January 13, 2016 – 11:19 am
Born and raised on a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, farm, Lois M. Martin ‘62 has always loved the agricultural life. “It was hard for me to leave,” Martin says about enrolling in Eastern Mennonite College in 1959. However, her mother, Esther Metzler Martin, stressed that living into one’s potential was a facet of giving to the ...More
January 13, 2016 – 10:25 am
Each spring, Linda Heatwole Bland ’64, a retired reading specialist and administrator, hosts a celebration dinner to honor the recipient of a scholarship she has endowed. This gracious gesture symbolizes her continued support of literacy education and the benefits of professional connection: both values she says she learned while earning a degree in elementary education ...More
Three years ago, Danny Malec, MA ’05 (conflict transformation), was hired to help E.L. Haynes High School in Washington D.C. break free from the disciplinary rut of suspensions and expulsions that plague so many American schools. Now the school’s assistant principal for restorative practices, Malec and his colleagues have begun using techniques such as restorative ...More
January 13, 2015 – 12:05 pm
If a computer glitch threatens to derail something like a state-required proficiency test at Harrisonburg (Virginia) High School, Craig Shoemaker’s phone is bound to start ringing. “[Teachers] get anxious,” he said, chuckling. “I’m the one they try to get a hold of.” A computer resource technician with Harrisonburg City Public Schools, Shoemaker (’78) likens his ...More
August 20, 2014 – 11:19 am
When accepted his first teaching job after graduating from college, he also discovered a field of study that defines his academic and professional career. “The opportunity to work with children with autism was not the result of a deliberate plan or any previous experience with autism,” says Donald Oswald. “Grafton School in Berryville, Virginia, was ...More
More than 500 alumni living in the City of Harrisonburg or Rockingham County work in education, though only two-thirds of these seem to be employed in their home districts, according to EMU’s alumni database. “The teachers we hire from the EMU teacher education program rank as being some of the best,” says Scott R. Kizner, ...More
The baggage that comes with feeling new and out of place in a foreign milleu is heavy, especially for children who can’t communicate with their peers in the United States. Having experienced feeling like an outsider during their required cross-culturals, dozens of EMU grads employed by Harrisonburg City schools are using their cross-cultural sensitivity in ...More