Twelve January PEL graduates; Alumni news; Faculty & Staff news

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CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Warmest congratulations to these PEL students who completed their programs of studies and graduated in January, 2016 :

Craig Michael Cuatt (H), Concentration in Media and Film
Stephen Alan Douglas, Concentration in American Culture and Society
Jana Lené Gross, Human Development
Marilyn Beatrice Haegele (H), Concentration in Communication Art
Lennise Quantaie Jackson, Human Development
Tamara C. Lasser, Business Management
Jennifer Worsham Lillquist (D), Business Management
Sherry-Ann A. Murphy, Humanities
Michelle Darlene Rees, Human Development
Angela Aquinda Sealy, Organizational Studies
Karen Lynn Trzcinka (D), Business Management
James Edward Weaver (D), Concentration in Human Learning

H - Honors; HH - High Honors; D - Distinction

ALUMNI  NEWS

• Valerie Bendt '09 (Creative Writing) earned her M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in children's literature from Pennsylvania State University. For her thesis/project she wrote a bilingual children's book (Lucinda the Goose and the Yard Sale) and developed several related activities parents and children could complete together. She also earned a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate from the University of Toronto.
• Todd DeLozier '09 (Humanities) has opened his own business, Meridian Security, and he was featured on #ThatBusinessShow, a radio program on 1250whnz.
• Mike Domke '14 (Business Management) recently was promoted to coordinator of Central Printing Services for Pinellas County Schools. As such, he oversees the school district's interoffice mail systems and production of all the printed materials for the district.
• April Griffin '16 (Organizational Studies) and chair of the Hillsborough County School Board was featured in a recent Tampa Bay Times article acknowledging her December 2015 graduation. 
• Bernard LiLavois '10 (Business Management) subsequently earned an M.B.A. in Healthcare Administration from South University in Tampa. He currently is the director of the respiratory and EKG services at HealthSouth Rehab Hospital in Largo.

Note: An alumni class includes all students who graduated between June of one year and May of the next year. For example, students who graduated in August 2015 are considered part of the Class of 2016. 
What's new with you? Share your good news two ways:

• Share your personal and professional updates by emailing us at pelsuccess@eckerd.edu. We reserve the right to format announcements to fit style and other considerations. 
• Share Instagram Photos via live update on the Eckerd Alumni Engagement page by including the #EckerdNotes hashtag. 

FACULTY & STAFF NEWS  

Anne Anderson '07, PEL's director of blended and online learning, co-authored a chapter, "The World is Flat, Stanley! Globalization, Ethnocentricity, and Absurdity," which recently was published in The Early Reader in Children's Literature and Culture (Routledge, 2016). The chapter discusses the Flat Stanley series of books for their contributions to increasing globalization, for their insight into ethnocentric thinking and actions, and for the ways in which their absurd premises complicate the reading.

 

Catherine Griggs, PEL coordinator of Humanities and Associate Professor of American Studies, recently was featured in a WTSP 10News article, which included a Studio 10 televised interview.  Griggs and Nathan Andersen, also an Eckerd professor, organized the Environmental Film Festival held this past month. 

 

Gregory Padgett, Associate Professor of History at Eckerd College who teaches African-American History and other courses in the PEL program, recently was featured in an article in The Weekly Challenger. The article focuses on a civil rights course titled "What’s Past is Prologue: The Civil Rights Movement In the United States" that Padgett taught through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), another Eckerd program. The class met at the Midtown campus of St. Petersburg college.

 

Jim Schnur, PEL professor of  Florida history and USF-SP Special Collections librarian, recently had a book published and a day designated in his honor. Seminole, part of the Images of America series (Arcadia Publishing, 2016), tells in words and images the story of Pinellas County's youngest municipality. The City of Seminole designated January 12, 2016, the official date of publication, as "Jim Schnur Day."

 Helen Pruitt Wallace, PEL professor of creative writing, recently opened Mayor Rick Kriseman's State of the City address with her poem, "Reunion in the Sunshine City."

 

[January 18, 2017] Editor's Note: This post was supposed to  have been published on February 29, 2016, as part of the March PEL Connector, but it was just discovered sitting in our drafts. However, we included it in our EMMA email, and we usually check all the links before sending it. Was it published and then pulled for further editing? Was it kidnapped by cyber-gremlins or lost in a cyberspace time warp? We cannot say for certain, but we are posting it in it's proper slot of February 29, 2016, and are noting that the actual publication date is only about a year off.