“Hello, HHS,” flashed the blinking LED lights.

“Wow!” “Genius!” “I want one!” came the feedback.

“One of the neat things about our engineering classes,” said Ben Zook, a junior engineering major at ����Vlog, “is that we work on practical problems while we get to know people we may not have met before. I’ve really enjoyed that part of my college coursework.”

Packed into a lab in the Suter Science Center, about 20 high school students were enjoying a showcase of projects created and programmed by and students. Soon, they’d be off across campus to another 30-minute mock class.

The campus visit — which included opportunities to interact with college students, visit informally with faculty and staff, eat in the cafeteria and take a campus tour — was part of the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs program, also known as GEAR UP.

Harrisonburg High School (HHS) is one of 27 schools in Virginia to be awarded the U.S. Department of Education grant, designed to significantly increase the number of students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education.

HHS’s GEAR UP program was open to any student who signed up as an eighth-grader. Nearly 300 students joined the program three years ago. Members of the cohort will receive support through their first year of college. Tutoring, mentoring, parent activities and workshops on college readiness/financial aid are primary components.

Paired with student mentors

Forty-four high school students attended the day-long visit to ����Vlog, said , professor of and co-director of ���ѱ�’s .

Leaman coordinated the visit with Honors Program co-director and history professor Mark Sawin; Matt Ruth, ����Vlog admissions director; and grant site coordinator Rachel Linden, a counselor at HHS.

A unique twist paired high school students with 38 mentors from the Honors Program, the , and the Student Government Association, said Leaman. The students stuck together through the day, building rapport and opening up channels for real conversations about college life and the students’ future plans.

“Our goal was to give back to our Harrisonburg community in a way that made sense to our 10th graders: peer-peer conversation to encourage each of our young people to consider going to college, whether that be ����Vlog or somewhere else,” Leaman said. “The day was truly collaborative, with students sharing their stories and our students, faculty and staff learning from them at the same time as they offered information. The interactions between the HHS students and our ����Vlog students and staff were full of energy, with real questions about college peppering the supportive conversations throughout the day.

Informal conversations help students learn more about college opportunities

Thirteen faculty opened their doors during “office hours” to speak with students, and three faculty, with seven student volunteers, offered short classes in education, photography and engineering to give the visitors an idea of what they might learn and explore in their future coursework.

After lunch in the cafeteria, students chose special topics to investigate in informal, roundtable discussions with ����Vlog coaches and various staff members about athletics and intramurals, financial aid, academic preparation and residence life.

Linden said afterwards that students were excited by the opportunity to explore the college and interact with college students throughout the day. “On the bus ride home, students were commenting how they hadn’t realized all that ����Vlog had to offer and that it was now more than a place they just drove by to get home.”

Ariel Barbosa, a sophomore Honors Program and Latino Student Alliance member, enjoyed seeing the students get more and more comfortable on the campus as the day went on: “Feeling the energy that the HHS students naturally brought on this day paired with the warmth that ����Vlog students gave — this was beautiful. I would do this day over again and again if it ensured that at least one of those students could one day go to a college where they could light up as easily as they did while they were on our campus.”

The campus visit hasn’t been the only chance ����Vlog students have to meet with GEAR UP students. Several clubs, including the Psychology Club, Pre-Professional Health Sciences Club, and Student Education Organization have offered after-school activities and workshops.

“Some of our students have really tapped into opportunities to learn more,” Linden said. “It’s been really fun to see them explore possibilities.”

For those who share that view, it should come as good news that students enrolling in university science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs across the country are increasingly diverse. At the same time, a poor retention rate among this group is prompting STEM educators to explore different ways to better meet the needs of a changing student body.

����Vlog is no exception. More than 30 percent of incoming freshman STEM majors are minority students. But after two years, around 7 in 10 of these incoming students are no longer pursuing a STEM major. These statistics are similar to those reported by universities across the country.

Over the next three years, the university will work to improve its retention rate of minority students in STEM programs, using a recently awarded $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve instructional techniques in the classroom and laboratory.

New academic language and culture can be a barrier

Ayu Yifru, a sophomore major originally from Ethiopia, understands well the challenges that face a growing number of her STEM peers. One of the primary ones is a simple language barrier.

“When my friends and I are taking an exam, we’ll get stuck on a particular word that we can’t figure out,” says Yifru, who spoke very little English when she arrived in the United States at 16. “It’s not easy to master any kind of language … [And] when we are in class, some of the teachers go pretty fast. Sometimes I get lost, and I have no clue what they’re talking about.”

Cultural norms can also discourage minority students from asking questions in class or approaching professors for help afterwards. Additionally, many of them are first-generation college students, meaning that their parents may be less familiar with how to navigate the academic and social rigors of college.

“[These students] have to adapt to an academic culture and a university culture that their parents couldn’t introduce them to, and on top of that, the STEM culture. It’s like going to a foreign country three times over,” said Steve Cessna, professor of biochemistry.

Cessna is the principal investigator on the NSF grant, “Faculty-Led Institutional Transformation for Teaching Diverse Learners in STEM.” In addition to STEM faculty, ���ѱ�’s education department and the multicultural services office will also participate.

Multi-faceted grant asks for teaching as research

The grant includes faculty trainings on bias and ways that teaching methods can better respond to changing student needs, a mentoring program for STEM faculty and improvement of a peer tutoring program for minority and first-generation college students in STEM majors.

Cessna said that a challenging aspect of the grant’s implementation for STEM faculty will be “treating our own work as small research projects.” That means consulting the literature and experimenting with teaching methods that have been shown to be more effective than the traditional university lecture. While this process is extremely familiar to program faculty in their work as scientists, it’s not an approach that’s often applied to their roles as teachers.

In his first-year “Chemistry for the Life Sciences” class, Cessna has begun making changes by decreasing lecture time and scheduling more interactive group work.

“[The students] are doing more problems together in a more social way. My class is pretty noisy. It’s something that I’m testing out – it’s based on a good amount of research that I’ve already read that teaching in this way can be effective,” he said.

Each Friday, Yifru – who has signed on as a peer mentor – is there in the class to tutor and help. She also leads extra study sessions before quizzes and exams.

“I really like helping people who are stuck, because I was once in their shoes. I know how to help them,” she said.

As a final component of the grant, ����Vlog will share its findings and conclusions with STEM departments with other universities experiencing similar enrollment trends and challenges.

For students like Nika Hoefle, whose family had moved from Minnesota to a small city in northern Thailand when she was 14, that question doesn’t quite work like the simple ice-breaker it’s supposed to be. Telling people she’s from Thailand – which she considers home – can be awkward. It can almost come off arrogant. It often just brings the conversation to a halt.

“People don’t really know how to interact with you,” says Hoefle, a senior majoring in as well as . “The questions that people ask once they’ve figured out that you’ve lived abroad can be vague and difficult to answer.”

E.g: “Oh… What was that like?”

How are you supposed to answer something like that?

Hoefle is what’s known as a , or TCK. The term was coined decades ago to describe someone who’s spent a “significant part” of their formative years living in a country or culture different from their parents’. The “third-culture” bit refers to the mixed identities they develop as a result, neither fully belonging to their parents’ culture, nor to the one(s) in which they’ve lived.*

����Vlog dozen on campus

The definition of a TCK is somewhat nebulous, and ����Vlog doesn’t track official enrollment numbers of students who consider themselves to be TCKs. But based on participation in a special orientation held prior to the start of each academic year, more than a dozen TCKs are now studying at ����Vlog.

One of Hoefle’s classmates and fellow TCKs, Alena Yoder, lived in Kenya from second to seventh grade. Though the two lived overseas in entirely different parts of the world, they share the experience of feeling like outsiders, at times, in the country where they hold citizenship.

“For a long time, I just didn’t fit in,” says Yoder, a senior history major.

She struggled to make friends and recalls her eighth-grade year after her family’s return to Indiana as the worst of her life.

Hoefle and Yoder are co-presidents of a that meets monthly on campus to discuss their experiences of adjustment, challenge and growth. ����Vlog 10 students have been active in the club this year.

“It’s definitely a support group,” says Hoefle. “What we try to do as a club is be a safe place for people to talk about what’s going on … Without that strong support group at ����Vlog, I don’t know how my transition would have gone. I can’t really imagine it without those people, even though we were from such different places.”

More than 20 TCKs among faculty and staff

, an education professor and faculty sponsor of the TCK club, said the group “provides that safe space for challenging each other but also for providing support during the challenging times.”

“I think it is [also] a place where they can experience a sense of home – home that lies in relationships, not in geographical location,” she added.

Leaman co-sponsors the club with her husband, , a business professor who grew up in East Africa and is among the nearly 20 ����Vlog faculty and staff who are TCKs. Lori Leaman says the large presence of TCKs across the entire university community, along with the focus on cross-cultural understanding that permeates the curriculum, makes ����Vlog a particularly supportive place for TCK students. (The Leamans also spent 12 years in Nairobi, Kenya, where both of their children were born.)

“I think the emphasis on ‘the common good’ for every single person on this globe resonates with TCKs,” she continues.

A ‘comfortable’ place

As their graduation rapidly approaches, Yoder and Hoefle both say they’ve had great experiences at ����Vlog.

“There are people here on this campus who very much understand that TCK narrative,” says Yoder, who plans to stay in Harrisonburg after graduation. “It feels comfortable here to be a TCK.”

As a legacy of her past, Hoefle expects she’ll always have an unconventional notion of “home,” one that’s not necessarily rooted to one specific place.  Sometimes, she says, she’s jealous of peers who have deep, deep roots in one particular community. Other times, she’s grateful that her life has been so varied.

“I don’t think it’s better or worse to have lived abroad,” Hoefle says. “It just depends on what you do with it in the end.”

Read Hoefle’s opinion piece published in the Weather Vane, “The Truth ����Vlog Being a Third Culture Kid.”

* Definition adapted from: Pollock, David C. “Being a Third-Culture Kid: A Profile.” Raising Resilient MKs: Resources for Caregivers, Parents, and Teachers. Colorado Springs, CO: Association of Christian Schools International, 1998. 45-53.

The 2016 Teachers of Promise are

• Austin Mumaw, elementary education, from Goshen, Indiana;
• Erin Nafziger, mathematics, 6-12, from Archbold, Ohio;
• Isaac Driver, elementary education, from Harrisonburg, Virginia;
• Malea Gascho, art, PreK-12, from Pigeon, Michigan;
• Ruthie Beck, history and social science, 6-12, from Archbold, Ohio.

The honorees “exemplify strong potential for impacting students in the classroom, high academic standing, commitment to the teaching profession, and embody ����Vlog’s teacher education mission to ‘teach boldly in a changing world through an ethic of care and critical reflection,’” says department chair and professor of education . “I am confident that these future teachers will positively influence the lives of each student in their classrooms as they create and advocate for just and equitable learning environments.”

���ѱ�’s education program values experiential learning, offering early practicum experiences that help candidates determine their professional path. Teacher candidates choose from 15 different licensure programs.

Among 2014-15 graduates, 100 percent of those seeking a teaching job were employed in education after graduation. The education program is one among five private colleges in Virginia accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (now known as the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation).

The conference is hosted by the (PJSA), dedicated to bringing together academics, K-12 teachers, and grassroots activists to explore alternatives to violence and share visions and strategies for peacebuilding, social justice and social change.

“PJSA is an important bi-national alliance for peacebuilding research, scholarship, training and activism,” says , executive director of ���ѱ�’s . “It is a great honor that so many CJP and ����Vlog faculty, staff and graduates will be featured in prominent conference roles this year, and allows a rare opportunity to highlight our distinctive contributions to the peacebuilding field.”

Those “distinctive contributions” include both conceptual and practical dimensions to the fields of , , , peace and justice studies pedagogy and the pedagogy of practice within the field, experiential education, reflective pedagogy and the arts and peacebuilding.

Catherine Barnes offers keynote address

Dr. Catherine Barnes, affiliate professor at CJP, will share from more than 30 years of experience working with deliberative dialogue processes in places as varied as the UN General Assembly Hall to village gathering places. Her address is titled “Engaging together: exploring deliberative dialogue as a path towards systemic transformation.”

“Deliberative dialogue” is a process that can empower participants to foster collaborative relationships and perceive the underlying mental models that maintain the status quo with the goal of fostering new approaches to complex challenges.

For the past seven years, Barnes has been working in support of transitional processes in Burma/Myanmar. She has worked and lived in more than 30 countries as a teacher, trainer, researcher, policy advocate and consultant with the focus of helping civil society activists, diplomats and politicians, and armed groups to build their capacities for preventing violence and using conflict as an opportunity for addressing the underlying causes giving rise to grievance. Barnes has worked with numerous peacebuilding and human rights organizations, including Conciliation Resources and Minority Rights Group International.

Focusing on education

���ѱ�’s on peace and justice guides its educators, many of whom are sharing their pedagogical practices and discussing ways to educate future peacebuilders in the “educator’s strand,” designed for personal and professional development of K-12 teachers, undergraduate and community educators. Themes include pedagogy, curriculum development, building a culture of peace in your classroom or school, alternative education programs, and restorative practices.

On the undergraduate level, professor , who leads the in the department of applied social sciences, leads a roundtable discussion for faculty and administrators of peace and justice studies programs.

, the with CJP’s , joins professor and graduate students in a session on mentoring student peacebuilders and the importance of those mentors being experienced practitioners themselves.

Restorative practices are highlighted by professors and in a “relational justice” workshop on how mindful teachers can prepare and prime “their best selves” in preparation for inviting students into models of restorative justice. Mullet also joins , professor of education at Bridgewater College, for a workshop on relational literacy in multicultural K-12 classrooms.

Cheree Hammond, professor of counseling, leads educators in a workshop on contemplative pedagogies and the cultivation of a just and peaceful self.

Restorative justice, trauma healing, playback theater featured

The conference offers an opportunity to highlight ���ѱ�’s unique peacebuilding initiatives. The brings together practitioners from ����Vlog and JMU, as well as local law enforcement. Collaborators in the initiative will speak: , co-director of the; education professor ; Harrisonburg Police Department lieutenant Kurt Boshart; , restorative justice coordinator at the ; and , director of JMU’s Office of Student Accountability and Restorative Practices.

Another definitive CJP program, (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience), will be introduced in a workshop by professor and program director .

troupe co-founders and lead a workshop on playback theater as qualitative research. Vogel is a professor of theater; Foster instructs in the applied social sciences department and with CJP. The applied theater method invites dialogue and healing through community-building, as audience members share stories and watch as they are “played back” on the stage. Among other settings, Inside Out has performed on campus with college students returning from cross-culturals, among international peacebuilders and in workshops for and research about trauma and sexual abuse survivors.

, professor of applied social sciences, speaks about social capital networks as forms of resistance among battered undocumented Latinas, sharing just one strand of a .

, assistant professor of restorative justice and peacebuilding, leads a discussion on the film “Vision is Our Power,” a film about black youth ending violence in all its forms. The documentary was created by four young filmmakers participating in a multi-year arts and leadership Vision to Peace Project led by Turner; the film debuted in 2008 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

And more…

, professor of English, presents on life narratives and identity issues in the Balkans with his wife Daria, a CJP graduate who teaches in the counseling department at JMU. The two lived and taught in the Balkans.

, professor of philosophy and theology, explores the recent work in philosophy and science on theory of emotion.

, a new faculty member coming to ����Vlog next semester after concluding his PhD research at American University, participates several panels, with a diversity of topics including transnational solidarity and police brutality and racism in the contested areas of Palestine and Ferguson, Missouri. Seidel is a board member of PJSA.

Among the alumni presenting: Vesna Hart, Sue Praill and Tom Brenneman join a panel discussion on justice and the nature of human nature. Ted Swartz presents the satire with Tim Ruebke and JMU professor of theater Ingrid DeSanctis.

View the . Registration fees will be covered for attendees from the Shenandoah Valley who are affiliated with or sponsored by Bridgewater College, James Madison University, ����Vlog, or Mary Baldwin College. For more information, click .

The fact that Nathan, who has an intellectual disability, hardly talked back didn’t deter his classmates. Instead, they focused on the many abilities they all share: to smile, to get excited about jellyfish, to devour ballpark hamburgers. For Jesse Rodriguez ’05, a special education teacher who accompanied Nathan on the field trip, it was a moving testament to an attitude of inclusion and acceptance prevalent in the school.

“Our eighth-grade class is a class that has class,” wrote Rodriguez in a blog post on the . “Many students that day went out of their way to help Nathan, to make him feel comfortable, welcome and part of the group.” He continued:

Stories like this don’t end up in the paper. They don’t show up in test scores and they aren’t reflected on report cards. But I believe that stories like this tell far more about the types of adults these kids are going to become than any number or grade ever will come close to predicting. I also believe that the future for people with disabilities is becoming brighter and brighter because of the interactions that are happening now with their non-disabled peers.

Attitudes of inclusion, acceptance, at middle school

Nathan’s experience on the field trip exemplifies a remarkable change that has occurred at Montevideo Middle School since Rodriguez and his colleague, Kendal Swartzentruber ’07, MA ’12 in education, helped establish a “peer student” program there. The program brings general education students into certain special education classrooms, where they help classmates with intellectual disabilities work toward individual educational goals. The program also creates friendships between groups of students traditionally segregated from one another and develops peer students into advocates for people with disabilities.

According to Rodriguez, peer students overwhelmingly say the experience taught them to be more patient and accepting, and to focus on others’ numerous abilities rather than specific disabilities. As one wrote in a journal entry: “Working with the special needs students has shown me no matter what the disability may be, they are very caring and smart. It has shown me to keep an open heart to anyone who is ‘different.’”

Since the program began, teachers say the student body has become noticeably more welcoming and accepting; students with disabilities now sit in the cafeteria with their peer student friends and are far more integrated into peer students’ wider social circles. Using the “R-word” and other derogatory terms has become taboo and will now earn the offending student a rebuke from his or her classmates.

Empathetic rather than apathetic

“The culture of our school is changing in a way where we’re getting kids to care about each other and to be empathetic rather than apathetic,” said Drew Miller, principal of .

Long before they became teaching colleagues, Rodriguez and Swartzentruber were once students themselves at Montevideo Middle School; they have been best friends ever since. They later developed an interest in special education as peer students in a similar program at that eventually became their model for the middle school program they helped launch. As undergraduates at ����Vlog, both were recognized as “Teachers of Promise.”

Swartzentruber said the emphasis on caring relationships was a major influence on the design of the peer student program. When he began teaching at the school, he observed that plenty of time was spent developing student-teacher relationships. At the same time, he saw little being done to build relationships between special education students and the rest of the student body. Changing that became a major goal of the peer student program.

Ethic of care, relationship-building, at heart of ����Vlog

, a special education professor at ����Vlog who taught Rodriguez and Swartzentruber, noted that an ethic of care and relationship-building lies at the heart of the education program’s curriculum. “We have this belief that every individual that God created has potential and is a gift to everyone around them. We’ve always encouraged our teachers to be looking for that,” she said.

Calling Rodriguez and Swartzentruber “deeply committed to the potential of others, and deeply gifted in what they do,” Leaman said she wasn’t surprised to learn that the program they helped start has had such a dramatic effect on the school as a whole.

After starting with just eight handpicked students four years ago, the peer student program has become the most popular elective for seventh- and eighth-graders at the middle school. For the 2012-13 academic year, about 150 students signed up for the class – about one-third of all eligible students at the school, and three times as many as the program could accommodate.

Deb Medlin, Nathan’s mother, said both her son and his classmates have benefited from their interactions in the peer student program.

“Prejudices form when we separate people,” she said. “The mixing between different people can only help us all.”

Peer students benefit from program too

While the peer students are responsible for helping their classmates with intellectual disabilities meet their individual educational goals, the program places just as much emphasis on the personal development of the peer students themselves, Swartzentruber said. In some cases, becoming a peer student has been extremely beneficial to kids otherwise struggling academically or socially, by providing opportunity for leadership, friendship and a sense of accomplishment from helping their classmates.

“You don’t have to be good at math or English to be nice to people,” said Kim Sass, another special education teacher at Montevideo Middle School.

Last year, Swartzentruber became an instructional coach for the county school system, putting him in the position to nurture the replication of Montevideo’s peer education model in other schools.

“This is the way to do special education, especially with a group that may be too low academically to engage in a mainstream class,” Rodriguez said.

Like Rodriguez, Swartzentruber also draws inspiration from stories like the one about Nathan’s trip to Baltimore, which transcend the narrow and frustrating focus on test scores and other numbers increasingly used to gauge the quality of an education.

“Seeing this story highlighted really gives me hope that maybe we’re starting to recapture the essence of how we learn and how we build each other up,” he said.

“He was visibly frustrated with his math homework. We worked with it together, and I helped him see he misunderstood just a small part of the assignment,” says Rittenhouse.

“Once he understood and felt much better, I encouraged him to go a little further by asking him if he wanted to create his own octagonal pyramid. He agreed, and we had a great time simply using some paper, a compass, and a ruler to create a completely hand-made octagonal pyramid that he could take home to show his parents.”

The boy’s pride in his work “secured for me the excitement I have for helping young minds succeed and have self-confidence,” adds Rittenhouse, now a math teacher at THMS.

Rittenhouse’s success has benefited from two characteristics of ���ѱ�’s .

One involves sending future teachers into classrooms early. When he arrived at ����Vlog in 2007 from Franconia, Pa., with no major selected, an advisor suggested he enroll in the “Exploring Teaching” course. It put Rittenhouse into a classroom during his first semester of college, allowing him to discover a vocation he loved.

Another characteristic is “reflective practice,” which Rittenhouse notes is woven into all the education classes at ����Vlog.

“In my own classroom I am constantly reflecting on what just happened yesterday, the last class period, and even the last five minutes. Reflective practice allows me to be receptive to new ways of teaching and new ways of working with ever-changing middle school students.”

Education professor ’88, whose influence Rittenhouse singles out, says that Steven proved to be “the type of teacher that ����Vlog hopes to nurture and shape.”

Rittenhouse is equally complimentary of Leaman. Through role playing, she “empowered us as future teachers to experiment and practice in class.”

Leaman explains that role play, which she implemented for the “Needs of Diverse Learners” course, requires not only writing a lesson plan, but acting out the lesson with peers in each possible role. It allows a professor to “press the ‘pause’ button at a teachable moment to dissect what just happened, not only from an academic perspective, but from a relational perspective,” she says.

“Believe it or not, college students are not only up for the ‘risk’; they embrace it. Throughout the semester, as students rotate through the roles of teacher, general education student, student with a disability, and peer teacher, they make it a goal to reach all students, not just teach a subject.”

Leaman remembers watching Rittenhouse become “one of our exemplary reflective practitioners.”

He planned to teach high school until his third year at ����Vlog, when a course in middle-school teaching “showed me a different side to middle school than my own experience,” with realization that was “where I should be.”

Hired at THMS following his 2011 graduation, he meets five groups of students daily for classes in Math 7, pre-algebra (which combines content for grades 7 and 8), and “math support” (for students needing extra help).

“My students come from many different backgrounds and family styles,” says Rittenhouse. “I have to think about differentiating a lesson” to meet their diverse needs, but the diversity is also “a blessing” because “I can learn many things from my students, and they can learn from me and each other.”

Rittenhouse, who has lived in Harrisonburg since entering ����Vlog, also enjoys baking, photography, electronics, learning new languages, fish-keeping, time with friends, and family visits.

Four ����Vlog seniors preparing to become teachers have been recognized for exemplifying the necessary traits for an exemplary career in public education.

Named “Teachers of Promise” by the state of Virginia were:

• Katrina J. Martin, Peachtree City, Ga., an elementary education major with PreK-6th grade licensure. She is seeking a teaching position this fall with either Harrisonburg City or Rockingham County school systems.
• Rachel A. Sims, Perkasie, Pa., a mathematics major seeking licensure in grades 6-12 with TESL minor;
• Kendal L. Swartzendruber, Keezletown, Va., a special education major with certification in mental retardation and emotionally disturbed.
• Shannon D. Yoder, Harrisonburg, Va., a history and social science major seeking licensure in grades 6-12.

The students were honored during a two-day institute held mid-March at James Madison University in Harrisonburg.

‘Touching Children’s Lives’

“The ‘Teachers of Promise’ seminar was a meaningful event that encouraged me as I prepare to enter the profession,” said Martin. “The seminar also was a good reminder that the teaching career is about much more than simply teaching academics – it is about touching children’s lives.”

The Teachers of Promise Institute is sponsored by the Virginia Department of Education, the Virginia Milken Educator Network and the James Madison Center. This institute offers a quality professional development opportunity for pre-service teachers from all of the commonwealth’s 37 accrediting institutions.

Participants are selected by their university on a competitive basis and represent the commonwealth’s most promising and gifted pre-service educators.

In an effort to support its strongest teacher candidates, the state provides guidance for the new Teachers of Promise by providing them with mentors who are veteran teachers who have been recognized as “Teachers of the Year” in Virginia.

Teaching: ‘a true profession’

Lori H. Leaman, assistant professor of , attended the institute with the four students.

“The institute felt like an affirmation of ����Vlog

Three ����Vlog students preparing to become teachers have been recognized by state education organizations for their achievements.

Jesse M. Rodriguez, a K-12 special education major from Grottoes, Va.; James H. Bergey, a senior secondary education and history/social studies major from Chesapeake, Va.: and Theodore M. (Ted) Erickson, a senior PreK-12 health and physical education major from Harrisonburg were recognized as "Teachers of Promise" by the state of Virginia.

The three men were honored at a two-day event held at James Madison University and the Spotswood Country Club in late March. ( was also one of only two Virginia students to receive an award and scholarship from the Virginia Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (VACTE).)

The "Teachers of Promise" initiative, sponsored in part by the Virginia Department of Education and supported by the Virginia Milken Educator Network and the Governor’s Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant, is designed "to honor the best and brightest future educators" and "to encourage outstanding teacher candidates from Virginia’s teacher education programs to remain in the state."

In an effort to support its strongest teacher candidates, the state provides guidance for the new Teachers of Promise by providing them with mentors who are veteran teachers who have been recognized as "Teachers of the Year" in Virginia.

Lori H. Leaman, instructor of , attended the institute with the three students. "The institute felt like an affirmation of ����Vlog

The new faculty, announced by Dr. Beryl H. Brubaker, ����Vlog provost, and Dr. Marie S. Morris, vice president and undergraduate academic dean, are:

– David R. Brubaker, assistant professor of conflict studies in the Conflict Transformation Program (CTP). Brubaker earned a BS in business administration from Messiah College, Grantham, Pa., an MBA in global economic development from Eastern University, St. Davids, Pa., and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona specializing in religious and organizational conflict.

In 1997, he and four partners founded Cooperative by Design, an Arizona Peacebuilding Consortium which provides a range of consulting and peacebuilding services to not-for-profit organizations, educational institutions, governmental organizations and corporations. Before this, he was the associate director of Mennonite Conciliation Service for two years and assistant director of Mennonite Central Committee