Teaching and Learning

MSU Teacher Education Program Nationally Reaccredited

The Teacher Education Program at Montana State University recently received full reaccreditation for seven years through both Montana’s Board of Public Education and the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, the single specialized national accreditor for educator preparation in the United States.

EHHD Grad Students Travel to UK’s Ancient Universities

Marilyn Lockhart, director of the Center for Faculty Excellence and professor in adult and higher education, along with four education graduate students, traveled to the United Kingdom to visit historic universities. Catherine Johnson, adult and higher education doctoral student; Jennifer Clark, engineering student success coordinator; Nicole Redding, disability, re-entry, and veteran services; and Chelsey Wilson, division of student success, visited Kingston University in London, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, The University of Edinburgh, and University of Glasgow.

“People were very gracious and inviting and happy to have us there,” said Lockhart about making contacts with the universities. Each person selected a university and became an expert. When they visited the university, the students facilitated the conversations. They kept daily reflection journals, had a reflection day at the end of the trip, and came up with emerging themes—diversity, cost and access, student experience, teaching and learning, quality assurance, governance, and institutional types—all similar themes in the United States’ higher education system.

Chelsey Wilson said she wanted to participate in the overseas adventure because all of her degrees are from MSU, and she wanted to learn about higher education from a global perspective.

Some themes they noted among the universities were much higher retention rates (as much as 98%), fee structures (the government funds tuition to residents), institutional climate (42% of the student body at Edinburgh is international), student teacher ratio (two students to one faculty for tutorials at Cambridge), and the value of a global education.

Johnson summed up the experience by saying, “… the experiences we had really cemented what we’d been learning in the classroom.”

Online Graduate Student Named Outstanding Non-traditional Student in the U.S.

Lori St. Pierre of Havre, a graduate of Montana State University’s online addiction counseling graduate certificate program, was one of two people in the United States honored with the Outstanding Continuing Education Student Award by the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA).

St. Pierre and a Kansas State University student received the award from UPCEA, a professional, continuing and online education organization, at its national conference on April 7. Last fall, St. Pierre was named Outstanding Continuing Education Student in the western region.

Born in 1960 and raised on Rocky Boy Reservation, St. Pierre studied at Stone Child College in Box Elder, then completed a bachelor’s degree in community leadership with a minor in Native American studies from MSU Northern in fall 2013 and an addiction counseling graduate certificate from MSU in Bozeman in spring 2014. 

Read more about St. Pierre's award.

Education Students Experience Mexico’s Art and Literature

Joyce Herbeck, associate professor of literacy in the Department of Education, listed several reasons why she chose to take 11 students to Mexico last summer.

“Latin Americans are the fastest growing population in the United States,” said Herbeck, “and it’s important to break down biases and barriers since many of our teachers will have (Hispanic students) in their classrooms.”

Herbeck and Kim Boehler, adjunct art education instructor, spent months planning the trip, even traveling to Mexico to establish personal contacts with schools and museums

“We actually went to places that tourists don’t go,” said Herbeck, “and we saw a cross-section of Mexico that was helpful in dispelling negative images of the country.”

Taylor Floming, a junior from Colorado, agreed with Herbeck. Floming had previously vacationed with her family in Mexico, but this trip offered her a much different perspective.

“We got a better glimpse of the authentic side of the day-to-day culture of Mexico,” said Floming.

In preparation for the trip, the students spent a week attending class on campus learning about folk art and famous Mexican artists, as well as reading 40 books. Herbeck said the best way to enlighten students about the culture is through studying art and literature. Since most of the authors they read were Americans writing about Mexico, students also Skyped with one of the authors. Students visited museums in Mexico City and Guanajuato City, where painter Diego Rivera was born. In Pachuca, they visited an American school and read books to children. In Ocotlán de Morelos, they visited the studio of Josefina Aguilar, a blind Mexican folk artist known for her small ceramic figurines.

Floming said one of her favorite experiences was visiting Coyoacán on the outskirts of Mexico City where Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, prominent Mexican artists, lived.

As future teachers, students said their experience in Mexico would help them in their classrooms by incorporating in-depth multicultural curriculum and help dispel the stereotypes that many in the United States have of Mexico and its culture.

Family and Consumer Sciences Graduate Heads to New York to Attend Law School

When Kasey Kimball first entered Montana State University as a freshman, she thought she wanted to major in graphic design. She soon realized that her passion lay in working with children and families. The Bozeman native briefly considered pre-med leading to a career as a pediatrician or an optometrist before discovering that a degree in family and consumer sciences (FCS) would be her path to becoming a lawyer.

Kimball chose family and consumer sciences instead of a more traditional major leading to law because it is more geared toward families and children. Through classes like “Family Law and Public Policy,” she was able to see the “people side of situations, not just the law side.”

“I’ve always wanted to work with children,” said Kimball, who graduated in December 2015. “My dad was the one who encouraged me to think of a career in law as a way of helping with adoptions and victims of child abuse.”

After applying to 10 schools and being accepted into all that she kept active, Kimball headed off to New York City to attend New York Law School’s accelerated honor’s program, where she was one of 12 students accepted.

While at MSU, Kimball also did a study abroad in Ghana in western Africa, teaching school and swim lessons, helping with homework, and playing with children at an orphanage. She believes that experience helped broaden her perspective and provided a real contrast between Montana and the world at large.

Sandra Osborne, associate professor in family and consumer sciences, helped place Kimball in an internship with MSU family and consumer sciences alumna, Angie Cavallini, a Bozeman attorney specializing in litigation and family law.

“When we can place a current senior in the FCS program with an FCS alum, it is always a great match,” said Osborne. “Certainly the specific court opportunities Angie was able to provide for and with Kasey, contributed to the success of her application (to New York Law).”

Cavallini said Kasey was able to “see contested family law cases—from initial client meetings to contested hearings that determine child placement.” She also observed or participated in dependency and children neglect cases.

Kimball received a full ride for the two year program, plus a guaranteed one-year paid fellowship with a law firm or non-profit organization after she completes her coursework.

With strong family ties to Montana and MSU where her father and uncle played football for the 1984 championship team, Kimball hopes to return to Montana someday and become an advocate for children and families.

Montana Dietetic Internship Celebrates 5th Year with an Intern Exchange in Hawai'i

The Montana Dietetic Internship begins its fifth year with a new cohort of 20 student interns. After a three week orientation, student participate in rotations in clinical and community nutrition, food service management, and sustainable food systems in communities across Montana. Interns are placed in one of five geographic regions and receive over 1300 hours of supervised practice. Not only does the program admit many MSU students, it also has students from as far away as Pennsylvania and Florida.

Program director, Coleen Kaiser, said there are several new aspects to the program this year. There is a scholarship for students who are interested in completing an internship at the Livingston Food Resource Center, and there is a new exchange program with Hawai'i. In 2015, two students from Hawai'i spent three weeks in the Flathead area and at the Blackfeet Community Hospital in Browning, and in 2016, MSU intern, Jackie Roller, was selected to travel to Honolulu for three weeks of community nutrition rotations.

When Roller first arrived in Honolulu, she worked with a diverse population at the Kokua Kalihi Valley Community Health Center helping with a grant-funded garden that is similar to MSU’s Towne’s Harvest Garden. Roller said the center’s garden gives much of their produce away for free to the community, as well as using some of it for their café, where she “got some cooking experience in as well.”

“There was a lot of community member interaction,” said Roller about the center which included participation by area doctors as well as local farmers. “I wish I could implement a program in the Gallatin Valley like they have that introduces people to locally grown food.”

She also worked at a very large food bank and spent a week in the WIC program at the Kalihi Palama Community Center. There, she gave a presentation to a group of elderly Chinese on the benefits of a low sodium diet. Because of the diverse population (16 languages are spoken at the center), she had to work with a translator to help with the presentation and with questions from the audience.

Kaiser was pleased that the experience “provided an enriching cultural exchange away from home.”