REG Newsletter - Volume 29, Issue 1

Reading Educators Guild Newsletter
Volume 29, Issue 1 July/August, 1999

The Reading Connection
By Janice Blanton

A Celebration of One in Particular and You in General!

This month, Reading Connection wishes to honor one of our CSUF graduates from the Masters Reading program who truly made her mark in Reading Instruction and has just recently resigned her position as Reading Program Coordinator at Long Beach City College. In addition, we would like to honor all of our CSUF graduates in Reading Instruction by sharing what they are currently doing. When instructors are making a difference, it is critical to the health of our profession that their work is acknowledged and shared. Good work should not be a secret!

Celebrating Mary Ellmann

Mary is the ultimate pioneer in Reading Instruction as she created a reading program where there was none at Long Beach City College. Prior to her arrival twenty years ago at the school, only a few reading classes were in existence on campus. Through her diligence, expertise, passion, and integrity, she designed a program which currently tout5 seven full-time and numerous part-time instructors. Reading Instruction at LBCC is well, effective, and relevant because of Mary Ellmann. LBCC has a Reading Proficiency Requirement for graduation due to Mary's efforts. The program which is under auspices of the English Department has empowered thousands of students through literacy instruction to improve the quality of their education, their professions, and their lives.

Quite suddenly in May, Mary made the monumental decision to resign her post for the very best of reasons--her family. Her daughter Susie discovered that she was pregnant with twins and actually needed to be bed-ridden for a good portion of her term. Since that time, Susie has given birth to a healthy boy and a healthy girl who although they do not realize it as yet are very fortunate to have their grandmother right there tending to their multiple needs. They will probably be fluent readers by the time they are three years old!

During her tenure at LBCC, Mary has served for many years on the Academic Senate Executive Board which is an elected position. As a member of the Board, she has had input on almost every committee on campus. She co-chaired the Shared Governance Committee whose responsibility it was to implement the Community College Bill 1725 which deemed that faculty would be involved in any decision-making that involved students and instruction. Delia DuRoss, a full-time instructor at LBCC and Mary's successor as Reading Program Coordinator, mentioned that over ten years ago when CCBI 725 came into existence, many community colleges were delaying compliance with the bill, but through the efforts of Mary's committee, this was not the case at LBCC.

As a colleague of Mary's for over eleven years, Delia describes her friend Mary as being highly respected within the department, within the administration, and among the students. Her fairness, diligence, concern, and integrity have earned her the accolades of anyone who has worked with her. Delia said that Mary's priorities were consistently based on what is good for the students and what is good for the college.

Mary graduated from the CSUF Masters Program in Education with an emphasis on Reading Instruction many years ago. However, she is still well-known, liked, and respected among the CSUF Reading faculty. She shared that obtaining her MS was a tremendous source of new information, strategies, and ideas even after years of experience in the profession. Mary has been near and dear to me as she has been my boss for the last two years. She is actually the reason that I am teaching at the community college level. I did not have the wide open time schedule that a proper applicant probably should have after graduation, so I was hesitant to aggressively seek employment. She with all the demands on her time just hung in there with me until she found a time frame that I could manage. Needless to say, I will always be grateful. I can only imagine the numbers of beginning instructors that she has similarly helped throughout the years.

Although she has resigned her position as coordinator, Mary has agreed to continue working in a tutorial capacity in the LBCC Reading and Writing Center, so fortunately the reading field still has her for awhile. Delia DuRoss who is taking over the reins will be a stellar replacement as coordinator and has been a fine and passionate instructor of reading for a long time. However, she did get her MS from Loyola Marymont! I imagine that other universities have fine graduate reading programs, too? ha! ha! Delia asked me to mention that there are a few openings for instruction still available for fall at LBCC. If interested, please contact Delia DuRoss at LBCC--(562)938-4522.

Good luck to you, Mary. We thank you for your devotion, your passion, your energy, and your action on behalf of all reading professionals and grateful students. You made such a difference! We clebrate your career.

Celebrating You

This will be quick and to the point. We--newsletter people--would like to celebrate what you--REG members--are doing in the field of reading. Will you share with our readers? It is quite painless and so relevant to share. It's even noble! So many marvelous programs and strategies are being implemented in numerous schools at all grade levels, but how can we know about them all unless you tell us? Please take just a few minutes and compose a brief summary of something of interest that is working in your class, school, or district and send it along to me Janice Blanton at JJBREAD@msn.com or to Jan Bagwell (REG Newsletter Editor) at jbagwell@fullerton.edu or jbagwell@saddleback.cc.ca.us. We will include it in our Reading Connection section, and I can guarantee that whatever you share will be appreciated. Thank you.

Faculty Footnotes
By Kathi Bartle Angus

For this summer issue of the newsletter I thought I might address the burning question: What do faculty members do during the summer? Here are the questions, the answers follow.

1. Do they travel to exciting Midwest locales to talk about reading and spend lots of quality time with granddaughters?
2. Do they give fabulous talks at the American Association of Higher Learning Assessment Conference in Denver?
3. Do they travel the stunning Italian Riviera?
4. Do they build new homes in the beautiful Sierras?
5. Do they camp, white water raft and spend time in Hawaii, while organizing soccer tournaments on the side?
6. Do they undertake extensive home improvement projects and work on their own graduate school papers?
7. Do they travel to jolly old England?
8. Do they camp with old friends and supervise their personal orchards?

The answers, of course, are yes to all of the above. Specifically: 1. Ash Bishop, 2. Toni Chambers and JoAnn Carter-Wells, 3. Brenda Spencer, 4. Norma Inabinette, 5. Kathi Bartle Angus, 6. Toni Chambers, 7. JoAnne Greenbaum, and 8. Carla Thomson.

Hancock Fund

The Hancock Fund was established to honor Dr. Deborah Osen Hancock for her contributions to the field of reading and specifically to the Reading Department. The fund is solely for use by the CSUF Reading Clinic. Over the years, the fund has supplied books and technology for use by clinicians and students. REG would like to thank the following members for their generous contributions to the Hancock Fund:

Shanna Birkholz-Vasquez
Chris Parmenter
Karen Rote



			California State University, Fullerton