Kudos

Mary Ruth Sizer (LRE) was given HONORS of the Association by her peers of the North Carolina Speech, Hearing and Language Association at the Spring Convention in Raleigh on April 24, 2009.

RCOE Faculty Awards

The RCOE Faculty Development Committee has completed its review of nominees for faculty awards. The following individuals are the recipients of this year’s awards. Outstanding Teaching—Tracy Goodson-Espy (C&I); Outstanding Scholarship—Larry Kortering (LRE); Outstanding Community of Practice—Ann Marie Clark (C&I); Outstanding Mentoring—Allen Bryant (C&I); Outstanding Adjunct Teaching—Mary Ferrell (C&I). These individuals will be recognized at the opening meeting of the college in the fall.

Alice P. Naylor Dissertation Award

Dr. Angie Wright, Senior Director of Grants Administration & Compliance Reporting for the Wake County Public School System, was the first recipient of the new Alice Phoebe Naylor Outstanding Dissertation Award. The award is administered through the Appalachian State University Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership. The award was created by alumni and friends of the Program to honor Alice P. Naylor who retired in June 2008 after nine years as Director of the Program and thirty-three years on the ASU faculty.

Each spring the Doctoral Program will make the award to recognize the writer of the outstanding dissertation from the previous calendar year. A nominating committee of distinguished education faculty reviews each nominated dissertation to determine the award winner. This year’s honoree, Angie Wright, graduated with her Doctorate in Educational Leadership in May 2008. Her dissertation research was about the issues faced by working mothers who have to balance their responsibilities in the home and those in the workplace. The award was presented as part of the Doctoral Program Spring Symposium held at the ASU Higher Education Center in Hickory, April 25.

Advancement Change

Dolly Farrell will be moving to Salisbury, North Carolina where her husband Liam has accepted the head soccer coach position at Salisbury College. We have, however, worked out an arrangement whereby Dolly will continue to serve as the RCOE Advancement Officer, spending part of her time here in the RCOE and part of her time working out of her home to visit donor prospects, etc. We are most grateful that Dolly has agreed to continue her advancement duties on behalf of the RCOE.

Budget Items

We have little new to report on the budget front other than the information everyone received on the “furloughing.” As you undoubtedly discovered, at this time, only your May and June 2009 pay checks will be affected. The “10 hour gift” applies to SPA staff primarily and can be accessed only after June 1, 2009 and before December 31, 2009 and only with the appropriate supervisor’s approval. The below link to the Governor’s Office is the correct clarification.

http://www.governor.state.nc.us/NewsItems/PressReleaseDetail.aspx?newsItemid=333

ASU’s Human Resource Services has posted a link of commonly asked questions. You can visit their home page for more information.

Final Grades Due

We ask that every effort be made to meet the deadline for submitting grades. The following information has been provided by the Registrar’s Office: Final grades are due May 8 at 1:00 pm. At that time, Registrar personnel will begin an audit of missing grades and notify the faculty member and the appropriate Deans office. At 5:00 pm., the grade posting link will be disabled until grades have been posted to the students’ academic records and the gpa calculation has occurred. This process should be completed late Friday evening.

As you may recall in December, we were under an extreme time constraint with only a one business day turn around for reports to departments before the holiday break. Faculty response was extraordinary and the number of missing grades was reduced dramatically. The technical unit of the Registrar’s Office worked extensive weekend hours to provide the reports by Monday. However, given the current budget restrictions and our inability to compensate for overtime hours, we will not be able to invest the same amount of time as last semester. We will resume end of semester activities on Monday and Tuesday of the following week (May 11-12) which consists of academic standing and honors processing. All end of semester reports will be made available Wednesday, May 13. We have verified with the Office of Academic Affairs that the Deans and Chancellor letters and academic standing notices should be mailed to the students’ permanent address. The funds which were recently frozen can be used to cover postage costs for these essential communications to students. However, Mr. McLeod has indicated we will not print the grade reports which requires a substantial amount of paper and is considered to be an ‘unnecessary’ print since the information will be retained electronically in EPrint. The information will be available in Eprint May 13 and may be printed as needed.

SALT Reports

Just a reminder that SALT reports are due by June 30, if not before.

Draft Standards for NC Students

The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) is seeking input on the Draft Essential Standards for North Carolina Public Schools. DPI has requested that school districts compile feedback on the Draft Essential Standards; however, they are interested in receiving feedback from individuals as well. To provide feedback, please go to

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB2295BE3HQKL

The Draft Essential Standards can be found at

http://dpi.state.nc.us/acre/standards

Please note, some version of these Standards will be adopted and North Carolina teachers will be held accountable for seeing that their students meet the standards; all subjects and grade levels are represented in the Draft. Faculty are strongly encouraged to review these and provide feedback to DPI.

Call for Proposals

The 54th Annual Meeting of the South Atlantic Philosophy of Education Society will be held September 25-26 on the campus of UNC—Chapel Hill. The program committee invites proposals to be submitted for presentation at the meeting. Presented papers will be eligible to be published in the Society’s yearbook. The theme, Democracy and Schooling, is inspired by national and global conversations about current conceptions of what democratic social and political engagements entail. As the notion of democracy is being debated, so too is the very idea of public schooling. We hope this theme will foster conversations about schooling’s potential role in defining, creating and reconstructing democratic societies. We invite papers that broadly address the topic of democratic education, key issues facing schools within democratic societies, and theorizations of what “democratic education” means. We also invite proposals addressing other philosophical and foundational topics. of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Proposals should not exceed 250 words and should be submitted via email attachment in MSWord, Rich Text, or PDF format to: Peter Nelsen, SAPES Program Committee Chair nelsenpj@appstate.edu Proposals must be received by July 15th. Graduate students are especially encouraged to submit proposals. Limited stipends for graduate student travel are available. For more information about the meeting or the South Atlantic Philosophy of Education Society, go to

http://www.SAPES.org

Tough Love in Halifax

Halifax County (NC) school employees must “succeed or go” during the three years the state will oversee education in the district, a state education official said in court Wednesday. Pat Ashley, an administrator with the state Department of Public Instruction, testified in a Wake County courtroom about a plan to reverse sliding student performance in Halifax, a struggling, poor district. The plan involves intensive training and monitoring of teachers, principals and central office staff.

The state was pushed by Wake Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. to take “command and control” of education in the northeastern North Carolina county’s school district. “The children are getting royally deprived of everything by the adults,” said Manning, who oversees the state’s long-running court case on school quality. Halifax students score well below state averages on standardized tests, and none of its schools meet federal progress measures.

The improvement plan includes three years of training and coaching for teachers, principals and central office staff, and professional development and training for the local school board. State education officials will be able to look at personnel, student and financial records in the county. The State Board of Education is scheduled to sign off on the plan next month. The Halifax school board has agreed to the plan, and Manning called it “a good start.”

See full story at

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1507139

Last Update

This update will be the last for the semester except for periodic updates with special information as it occurs. At times the year has seemed more like a marathon than usual. I thank everyone for their efforts this year and look forward to continuing those efforts next year. In case you need a little levity at the end of the semester, you might enjoy watching the dancing prowess of Snowball. Snowball is a medium sulphur crested eleanora cockatoo. He is 11 years old and is a sanctuary bird at Bird Lovers Only Rescue Service, Inc. which is a 501c3 not for profit parrot rescue and sanctuary. The stamina of this bird, not to mention the rhythm, is pretty amazing. See

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYMBIGTteWA&feature=channel

I promise no more youtube links for now Have a pleasant summer. Charlie

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“Change is a Journey, not a Destination.”

—M. Fullan

Honors Ceremony

The ceremony honoring students who received RCOE scholarships this year attracted a total audience of over 200 people and was received extremely well by parents and students. Special thanks to Associate Dean Doris Jenkins and Elaine Berry, Tammie Gelderman and Dolly Farrell for their efforts in putting together this fine ceremony.

Doctoral Cohorts Research Symposium

Under the direction of Kelly Clark-Keefe, Vachel Miller and Jim Killacky, an all-day research symposium featuring the work of current doctoral students from on and off-campus was held Saturday at the Hickory Center. The presentations and discussion were informative and lively, and the day was well spent in intellectual discussion. Special thanks to Susan Musilli (Dean’s Office) for supervising the logistics of the day.

Budget Update

Some movement has occurred on some items:

• Summer contracts for tenure track faculty and for adjuncts can be processed; chairs are asked to be very careful about insuring strong enrollments in sections covered.
• Contracts for tenure track faculty, one year fulltime appointments and part-time adjuncts can be submitted for fall; however, how rapidly those will be processed remains to be seen.
• Graduate assistants who signed their contracts or for whom you have written acceptance prior to April 9 may have their contracts processed; all others are on hold at the moment.
• Spring commencement expenses are to be kept to a minimum and need to be filed as an exception.
• Matching funds for grants must be submitted as an exception request with detailed documentation.
• Minimum monthly fee for any motor fleet vehicles must be paid if the vehicle is not turned into Motor Pool immediately.

Other items detailed on my memo sent to all RCOE faculty and staff remain frozen. Other suspended actions:

• The search for a new dean of the Health and Allied Sciences has been suspended.
• P-cards cannot be used for state fund purchases.
• No state funds may be used for purchases from the Warehouse; this includes paper, general answer sheets, teacher evaluation forms, etc.
• Small check requests cannot be used for State Fund purchases.
• Petty cash reimbursement cannot be made from State Funds.
• Recruitment travel based on state funds is frozen.

Travel caution

If people choose to travel at their own expense for professional reasons (i.e., conferences, workshops), they must understand that because the university is funding no professional travel, other than for student supervision, such travel is undertaken completely at the risk of the individual and the university can not be held liable; nor should there be any expectation of future reimbursement since the travel was not approved. Be sure you fully understand the implications of this situation.

Further information about grants and contracts:

For all grants and contracts where travel is a necessary part of fulfilling the obligations associated with the work to be performed in the grant or contract, travel is permissible as long no state funding is used to support any part of the travel. If the grant or contract had an agreed to matching component that did involve the use of state funds other than salary and benefits that has not been expended to date, the University will be required to ask for an exception to current budget restrictions to honor the matching component. These items will have to be submitted in advance prior to the expenditure of funds and should be submitted to Business Affairs for consideration.

Units and individuals responsible for grants and contracts should not use the funds in these awards to cover travel unrelated to the objectives of the grant or contract. We need to be careful that any travel authorized with the use of these funds can clearly be tied back to the objectives of the grant or contract. In all cases, we need to avoid any perception that the use of grant and contract funds was done to work around current travel restrictions involving state funds. Units and individuals are encouraged to check with appropriate contacts in Special Funds and the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs before committing to an expenditure of grant or contract funds that may be deemed questionable.

Financial Aid

Offices of financial aid are experiencing a definite increase in request for aid. Although we have no specific figures as far as ASU goes, we have noted an increase in applications for scholarships, a number of which have financial need as a criterion. The federal Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recently released initial results from the 2008 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study. This study supplies the most comprehensive and up-to-date look at postsecondary student characteristics and student financial aid for the 2007-08 school year. Some findings:

• Almost two-thirds (66%) of all undergraduates received some type of financial aid.  For those receiving such aid, the total average amount was $9,100.
• 52% of all undergraduates received grant aid, and more than one-third (38%) obtained student loans.  The average grant amount was $4,900, and the average loan amount was $7,100.
• 47% of all undergraduates received some type of federal student aid.  About one-fourth (28%) received an average of $2,800 in federal Pell Grants, and more than one-third (35%) obtained an average of $5,100 in federal student loans.
• Among undergraduates financially dependent on their parents, 28% came from families with incomes under $40,000, and another 28% came from families with incomes of $100,000 or more.
• Nearly three-fourths (74%) of all graduate students received some type of financial aid, with an average amount of $17,600.

For more information, please go to  http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009166

Also: QuickStats http://nces.ed.gov/datalab/quickstats/ a new NCES data tool, makes several postsecondary education datasets easily accessible to the public.

Creativity and Education

At a time of greater standardization in education, hearing someone discussing education and creativity in the same breath is refreshing. Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government’s 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, a deep look at human creativity and education, was published in January 2009. The video of one of his speeches (about 20 minutes) can be found at the following url: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Visualizing the Economy

Reading about the economy, especially the loss of jobs, is informative, but visualizing the loss puts the situation on a different plane. It would be hard to match the impact of the following map with mere words: http://www.slate.com/id/2216238/

Kudos

Angela Losardo (LRE) for receiving the Board of Governor’s Appalachian State University Teaching Award; she will be recognized at Fall Convocation.

Connie Green for the publication of her book The Lydia year: Learning from Pre-Kindergarten Children in Rural Appalachia, published by the Association for Childhood Education International 2009.

Hunter R. Boylan (LES & NCDE) for being awarded a "Lifetime Conference Fee Waiver" by the National Association for Developmental Education. The award was given during the opening ceremonies of the association’s national conference in Greensboro, NC to honor Dr. Boylan’s "Valuable Contributions to the National Association for Developmental Education."

As we know, sometimes there is a lag time between publication and notification of the author; such was the case with our good colleague Jim Killacky (LES and doctoral program) as reflected in the following citations:

Killacky, J. & Rhoe-Collins, K. (2008). Guest Editors. Community and technical colleges in Louisiana and Mississippi post hurricane Katrina. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 32, 3

Killacky, J. & Rhoe-Collins, J. (2008). Guest editors’ introduction to the special issue: Hurricane Katrina’s impacts on community and technical colleges in Louisiana and Mississippi. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 32, 3. 163- 166.

Garbee, D.D. & Killacky, J. (2008). Factors influencing intent to stay in academia for nursing faculty in the southern United States of America. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship, 5, 1, 1-15

Hall, R. & Killacky, J. (2008). Correctional education from the perspective of the prisoner student. Journal of Correctional Education, 59, 4, 301-320. December

Budget Freeze

The week ended without any further information or guidelines from the General Administration regarding parameters for the budget freeze. At this time, one is wise to consider that just about all travel options are gone—no travel advances are possible, no guarantees for payment of hotel and meal expenses, etc. even after the fact currently exist. Only direct instructional expense is permitted and even some aspects of this may be held up. We do have the following from Extension regarding teaching off-campus.

We [Extension] have had several questions posed about the travel freeze, as it relates to extension instructional travel, and have verified with Academic Affairs that travel for direct instructional purposes is still allowed. This would include transportation and meal allowances in accordance with state guidelines for reimbursable expenses. This is only for direct instructional travel and not for class trips and/or peripheral activities. In some instances, faculty have chosen to stay overnight to continue additional duties on a subsequent day (ie. weekend classes) and if this is the case, that circumstance which causes the least expense should be followed. Note: receipts will be critical.

As soon as further information is available from Academic Affairs, we will share it with the college; until then, make no assumptions about reimbursable expenses nor is there any point in attempting to order equipment, extra supplies, etc. A further note: SALT grant monies that were not expended prior to this freeze are no longer available. These grants relied on state funds and so have been suspended along with other state funded initiatives. Federal grants that do not flow through other agencies remain unaffected at this time. If you have grants funded through state agencies, our advice is that you communicate directly with such agencies to determine how your funds are being viewed. Written verification from an agency will, in all likelihood, be required if the funds can still be expended. International Scholarly Assignment Awards have been put on hold indefinitely.

An International Opportunity

Linda Pacifici (C&I) recently traveled to Honduras with other ASU faculty, ASU students and community members to work with the indigenous Lenca people. The group is offering a presentation of their trip on Sunday, April 26th from 6-8:30 pm at the Dragonfly Theatre (located in the strip mall across from the Watauga Wellness Center) The purpose is to showcase their work in building the foundation with the indigenous Lenca people for a school, visiting the Lenca public schools (K-9th grade) and learning from the teachers at these schools, and running a medical clinic. The Lenca population in this region (Opalaca) are the most neglected and underfunded group in Honduras, e.g., they just got electricity three years ago. The presentation will include video clips and a photographic journey of the trip. Admission is free though donations will be accepted for the organization that sponsored this trip.

University Master Plan

If your schedules permit, you might wish to attend the unveiling of the new master plan for the university; presentation will occur on April 28 from 2-4 in the Table Rock Room of the Student Union.

Links

My luck with links lately has not been very good but here we go; for those of you who could not access the link in last week’s Update, here is the correct one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k

For those of you who perhaps missed it, a rather inspirational story is unfolding regarding a British woman who offers unmistakable evidence that there’s talent in Britain as well as America. As usual, you can go to youtube for the information:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Note: and in case you think I do nothing but watch YouTube, I didn’t even know it existed until this past year and then only because a number of you and other colleagues keep sending me links that I can’t resist checking out—some amazing stuff out there these days!

Professional Core Forum

Many thanks to those who attended last Thursday’s open forum on the professional core; the dialogue was most helpful and the Task Force will take into consideration the various viewpoints that were expressed.

Invitation to Join Interdisciplinary Faculty

The following consists of an invitation to become part of the Interdisciplinary Studies program here at the university:

Now that Interdisciplinary Studies is a Program rather than a department, we—like Global Studies, Sustainable Development, Women’s Studies, and Appalachian Studies—are eager to create a faculty from across the university. We hope to discover who is doing or has done interdisciplinary research, teaching, or advising; we hope to find people who are interested in continuing to do interdisciplinary work; were interested in people who would like do or to learn to do interdisciplinary work. Our faculty will be made up of full-time interdisciplinarians and departmental faculty who qualify at one of the first three levels below. The fourth level involves ASU faculty who are interested in also being Interdisciplinary Studies faculty but are not yet qualified. Being interested and qualified does not obligate anyone to serve or teach or advise, but if you are on the Interdisciplinary Studies faculty, you can be involved to the extent of your interest and ability to participate.

If you are qualified for and interested in interdisciplinary work, please let us know by selecting a level, using the criteria below and other arguments to justify the request, and sending these plus your CV to: Director of Interdisciplinary Studies/ Living Learning Center.

There are four levels of membership in the Interdisciplinary Studies faculty:

I. Advisory Council. Faculty who show the general principles (listed below) in their work and have some level of experience under each of the other three categories (below) and higher levels in some, especially teaching and research, or bring special qualities to the Council that we need. The duties include making decisions about curriculum and personnel in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program.

2. Advising Majors: Faculty who understand the general principles and have some qualifications under two of the three categories in that domain of interdisciplinary work that a student is pursuing. The duties of an advisor would be to help an Interdisciplinary Studies major design her/his concentration, select a concentration advisor, guide and ultimately receive her/his portfolio, and attend her/his senior seminar presentation.

3. Teaching: Faculty who understand the general principles and have qualifications under teaching OR who desire to teach and have appropriate training for the proposed course. The duty is to deliver an Interdisciplinary Studies course.

4. Interested: If a faculty member is interested in becoming more interdisciplinary, we invite you to contact us so that we can help to that end. Examples would be team teaching with or collaborating on research with an Interdisciplinary Studies faculty member. We can also suggest reading, summer institutes, and other resources and we can work with syllabi for disciplinary courses to suggest ways of adding interdisciplinary elements.

The following are guidelines to help us all decide which level of membership suits you:

A. GENERAL PRINCIPLES:  If there is evidence of a willingness to pursue a theme, topic, or problem wherever it leads, i.e., into whatever disciplines or non-academic sources that might shed light; to use whatever methods seem to promise insight, wherever the methods come from; to use materials from other disciplines in such a way that they modify each other; to integrate disparate materials in a way that may challenge, go beyond, or transcend the conclusions one might reach within the investigator’s discipline, then we will call that work interdisciplinary.

The following lists are generally from strongest to less strong qualifications.  We hope to be as inclusive as possible while maintaining standards for interdisciplinary work:

B. TRAINING:

1) Having an undergraduate and/or graduate degree(s) in Interdisciplinary Studies or interdisciplinary programs.

2) Having taken courses that were consciously interdisciplinary (with some scholarly or teaching outcome that shows the impact of the courses on your work).

3) Having been to interdisciplinary NEH seminars, interdisciplinary institutes, or similar post-doctoral training (with some scholarly or teaching outcome that shows the impact of this training).

4) Having done extensive out-of-field scholarly reading (with some scholarly or teaching outcome that shows the impact of the reading).

5) Having done team-teaching and given evidence of some broadening beyond one’s discipline in subsequent teaching within the discipline.

C. TEACHING:

1) Having taught undergraduate and/or graduate courses in Interdisciplinary Studies.

2) Having taught courses in a disciplinary setting that are demonstrably interdisciplinary, i.e., courses that teach conscious use of multiple perspectives and methods in the pursuit of a topic, theme, or problem AND teach students to integrate the disparate results into a deeper understanding of the topic/theme or a solution (even if partial) to a problem.

3) Having done team-teaching that was not just serial but included attempts by the teachers to integrate their views and to help students understand that integration.

4) Having taught summer institutes or other special-opportunity courses that were interdisciplinary.

D. RESEARCH:

1) Having written book(s) that is/are manifestly interdisciplinary.

2) Having written article(s) that has/have been published in refereed interdisciplinary journals.

3) Having written article(s) that has/have been published in a disciplinary journal, but which, because of content and/or methods are potentially publishable in another discipline’s journal

4) Having written book(s) or article(s) that challenge(s) the theory of the author’s discipline by using theory from another discipline.

5) Having produced research conclusions that challenge, go beyond, or transcend the conclusions one might reach within the investigator’s discipline.

Don’t Forget to Vote

Remember that the faculty vote on the “craft” model for DPC’s will occur this Friday, April 17. The university will hold a vote on a proposal to amend the Faculty Handbook, Article 2, Section 3, from 3:00-6:00 p.m. in the IG Greer Auditorium. The amendment proposes to substitute the so-called “Craft Model” for our current DPC model. The specific language of the constitutional proposal is given below, and an explanation of the “Craft Model” is available at

http://www.facsen.appstate.edu/documents/CraftModelExplanation_000.pdf

The Constitutional Vote

Existing Faculty Handbook Language from Article II, Section 3

“Those eligible to serve on and participate in election of members to departmental personnel committees are full time faculty in the ranks of lecturer, instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and professor.”

Replacement Language for Article II, Section 3 (to become effective August 2010)

“Faculty eligible to vote on personnel matters regarding reappointment, promotion, or tenure must be employed full time and possess the tenure status and rank at or above the rank under consideration. Non-tenure-track and pre-tenured faculty are ineligible to vote on personnel actions regarding tenured or tenure track faculty.”

This may be, for the foreseeable future, the most critical vote ASU faculty cast; the outcome will certainly have a significant impact on how we conduct departmental business, especially as it pertains to personnel matters. The 3-6 p.m. time frame is designed to accommodate as many faculty as possible who wish to vote but may have afternoon classes or meetings.

Professional Core Forum

In conjunction with the regular Teacher Education Council meeting this Thursday, April 16, an open forum in 03 will be available from 3:45 p.m. to 5 for discussion of the professional core. Information about the work of the Core Task Force was circulated recently as a part of a survey of faculty in teacher education; student teachers have also been asked for their input on the current core. Members of the Task Force will be present and information about student and faculty views of the professional core will be shared; ample opportunity will be provided for faculty to engage in discussion about the re-visioning of the core. Forum is open to all interested faculty from within RCOE as well as across campus. Teacher Education Council will meet officially from 3:30-3:45 p.m. to address curriculum proposals that are on the agenda.

A Call for Help

Some of you may have already heard that Intermountain Children’s Services Head Start wants to CLOSE the Watauga Head Start center (this is the one in town). A “Task Force” is being formed to help find a co-located building to house both of the Watauga Head Start sites into one large site with a director, which should improve on staff support. The Head Start central office is in Spruce Pine and is at best 1 hour away which makes the over-sight difficult. We know that Head Start is an extremely needed service in Watauga; this change would affect 18 children; some of which have no transportation and other needs that are very high. This would also mean 18 children who would be less ready to enter our public schools due to lack of services and early childhood experiences. If you would like to participate in this effort or have information about a possible site, contact

Lee Marshall
The Children’s Council Child Care Resource & Referral Director
225 Birch Street, Suite #3
Boone, NC 28607
leeccwci@bellsouth.net

More than 1 million U.S. teachers could retire within 4 years

ASCD SmartBrief | 04/13/2009

A nonprofit advocacy group says U.S. schools are being deprived of veteran teachers because of a retirement system that encourages educators to leave the classroom in their mid-50s. A report by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future says the system should be reformed to retain the most experienced teachers and have them mentor rookie teachers in order to stave off a massive teacher shortage as baby boomers reach retirement age. New York Times, The (04/07) USA TODAY (04/06)

Florida magnets prepare teens for careers in education

Ninth-grade students in a Florida district are getting a head start in a possible teaching career through a high-school magnet program designed for those interested in becoming educators. Students practice the use of classroom technology, learn how to emphasize important information in lessons and study other topics. The program intends to add more grade levels, and upper-level students will have the chance to shadow teachers, work in elementary schools and perhaps even go to college for free. The Tampa Tribune (Fla.) (4/12) This appears to be an extended version of the North Carolina Teacher Cadet Program; would be wonderful to see a district adopt such a model here.

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“Change is a Journey, not a Destination.”
—M. Fullan

LES Research Colloquium

TOPIC: Presence Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning in a 3D Virtual Immersive World
Presenters: Amy Cheney, Barbara Howard, Nita Matzen, Terry McClannon, Rob Sanders, John Tashner, and Paul Wallace
Time: Monday, April 6, 2:00 p.m.; Room 03, Duncan Hall
All RCOE faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend.

New Scholarship Opportunity

Through the generosity of an anonymous donor, we have been able to establish the Alexander Scholarship for five incoming freshmen here at Appalachian. This scholarship is modeled after the NC Teaching Fellows Scholarship and Alexander Scholars will participate in all ASU-sponsored Teaching Fellows events. These students will be awarded $20,000 over the course of their four years here at Appalachian.

TK20 Information

A link now exists on our home page to take anyone interested in learning more about TK20, the electronic data management system we are implementing for all teacher education programs at ASU; this is a comprehensive system that will allow us to collect a variety of data that can inform our decisions about program development, provide trend data, and meet the electronic assessment requirements for the new DPI teacher education requirements as well as though of NCATE. We will be working diligently to get as many of the features of this system operating as soon as we can but the initial set-up will take some time.

Re-visioning Professional Core Open Forum

We will hold an open forum related to the undergraduate teacher education core as a part of the April 16 Teacher Education Council meeting; the forum will run from 3:45-5 in 03. Members of the Task Force will be present and information about student and faculty views of the professional core will be shared; ample opportunity will be provided for faculty to engage in discussion about the re-visioning of the core. Forum is open to all interested faculty from within RCOE as well as across campus.

Comp Time Reminder

Beginning with the April 2009 payroll all SPA employees, who have compensatory time leave balances, will be required to use comp. time before taking vacation leave time. This is in accordance with the North Carolina Office of State Personnel Policies, Section 5, Vacation Leave and Compensatory Leave policies which states, “If an employee has holiday compensatory time, overtime compensatory time or on-call compensatory time, it shall be taken before vacation leave.” This policy and procedure information can also be found in the on-line resource manual.

Audit reports have been designed to run monthly to identify any employees who might report vacation time and have comp. time leave on the books, however, it is very important that employees as well as supervisors practice due diligence when reporting leave time correctly on their time sheets. In the event that leave time is reported incorrectly, then a manual adjustment will be made to the employee’s leave time record indicating a decrease in comp. time and a credit to the vacation leave record.

For supervisors we will be posting this announcement on the HRS website under the Supervisors tab as well as posting it as a news update for our staff. As always, if anyone has any questions please do not hesitate to contact the benefits and leave department.

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“Change is a Journey, not a Destination.”
—M. Fullan