The UCA College of Education program is pleased to announce that Lavonda Pierce and Angela Criss have been awarded the Gladys Sachse Scholarship for the 2015-16 academic year.
The Gladys Sachse Endowment provides $1,000 each to two students accepted into the UCA College of Education Master of Science degree program in Library Media and Information Technologies (LMIT) and who plan to become a school librarian. Their selection out of six applicants was based upon academic achievement with consideration given to financial need. Candidates for the scholarship must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above in their education major.
Lavonda Pierce is currently a teacher in the Belair Middle School in Pine Bluff. She plans to graduate from UCA’s Library Media program in December, 2105. Once she graduates and is in a school library media center, she plans to implement several ideas and concepts that she learned from her program.
In particular,
- she plans to actively collaborate with teachers to “shape the learning” of her students in the school
- conduct needs assessment for the staff and students
- design activities that will lead to an increase in student achievement
- take the initiative to ensure that teachers know what resources are available and how they may use them effectively in teaching
- be a support for all the end users at her school
- Continue to grow professionally through participation professional library association.
Lavonda further states: “I believe that the key to any effective program is communication. I want the media center to be the center of the school, not an afterthought, so I plan to communicate my vision and goals to the administration, staff, students and parents. I want everyone to know what I have for them and what I can do for them.”
Angela Criss is working as the librarian at Harrisburg Middle School while pursuing her library media degree. This is her “dream job.” Her secret ambition was always to be a librarian. She plans to graduate from UCA’s Library Media program in December, 2016. Angela would like remain in school library positions from 5th grade to 12th grade. She is an avid reader and loves to share her passion with students. Angela has promoted several fun and interesting activities in her library that include:
- Book fairs
- A trick-or-treat activity at Halloween where students drew titles out of a pumpkin, then located the title in the library and then read the book in question
- A “book tasting” event where she set the library up as a café so students could pass around new books
- And write the titles of ones they would like to read in the future on their “menu”
- Angela’s school was recently awarded an Apple grant and all students will be receiving iPads
- It is noteworthy that Angela used a library “improvement design” assignment from one of her library media classes for a grant application and she was awarded $4,400 for improvements to her own library media center.