EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

At the onset of my full-time status, I became involved in working with Jill Urban-Bollis and the Education Program's refresher workshops for the Basic Skills Test (now called the TAP test), a licensing requirement for our future teachers. I volunteered to run several math review sessions for interested students in the afternoons once my MLC commitments were done for the day. While only a few students took advantage of each session, I feel that the hours were productive both for the students and myself. 

I've also had the privilege of attending the Students Academic Awards Banquet in the last several years. What a pleasure and a joy to see so many of the students that come through the MLC being honored for their academic achievements! It's a testimony to what all of us do at IVCC and that our students coming through the developmental math program can have the same successes as those who start at the college level.

The MLC serves a number of our student athletes. Its exciting to see them in their element, whether it's the basketball or volleyball courts or the softball or baseball fields. I've attended games when our family schedule has allowed it and the conversations with my students that results from that is always enriching. They appreciate their instructors taking the time to attend and they love talking about the game!

One of the activities I'm regularly involved in outside of my teaching, but directly related to it, is the hiring, training, and mentoring of our student tutors. We have an extremely close working relationship and they are entrusted with great responsibility as it relates to assisting our students and maintaining our good rapport with those who are enrolled in our classes. In my role as MLC coordinator, working with these student tutors has allowed me a role in the creation and promotion of outstanding IVCC scholars. Just this semester, we had three of our four tutors honored at the 21st Century Scholars banquet. Tiernan Ebener received the highest honor that night and Trent Lipka and Kaylee Sienza were also award recipients.  As a mentor to student workers, I'm proud to say I've also had a role in pre-professionalizing  students. Erich Jauch, an IVCC McCormick Scholar, was a student tutor for us which resulted in him firming his decision to pursue a career teaching Mathematics in a higher education setting. He finished his Bachelor's degree last spring and was able to come back and teach as an adjunct in the MLC during the summer of 2014.

This semester I was approached about becoming an advisor to a new student Soccer Club. I'll be gladly taking on that new responsibility.