COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
School of Education seeks nominations for Education Award
The TCU School of Education Alumni Association is accepting nominations for the 14th annual School of Education Alumni Association Excellence in Education Award. The distinguished honoree will be recognized at the awards ceremony to be held on Monday, April 2, 2007 from 4:30-7:30 p.m., Dee J. Kelly Alumni & Visitors Center, located at 2820 Stadium Drive.
This award recognizes an individual who may or may not be a TCU graduate. The recipient must have made contributions in the field of education and be actively involved in and supportive of TCU’s School of Education. Nominees may be teachers, professors, counselors, librarians, administrators, school board members or educational advocates associated with public or private institutions at all levels of education.
Previous recipients of the TCU Excellence in Education Award have been: Dr. M.J. Neeley, Bill Haley, Mary Elmore Williams, Susan Swain Hotard, Taddie Curl Hamilton, Shari Perrin Emmons, Susan N. Smith, Dr. Henry J. Patterson, Ellen Young Swain, Sidney H. Poynter, Dr. Dan Powell, Dr. Cathy Collins Block and Dale Young.
To nominate someone for the 2007 award, send a completed nomination form, narrative explaining why the recipient deserves the award, and two letters of support. The deadline for submissions is March 19, 2007.
For more information and to receive the nomination form, contact Dan Powell at d.powell@tcu.edu or 817-257-6777.
Alice S. Neeley Special Education Institute
The Alice S. Neeley Special Education Institute works in conjunction with the TCU laboratory schools – Starpoint and KinderFrogs – to create and coordinate activities, programs and research in special education. Their mission of the Institute is to:
For more information on the Institute, contact Nancy Meadows at n.meadows@tcu.edu.
School of Education’s Web site gets a makeover
The College of Education will soon introduce an updated Web site with a fresh new look to compliment our new Education complex and our new name, College of Education. Not only will the site have a fresh new look, but user friendly navigation will allow visitors to quickly locate pertinent information. Look for more exciting announcements about the site's launch in the upcoming months.
Meet the women in TCU's past
By Sherrie Reynolds
Several years ago, I discovered TCU's rich heritage, especially for women. TCU was founded in 1873 as AddRan Male and Female College, where men and women attended classes together as equals. That was not the prevailing wisdom of the day. It was assumed that women could not handle the same studies as men and, in fact, Harvard University started Radcliffe as a separate college for women on the basis of this assumption, 21 years after the founding of TCU.
In the archives I met an early, and little known woman, Ida Jarvis. It might be said that Ida Jarvis was responsible for saving TCU at a moment at Thorp Springs when its survival hung by a thread. It was an issue of student conduct. “There was a musical concert in the college chapel on Monday night. The next morning, an anonymous note was sent the to President saying that a young man from the boy's dormitory had walked home with a young lady who lived in town. This open disobedience of rules was the subject of the chapel talk. The offender was asked to stand so that all of the audience might see the student to be expelled for breaking the rules.
When one of the finest young men of the senior class quietly arose, it astonished the faculty, but did not change the sentence. Before an hour had passed a petition was brought from the student body asking for pardon and stated that the offenders of the evening before were to be married in two weeks. The petition also stated that nearly all of the students had stolen privileges at some time during the year. An assembly of students and visitors was called. The President stated the decision was final; there was no excuse for breaking rules, and all students who had done so during the year must consider themselves expelled. More
TCU art education majors discover the artist inside Starpoint students
Starpoint School students, along with TCU art education majors, transformed their classroom into an exciting art exhibit as they proudly displayed and discussed the Art Nouveau and Art Deco pieces they recently created. Students divided into two groups to create action paintings on canvas in the style of Jackson Pollock. Julia King and Rochelle Farson, two Starpoint students, smiled as they stood next to the piece they helped create. The canvas glowed with bright colors splattered chaotically over the handprints of each group member.
“When you do art, what you have in your mind is what you make,” said Holloway Bird, a Starpoint student.
The students gained inspiration for their wood sculptures by studying artist Marton Varo, whose work is displayed on the TCU campus and outside Bass Hall.
“I liked the wood sculpture project. It was challenging to make everything stand together,” said King.
The art exhibit was the final activity of an art education curriculum developed for Starpoint School by Lauren Heffron, Brittany Rebstock and Susan Swain, TCU art education majors. In order to design an effective art curriculum, Heffron, Rebstock and Swain observed and interacted with Starpoint students between the ages of 10 to 12 to learn about their artistic interests, strengths and goals.
The curriculum created by Heffron, Rebstock and Swain stated that their most important objective was giving students an authentic art-making experience where they may explore their identities as art makers, study different art media and fully understand the artistic process.
“They wanted to teach the students about what it means to be an artist,” said Dr. Amanda Allison, Art Education Coordinator for the TCU department of art and art history.
Starpoint students explored different artistic elements while studying Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, Jackson Pollock and Marton Varo. The students sketched designs on paper before creating four of their own Art Nouveau and Art Deco style clay tiles.
In preparation for their art exhibit, students posed for pictures that were used to create an invitation sent to their families and classmates. They were also interviewed about their work and asked to name each piece.
Dr. Allison said that the art exhibit was organized to give the students an opportunity to display and explain their work to friends, family and other teachers.
"I loved watching the proud looks on their faces as they created their art works and later as they participated in the gallery exhibit,” said Shelley Cochran, a language arts & art teacher at Starpoint. “It was an incredible confidence booster."
Stay Connected
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Contact us – Have a question or want to give us feedback? Let us know by phone 817-257-7660, by fax 817-257-7466, or by e-mail s.williams3@tcu.edu. Also, visit our Web site @ www.sofe.tcu.edu.
