Excellence in education

By Staff
June 19, 2002
DECATUR East Central Community College is one of 14 colleges selected nationwide to participate in the Community College Humanities Association project called Advancing the Humanities in Teacher Preparation Programs at Community Colleges.
The program is supported by a $242,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
A three-member team from each participating college recently attended a national teacher preparation conference in Washington and received mentoring assistance from experienced humanities and education community college faculty members.
Each team will develop national teacher preparation models of collaboration between the humanities faculty and education faculty.
The project models will ensure that the humanities are central to community college programs that recruit and educate the next generation of teachers.
The project is being conducted in cooperation with the American Association of Community Colleges and Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society for two-year colleges.
Representing ECCC in the project are Dr. Lavinia Sparkman, vice president for instruction; Linda Pierce, English instructor and division chairman; and Maudean Sanders, assistant dean for vocational-technical instruction.
DECATUR Among participants in the annual East Central Community College junior high boys' basketball camp were several athletes from West Lauderdale Junior High School.
Participants included Luke Walker, Lucas Dickson, Brandon Clark, Logan Theall, Garrett Wright, Mitch James, Nathan Herrington, Clifford Holloway, Ryan Clark, Trey Hull, Will Stewart, Hunter Brown, Paul Clayton, Terrance Brown, Corey Walker, Austin Buchanan, Clint Brown and Edwin Laws.
The instructional clinic was held under the supervision of ECCC men's head basketball coach Billy Smith.
Five Meridian Community College employees have the opportunity to learn beyond the boundaries of Mississippi as recipients of the MCC Foundation's Travel Study Grants.
Kay Stanton, adult education aide; Martha and Terry Williams, bookstore manager and physical plant director, respectively; and Delia Bonds and Karen McPherson, dental hygiene instructors, were awarded travel study grants amounting to $7,500.
Stanton, who has been at MCC for 21 years, will travel to Williamsburg, Richmond and Fredericksburg, Va., and to Washington. She plans to create a video documentary of her travels.
Bonds, who has worked at MCC for seven years, and McPherson, who has worked there for four years, will go to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The two will attend a seminar for dental instructors and learn to use computer software programs they can incorporate into their lectures.
The Williamses have a combined MCC work history of 45 years. They traveled to Charleston and Kiawah Island, S.C., and to Savannah, Ga. The husband and wife team will prepare a slide presentation on their trip to share with MCC community.