Education
Janice Garrison Shepherd, Bethany College RTI-PDS grant coordinator; Betty McGillen, Hancock County Schools RTI administrator; Dan Enich, Weir Middle School Principal; and Kelli Summers, Karen Pitchok and Kathy Griffith, WMS RTI interventionists, presented “Balancing 21st Century Learning and Assessment in a Response to Intervention — Professional Development School Partnership” while attending other PDS related sessions at the National Professional Development School Conference in New Orleans March 9-13. On March 23rd, this RTI leadership team hosted Wood County, W.Va. school administrators, principals, and interventionists at Weir Middle School to share their presentation and provide a school tour demonstrating RTI implementation at the middle school level. Larry Fontanarosa, Bethany Education Department Interim Chair, and Rita DeMundo, Education Department Field Placement Coordinator, also attended the event. The Bethany College-Hancock County RTI-PDS partnership is one of three such PDS partnerships funded by the West Virginia Department of Education to develop models for implementing Response to Intervention in West Virginia schools.
Faculty/Staff Women’s Tea
Faculty from the Communications and Media Arts and Social Work departments hosted a tea in honor of female faculty and staff of Bethany College on March 24 in Phillips Hall Lounge. Approximately 15 women attended the event, which featured a variety of teas, finger sandwiches and desserts. The hostesses for the event hope to make this an annual feature of the Women’s Month events held each March. The event provided an opportunity for the women to take a break from daily chores and visit.
Physical Education and Sports Studies
The Department of Physical Education-Sports Studies has added another service learning project as they continue to expand opportunities for students to construct their personal concept of the teaching-learning process.
The PHED 215 Leisure Studies class is providing weekly rhythmic lessons as service- learning projects to students at St. John the Evangelist Early Learning Center and special needs students at Wellsburg Middle School. These projects, developed from a senior project of current senior Kate McCabe, were developed as a result of recommendations by physical education alums to expand the early field experience opportunities in the Lab Analysis courses. The service project provides learning opportunities that the schools are currently unable to provide and enable physical education majors to have hands-on experiences working with students in authentic teaching-learning environments. Wally Neel, Professor of Physical Education and Sports Studies, serves as the instructor for the course and coordinates the project.
Additionally, students in Education 353, Integrated Methods in Health and Physical Education, are providing the health and physical education curriculum at St. John the Evangelist Early Learning Center. This has been an ongoing project for nearly a decade and is an excellent service-learning project. Bethany students teach more than 60 health and physical education lessons each semester to 3, 4, and 5-year old children. Bethany instructors for the project are Kosmas Mouratidis, Associate Professor of Physical Education and Coordinator of Sports Studies, and Neel.
Visual and Performing Arts
Pandel Collaros, Assistant Professor of Music, performed with the Amanda McCoy Band on March 16 at the House of Manuel. Manuel, also known as the "Rhinestone Rembrandt," held a special showcase featuring McCoy and her band at his studio in Nashville.
McCoy’s band consists of Professor Collaros on bass, electric guitar and vocals, along with Nashville musicians T-Bone Smith on electric guitar and vocals, Sean Sunderland on drums, and Alice Pitts on fiddle.
For more on Manuel Cuevas, costume designer for the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Sting and many more, go to http://manuelcouture.com/. For more on McCoy see http://amandamccoy.com/.
