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| navigate: home: magazine: spring 2002: article | |
| Inside Outreach | |||||||
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New leadership appointed to Penn State Continuing Education
Dr. Sharon L. Fross has been appointed director and Dr. Rebecca M. Beatty has been appointed associate director of Penn State’s Office of Continuing Education.
The office is part of the Division of Continuing Education in Penn State Outreach and Cooperative Extension. It serves 10 counties in central and north central Pennsylvania. It also administers continuing education offices in Williamsport and Lewistown, where Continuing Education collaborates with Penn State Cooperative Extension to offer outreach programs.
Dr. Sharon L. Fross
“Sharon Fross brings extensive knowledge and experience to her new role in serving the continuing education needs of central Pennsylvania,” Dr. Patricia A. Book, associate vice president for outreach and executive director of the Division of Continuing Education, said. “Her leadership experience in academic affairs and commitment to adult learners will be critically important as we address the lifelong learning and training needs of our surrounding communities.”
As director, Fross is leading the implementation, administration, operation and review of credit and noncredit continuing education programs and outreach activities for the Penn State Office of Continuing Education and its satellite offices. She also is responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive marketing strategy for continuing education programming. In addition, she is working closely with the academic colleges and University outreach units, as well as external organizations and community groups to identify education and training needs and develop programs to address these needs.
Fross previously was assistant vice president for academic affairs and director of the Lightsey Center: Continuing Education and Conference Services at the College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C. During her 16-year tenure at the College of Charleston, she served in a variety of administrative positions, including director of Professional and Community Services and director of projects for the Office of Academic Affairs.
She oversaw the development and administration of the off-campus undergraduate credit program, the reorganization and redirection of the central continuing education program, the development and administration of the institutional pilot general education curricula project, the creation of an academic program in Spain and the development of strategic planning efforts for undergraduate and graduate programs.
At the Lightsey Center, Fross led the effort to thoroughly review and restructure the conference facilities and develop new programming initiatives, in collaboration with deans, faculty members and community and business groups.
Fross is a member of the American Council on Education’s Credit Program National Advisory Board and an institutional liaison to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in history from the College of Charleston in 1982, a master of public administration degree from the College of Charleston/University of South Carolina in 1987 and a Ph.D. in educational administration from the University of South Carolina in 1998.
“We are delighted that we were able to attract someone of Dr. Fross’ experience and caliber to Penn State,” Book said.
Dr. Rebecca M. Beatty
Beatty is responsible for program development for a wide range of learners, including adults, working professionals, youth, seniors and other groups.
“Rebecca Beatty has significant knowledge and experience in developing and delivering continuing education programming through credit and independent study courses, conferences and workshops,” Fross said. “Her experience in collaborating with Penn State colleges, community groups and government agencies will be invaluable as we work to meet the education and training needs of Pennsylvanians.”
Beatty joined the Penn State School of Nursing in 1988 as an instructor of nursing. Since 1993, she has been coordinator of continuing and distance education. In 2001, she was named to the editorial review board for The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing. She is the recipient of a 1996 Program Development Award for the WIC Facilitated Discussions Program, a 1997 Penn State University President’s Award for Exemplary Service and 1997 Nightingale Award for Excellence in Nursing Education from the Nightingale Foundation of Pennsylvania.
Beatty earned a diploma in nursing in 1971 from the Altoona Hospital School of Nursing. At Penn State, she earned a bachelor of science degree in nursing in 1978, a master of science degree in community health in 1989 and a D.Ed. in 2000. | ||||||
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Campbell appointed director of Outreach Operations
James F. Campbell has been appointed director of Outreach Operations for the Division of Continuing Education, Penn State Outreach and Cooperative Extension.
“Jim brings 30 years of experience to Penn State Outreach,” Dr. Patricia A. Book, associate vice president for outreach and executive director of the Division of Continuing Education, said. “He is helping me to build relationships with Penn State campus college leaders who have responsibility for continuing education, as well as with representatives from Penn State Cooperative Extension and Technology Transfer units. He also is providing leadership and support for the coordinated University-wide Continuing Education Council.”
Campbell previously served as associate director of Outreach Operations from 1999 to 2001. He was associate director of Conferences and Institutes in the Division of Continuing Education from 1993 to 1999, and from 1987 to 1993, he was regional director of Continuing Education for the Northeastern Region. He spent 12 years (1980–92) at Penn State Wilkes-Barre as director of Continuing Education. From 1973 to 1980, he was a continuing education area representative at Penn State York.
He earned a bachelor of science degree in administration of justice/law enforcement and corrections from Penn State in 1972 and a master of science in education from Temple University in 1977. He also attended the Management of Lifelong Education Program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education in 1989.
He is a member of the University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) and a founding member of the Continuing Education Association of Luzerne County.
At Penn State, he has chaired the Outreach Faculty/Staff Campaign and co-chaired the Outreach Professional Development Conference Planning Committee, the Continuing and Distance Education United Way Campaign and the Outreach Partnership Fund Committee.
Campbell is the recipient of a University Continuing Education Association Region II Distinguished Mentor Award and several regional and national program awards from UCEA. In 2000, he received the Ronald S. Haring Award for service to Leadership Centre County (LCC). He has served LCC in a number of roles, including member of the board of directors and president. | ||||||
| Faculty and staff members receive awards The Department of Distance Education/Penn State World Campus has honored University faculty and staff members with nine Distance Education/World Campus Awards: Bright Future Award: Stevie Rocco, instructional designer, Distance Education/World Campus. Customer Service Award: Distance Education Advising Team — Donna Anderson, staff assistant, and academic advisers Tammi Crissman, Kim Furst, Jerry Goff, Jane Ireland and Karen Lesch. Innovation Award: Laurie Hackenberger, instructional technologist, Distance Education/World Campus. Leadership Award: Dr. Peter A. Rubba, director of academic programs, Distance Education/World Campus. Outstanding Distance Education Teaching Award: Andrew Peck, lecturer in psychology, College of the Liberal Arts. Partnership Award: Ginny Newman, senior client development manager, Outreach Office of Client Development. Stellar Program Award: GIS Program Team — Dave DiBiase, faculty coordinator, World Campus Certificate in Geographic Information Systems; Haydn Kuprevich, account specialist, Outreach Office of Marketing Communications; and the following Distance Education/World Campus staff members: Dr. Peter Forster, associate director, academic programs; Karen Lesch, academic adviser; and Eleanor Lehman, instructional designer. Management Team’s Outstanding Achievement Award: Distance Education/World Campus Web Redesign Team — Dr. Roger Garthwaite, senior marketing research manager, Outreach Office of Marketing Research; Haydn Kuprevich, account specialist, Outreach Office of Marketing Communications; and the following Distance Education/World Campus staff members: Sandy McClain, computer support assistant; Heather Kiris Middleton, assistant director, student services; Robert Snyder, director, data management services, and lead research programmer; and Rhonda Walker, Webmaster/database administrator. Executive Director’s Award for Excellence: Independent Learning Transformation Team — Erich Lenz, World Campus marketing associate, Outreach Office of Marketing Communications; Brad Kozlek, senior applications programmer/analyst, Center for Educational Technology Services; and the following Distance Education/World Campus staff members: Anita Colyer, assistant director, instructional design and development; Rick Shearer, assistant director, instructional design and development; Celia Millington-Wyckoff, instructional materials designer; Gina Leon, instructional materials designer; Jennifer Wilkins, instructional materials designer; Peggy Keating-Butler, instructional designer; Ian Riddell, instructional materials designer; Linda Moist, instructional materials designer; Judy Kelly, instructional materials designer; Nancy Hallberg, instructional technologist; Eleanor Zindler, staff assistant; Kathie Klinefelter, technical typist; Cindy Galbraith, staff assistant; Jamie Mundie, senior microcomputer systems consultant; Laurie Hackenberger, instructional technologist; Allan Gyorke, instructional technology manager; Bonnie Dailey, staff assistant; Jerry Goff, academic adviser; Robyn Robinson, coordinator of faculty and student affairs; Dr. Peter Forster, associate director, academic programs; Karen Wagner Pollack, program manager; Blake Withall, program manager; and Janet May, program manager. | |||||||
| National award honors PENNTAP’s work with Hanover company By Barbara Hale The Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program (PENNTAP) has won national recognition for helping Hanover Lantern Inc. of Hanover, Pa., modify its painting and antiquing operations to be compliant with state air-quality regulations. Hanover Lantern reported economic benefits from the PENNTAP assistance totaling $591,000 and saving 150 jobs. The project was selected as Outstanding Project of the Year in the technology assistance category in the National Association of Management and Technical Assistance Centers (NAMTAC) awards competition. NAMTAC is a nonprofit association that provides information and a forum to enhance the performance of organizations providing business, economic, development and technical assistance to businesses and communities. Warren Weaver, PENNTAP senior technical specialist, led the project. “Hanover Lantern was faced with a difficult situation,” Weaver said. “Their supplier could not supply them with a low-solvent content coating for their outdoor lighting products, some of which must withstand very severe conditions in tropical salt-spray environments, when they found themselves in noncompliance with Pennsylvania’s air-quality regulations.” Over a 15-month period, PENNTAP assisted Hanover Lantern with this issue and, as a result, the firm switched its painting and antiquing operations from solvent-based to water-based paint. Weaver was called in when Hanover Lantern was uncertain what its options were under Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection regulations and how to proceed. He worked with Hanover Lantern’s plant manager to understand the options and to identify potential solution providers. He also helped the firm modify its changeover to water-based coating. In addition, Weaver provided Hanover Lantern with a spreadsheet-based program for recording daily paint usage and for calculating air emissions as required by the regulations. | |||||||
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Conference focuses on outreach in Southeast Region By Patty McFadden One hundred twenty-five Penn State staff members involved in outreach in southeastern Pennsylvania attended the third annual outreach conference titled Weaving Common Threads: Expanding Our Commitment to Southeastern Pennsylvania. The collaborative one-day conference, initiated and supported by Frederick W. Davis, regional director for the Southeast Region of Cooperative Extension and Outreach, was a success, according to those who attended from nine Penn State Cooperative Extension county offices, the Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program, six Continuing Education campus locations and University Park. Penn State Great Valley hosted the event, held in December. Using President Graham Spanier’s vision of a total outreach collaboration within and beyond the University as his impetus, Davis began to lay the groundwork four years ago to bring together all of the components of outreach in the southeastern part of the state. He developed the first conference, titled Common Ground, to look at the common elements and the dissimilarities between Continuing Education and Cooperative Extension. As the first conference unfolded, attendees agreed that despite differences in funding, job titles and job roles, the pride in delivering services to the community, the employee benefits and the commitment to education were overwhelmingly similar in nature. The commonalities among the units in the region are growing every day, and this annual conference serves as one way to share and partner with the larger community. Dr. Patricia A. Book, associate vice president for outreach and executive director of the Division of Continuing Education, praised attendees for their initiative in seeking collaborative outreach programming that serves to improve the quality of life for the community and the state. She also asked the group “to envision the next level of our strategic partnerships in Outreach and Cooperative Extension four years hence, building upon the many collaborative successes we’ve had to date.” This year’s conference included a panel discussion of partnerships between Continuing Education and Cooperative Extension in the region. Each program has unique issues to overcome, and many attendees said they learned a great deal from each other. One such partnership is a cooperative venture between Eva Klein, assistant director of Continuing Education at Penn State Abington, and Julie Fabsik-Swarts, Cooperative Extension director for Philadelphia County. They have pooled their energies to hold Summer Science Camps at Penn State Abington for under-privileged children living near the Philadelphia County Cooperative Extension Office. Children participate in hands-on science workshops and nature studies. Evaluations from the program were overwhelmingly positive, with many students requesting another program. Weaving Common Threads: Expanding Our Commitment to Southeastern Pennsylvania featured a series of sessions by Outreach and Cooperative Extension staff members. Jacklyn S. Rosenfeld, director of Outreach Marketing Consulting Services, presented a session on “Innovative Marketing Techniques.” James F. Campbell, director of Outreach Operations, presented a “Partnership How To” workshop covering steps for successful partnering and offering partnership incentives through application to the Outreach Partnership Fund. James E. Fong, director of the Outreach Office of Marketing Research, made a presentation on “Preparing for the Inevitable: Demographic Changes and Trends” in the southeastern region, providing attendees with a greater understanding of the wealth of information useful for marketing available from the U.S. Census. Warren Goll, multicounty greenhouse Cooperative Extension agent housed at the Penn State Cooperative Extension Delaware County Office, provided more than 150 poinsettias to decorate the conference facilities. At the end of the conference, each participant got to take home a poinsettia, as a way of reinforcing the sharing experience of the event. An outreach program of the Southeast Region of Penn State Cooperative Extension and Outreach and Penn State Great Valley | ||||||
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Shaver’s Creek staff member wins state award
The Pennsylvania Alliance for Environmental Education presented the 2001 Daisy S. Klinedinst Memorial Award to Ellen Boyd, assistant program director at Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center, at a statewide conference held in Harrisburg.
Boyd assists in directing residential and summer day-camp programs and in coordinating internships at Shaver’s Creek. She is a graduate of Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., and has served in her current role for two years.
The award recognizes “the great impact she has on interns and fellow staff in bringing new ideas to old challenges and building community among all at Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center.”
“We are delighted that Ellen was recognized by the Pennsylvania Alliance for Environmental Education,” Corky Potter, director of Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center, said. “She has made significant contributions to environmental education and the vitality of programming here. Daisy Klinedinst was a wonderful individual, and Ellen greatly deserves this commendation in Ms. Klinedinst’s memory.” | ||||||
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O’Toole joins World War II theme authors By Vera Klinkowsky Kathleen O’Toole is well known for hosting the children’s program What’s in the News on Penn State Public Broadcasting’s WPSX-TV. Now she is trying to reach her young audience in another medium: a book. Set in the fictional small town of Pine Glen, Pa., during World War II, A Time for Heroes was published in September by Huckleberry Press. The novel’s main character, Patsy Kelly, turns 13 years old the day Pearl Harbor is bombed. Following the attack, Pine Glen’s residents fear a German immigrant family may be spying for Germany. Patsy struggles to decide whether she should end her friendship with the family. “My hope was to take advantage of the real drama that was already there during World War II and give the fictional aspect that kids look for when they watch television and cartoons,” O’Toole said. “The book might have more relevance now, because we hear so much about the attack on Pearl Harbor and so many comparisons have been made to the Sept. 11th attack.” With hundreds of books about World War II published in the past several years, O’Toole seems to have been ahead of the authors writing on the topic. She wrote the 354-page book in the summer of 1989. Ten years earlier in the summer of 1979, she researched the book by leafing through newspaper clippings and interviewing individuals who remember experiencing World War II at home. Busy with What’s in the News and raising six children, O’Toole, 46, submitted the book to publishers when she had a free moment. Now that her book is published, she hopes it reaches youths from fourth grade to high school. With the lessons she created, the publisher hopes to encourage teachers to use the book in the classroom while discussing World War II. A Time for Heroes is available for purchase at Amazon.com and the Penn State Bookstore on campus. The publisher printed 3,000 to 5,000 copies of the book and will donate a portion of the book’s proceeds to the Mid-State Literacy Council of Central Pennsylvania. O’Toole is thrilled to have the book published after so many years. “It’s wonderful to have a book with your name on the cover. It’s a great feeling that you don’t get with TV credits,” she said. “My name is on TV, and then it’s gone. This is more solid and something I’ll have forever.” | ||||||
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