status as head of the COE Office of Collaborative Education has recently been changed to that of an administrator (AP).
ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT
Leah Adams leaves today for Alkmaar, The Netherlands, for the European Early Childhood Education Research Association conference. She (with Anne Soderman, MSU, and Patricia Kostell of South Carolina) will present "Children's Self Perceptions About Their Literacy Skills." Adams will also have a chance to visit schools in The Netherlands. This will be her ninth (including three international) conference presentation in the past year.
Q.S. Samonte's paper on "Form vs. Substance in Comparative and International Education: A Continuing Challenge to Teacher Education" has been accepted for presentation at the Midwest Regional Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society, to be held at WMU in November.
STUDENT NOTES
Shayna Shaffer received one of the few June awards of the MCOATT (Michigan Certificate for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching with Technology) credential.
Cathy Hanson, who recently took second place in the Michigan Student Teacher/Intern of the Year contest, was the subject of a feature article in the Dexter Leader.
EMU Immersion is a new program of the Dean of Students office that will permit students (no fee involved) to participate in a variety of activities related to diversity. The activities planned to date for the Fall semester include a luncheon, a bus trip to the Charles Wright Museum, presentations on anti-racism and on gender, a presentation by the mother of Matthew Shepard, a bus trip to the Holocaust Museum/Temple Adat Shalom, and monthly dialog luncheons. Additional information and registration are available in 212 King Hall, 734.487.3818.
STUDENT STATS
In the fall of 2000, there were 1,467 graduate students affiliated with the College of Education. Of these, 496 (34%) were post-baccalaureate students pursuing initial teacher certification; 377 (26%) were pursuing a graduate degree in the Department of Teacher Education; 315 (21%) were affiliated with the Department of Leadership and Counseling; 243 (17%) were in a Special Education graduate program, and 36 (2%) were affiliated with a program in HPERD.
Overall, the COE graduate student body in Fall 2000 was composed of 1,134 (77%) women. However, there were departmental variations, ranging from 58% women graduate students in HPERD through 65% in L&C and 75% in Student Teaching to 85% in Special Education and 87% in Teacher Education.
Among those whose ethnicity is known, 86 (6%) were African American, 18 (1%) were Hispanic, 13 (1%) were Asian/Pacific Islander, and five were American Indian. Of the total population, 16 (1%) were classified in university records as “alien.”
In Leadership and Counseling, 15% of the graduate students were minority; in HPERD and Student Teaching the figure was 9% each; in Special Education, it was 6%; and in Teacher Education it was 4%.
In the Fall of 2000, 413 (28%) of our graduate students were classified as "full-time." However, there was appreciable variation in the percentage of full-time students among the units, ranging from a high of 61% of those in Student Teaching (the post-baccalaureate, initial teacher preparation students), down through 22% in Special Education, 15% in Leadership and Counseling, 14% in HPERD, and 2% in Teacher Education.
The undergraduate grade point average of COE graduate students in Fall 2000 was 3.10, second highest behind COAS’s 3.15 and equal to the EMU average of 3.10. The modal category for the COE was 3.2 GPA. Within the COE, the highest average undergraduate GPA was in Teacher Education (3.20), followed by Special Education (3.18), Leadership and Counseling (3.08), HPERD (3.02), and Student Teaching (the post-baccalaureate, initial teacher preparation program students) (2.99).
ALUMNI NOTES
Seven EMU alums are under consideration for the next round of practicing teacher MCOATT awards, which will be announced in early September.
The Cleveland (OH) schools have reported that they have hired a dozen EMU alums for that district in the past five years.
Margaret Clark Day Onstott '37, aged 96, died recently. Her home was in Parma. She had a long teaching career in schools in Michigan, with her most recent experience in Parma and with the Jackson ISD. She was a very early teacher of special education in Jackson County.
Leonard R. Feist '65, age 74, died recently in Royal Oak. He began his career in Michigan as a physical education teacher in Madison Heights. Within a few years he began teaching fifth grade, later moving to the Warren district where he was a longtime elementary principal.
Barbara J. Harrison-Saxton '71, '75 is the interim superintendent in Saline.
CREDIT HOURS
As of August 22, the COE was within 91 credit hours (1.4%) of final figures for last Summer. Credit hours in Teacher Education are up 12.66% over final figures for last Summer. For Fall, we are within 390 credit hours (1.18%) of final figures for last Fall, with Teacher Education already being 10.86% ahead of final figures for last Fall.
FROM “THE SCHOOL THAT WENT TO COLLEGE” By Ruth B. MacFarlane
For thirty years the [Town Hall] school sat vacant, minimally maintained by occasional yard mowings and repairs, until the time of the nation's Bicentennial.
At Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, eight miles away, a committee was set up to organize the University's part in the celebration. One member, Prof. Thomas Gwaltney, suggested procuring a one-room country school and bringing it to the campus as a school museum, appropriate to this university which had begun as "and still was" a teachers' college. In 1849, it had been established as Michigan Normal School, the first teacher-training college west of the Allegheny Mountains. A second member of the committee suggested that the country school she had attended might be available, the Town Hall School, which had observed over 100 years of the nation’s history.
Things move slowly through the web of administration, departments, and budgetary demands on a college campus. The nation's Bicentennial came and went. Administrators and professors grew older and retired, sometimes to be replaced by others with different priorities. Still, some people persevered, perhaps shifting from one committee to another, until in honor of the State's Sesquicentennial, the idea came to fruition.
The actual move was a culmination of years of effort--meetings, requests, defeats, budget shifts--and became in itself a colossal effort involving University personnel, the Geddes family, former pupils, utility companies, law enforcement agencies, and money.
In July of 1987, it happened.
The move was scheduled for July 7, but on July 6, Marie Geddes, wife of Carl, who lived on Morgan Road a short way east of the school, returned home to see one side of a building blocking the road just beyond her house. She realized that the move was already under way.
She drove closer to watch the workmen scurrying about the building. They were reorienting support beams to make the turn onto the gravel road possible. She rushed home to park her car and alert other Geddeses by telephone. They promptly gathered to watch. By this time the school was out on the road.
The moving company was Westerman Movers, then based in Ann Arbor. Exactly how did they raise and transport that twelve-ton building?
(To be continued)
OPPORTUNITIES AND EVENTS
(For a complete list, see http://www.emich.edu/coe/newhome/opportunities.html)
August 29-30–EMU New Faculty Orientation, 201 Welch (Aug. 29), Halle 300 (Aug. 30).
August 31–Orientation for all personnel involved in Freshman Interest Groups (FIG) (including two sections on “Exploring Elementary Education” and a section on “Emerging Scholars for Elementary Education Majors”). For information, 487.5624.
September 1–Beginning of drive for new children’s books for United Way Day of Caring. Book collection boxes in McKenny Union.
September 4–College of Education Fall Conference, Eagle Crest.
September 7–Department of Teacher Education All-Day Retreat.
September 7–Governor’s Education Summit, Lansing, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For information, www.masb.org and follow the links to Foundation.
September 13–Basic Programs Committee, 3:30-5:00 p.m., place to be announced.
September 13–United Way Day of Caring, Pam (Mrs. Sam) Kirkpatrick, general chair. Contribute a new children’s book to the Washtenaw Literacy Coalition. Book collection boxes will be available in McKenny Union after September 1. For information, contact Cathy Hill or Melinda Ostrander (Physical Plant).
CALLS FOR PAPERS/PROPOSALS
(For a complete list, see http://www.emich.edu/coe/newhome/proposals.html)
The Michigan Reading Journal solicits articles. For information, contact Lorraine Berak at CMU at berak1ls@cmich.edu. (berak, then the numeral one, then the letter “l.”)
September 1–deadline for chapters for Educators,Therapists and Artists on Reflective Practice. For information, jgranqui@mail.lesley.edu.
September 1–deadline for proposals for the EMU conference on “Integrity & Inclusion: Diversity in the Academic Curriculum and Beyond.” For information, www.emich.edu/aaccd/conference.
September 10–proposals due for Eastern Educational Research Association. For information, contact Peggy Moore-Hart.
September 14–Articles due on theme of “the state of school reform” for Principal Leadership. For information, plmag@principals.org.
September 15–manuscript deadline for articles on “the social side of teaching” for Kappa Delta Pi Record.