College of Education News

For the first time ever, all five Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) of the College of Education convened for a singular purpose:  to discuss issues in education between roasting hotdogs and hamburgers on the grill.

Hosted primarily with the assistance of the Student Advancement Group for Education, (SAGE), Epsilon Delta, and the Student Education Association (SEA), the festivities took place on the north lawn of the Education Building on April 26.

“Collectively, the Education RSO presidents believe it is important that we step up the amount of interaction between the groups,” said Josh Bodenheimer, president of SAGE. “Despite being members of different organizations, it is our intention to spread our passion for teaching, but also to get word out about our organizations.”

While the main goal of the barbeque was to increase communication and interaction between members of the education-driven groups, many of the 100 attendees brought along friends to encourage them to join an education RSO.

According to Bodenheimer, the presidents of these organization have committed to designing and hosting future events for their organizations to increase communication and interaction.
“We believe that future teachers on this campus should form a bond, no matter the RSO people are members of,” Bodenheimer said, stressing the importance of the organizations forming a collective unit

“We really wanted to get people out and let them interact with other people in their same content area that they never knew prior,” said Christle Kiely , president of SEA. “Each of our RSOs is an amazing opportunity to network, however, putting all of them together provides so many more opportunities to be had.”

On a personal level, Kiely added, “It is nice to have another person who has been in your position and can give you advice.”

As attendees filled the lawn, Kiely said the feeling of community at the College of Education was impressive. “It was amazing to see the stairs leading into the north end of the building filled with education students sitting, eating some BBQ, and talking.“

In addition to more small-scale events, Kiely hopes to expand the BBQ to a more formal affair to welcome new freshman to the College in the Fall.

“We hope that this way, students will see right from the start that we are serious about providing all possible opportunities to them throughout their years here…We hope that the College of Education sees how serious we are about providing future educators with the necessary tools to become the great teachers of tomorrow.”

Thank you to Yoonah Melanie Shin for contributing photos for this article.