One of the greatest joys in life is to know you had a positive impact on the learning and growth of a young person. We feel that pleasure every day in the College of Education as we prepare our students to be highly effective, caring teachers. I am pleased you made the choice to become a professional educator and wisely chose to get ready for that exciting career at WCU.

New this coming year:
During this coming year, we are planning to extend the amount of clinical experiences within teacher preparation programs. These changes will provide teacher candidates authentic, important opportunities to offer valuable assistance to regional schools while receiving real-world preparation under the guidance of Pre-K-12 faculty and university teacher scholars.

View on Teacher Prep- 21st Century
Education in the 21st century will be transformative. Technology will have a major impact on how we deliver instruction. Students will have greater access to information and will need to develop powerful critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaboration skills. Dispensing knowledge and facts through a lecture format will become extinct. Teachers will be more like facilitators assisting students in finding information, refining it, and making it part of impending critical analysis.

Most Rewarding Experience:

Professionally: teaching students physics and statistics
Personally (of late): becoming a grandfather

Best Piece of Advice:

Maintain a sense of humor and hopefulness

Favorite Quote/Witticism:

None of us know as much as all of us!

Reading Recommendations:

Trinity (Leon Uris)

Life is never dull at Recitation Hall!

Charlie McDermott (a.k.a Axel Heck on ABC's The
Middle) with Dr. Witmer