Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education

Thirty-nine students in the Master of Education program received their Elon University degrees Saturday morning in a Commencement ceremony featuring a keynote address from professor Judith Howard, the longtime director of the education graduate program who retires this month after serving the university since 1993 as a teacher, researcher and mentor.

Forty first-year Doctor of Physical Therapy students joined 26 elementary children on July 14 for a morning of fun and physical activity as part of Elon’s Summer Learning and Enrichment Academy, a partnership between Elon and the Alamance-Burlington School System that focuses on helping exceptional children in grades K-8 develop and maintain academic and behavioral skills they need to be successful in their learning.

"Valued Voices," a play written by Jean Rattigan-Rohr, associate professor in Elon's School of Education, will be featured in The Reader’s Theatre of New Works section of the 2011 National Black Theater Festival. The performance will be at 10 a.m., Aug. 2nd, in the Gaines Ballroom I – Embassy Suites Hotel, Winston Salem, N.C.

It’s no longer enough to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. Teachers must also emphasize “the four Cs” - critical thinking, creative problem solving, collaboration and communication, said Michelle Shearer, the 2011-12 National Teacher of the Year who addressed hundreds of North Carolina Teaching Fellows visiting Elon University for a weekend conference for college seniors throughout the state studying to be educators.

The youngest scholars spoke on the habits of highly effective teenagers, while those a year older focused on how the Elon Academy has changed their lives. The eldest of the Elon Academy students who presented to classmates, parents and educators on Friday evening? They read from the first drafts of admissions essays that will be used this fall to apply for college educations many once thought were out of reach.

Elon University will revise its Teaching Fellows program following recent action by the North Carolina General Assembly to phase out funding for the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program. The new Elon fellows program will recruit outstanding students nationally as well as those from North Carolina who want to pursue careers in education.

Bird Stasz, an associate professor of education, and Jeff Carpenter, an assistant professor of education, are providing technical support for pre-service teacher education in Tajikistan through the USAID/Quality Learning Project, administered by Creative Associates International, Inc. and funded by United States Agency for International Development.

Elon University welcomed dozens of Alamance County high school scholars to campus midday Monday with a special College Coffee for students enrolled in the Elon Academy, an intensive three-year college access and success program for talented local teenagers with financial need or no family history of attending college.

Charity Johansson, professor of physical therapy, and Mary Knight-McKenna, professor of education, presented a paper at the 9th International Transformative Learning Conference in Athens, Greece, on May 29.

It wasn’t enough for Victoria “Tory” Hill to simply show up for student teaching, give her lessons, and then go home. For the Spanish major who graduates Saturday from Elon University, time spent this spring at Eastern Guilford High School will benefit students for years because of her initiative to support Spanish speakers in a school with few resources to help them better learn their native language.