Toyama University Delegations visits College of Education

Students from Toyama University observed inclusion techniques of pre-school and elementary students at the Ruby Simpson Center and at Murray Elementary School. In addition they attended numerous other events on the MSU campus. Shown in the picture from the left, Toyokazu Mizuuchi, Associate Professor of Special Education, University of Toyama; Takako Nishijo, Early Childhood Education; Kana Matsukura, Special Education; Sayaka Ono, Elementary Education; Akio Yamada, Special Education; Daisuke Horie, Special Education; Ayana Takahashi, Special Education; and, Dr. Eric Umstead, Associate Professor of Special Education, Murray State University.

TQI Mathematics Partnership Grant renewed for the third year

W.A. Franklin, Director of the Teacher Quality Institute (TQI), has been notified that the West Kentucky Mathematics Partnership II — Year 2 has been funded in the amount of $140,000. This is the third year that TQI has been awarded a math grant from the Council on Post Secondary Education. The continuation of this grant will aid TQI in its mission of outreach to area teachers. Through the Grant, TQI will be working with 30 middle and high school math teachers throughout the region.

Hawkins honored as educator

Donna Hawkins, Lecturer in the Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education was honored as “Educator of the Year” by the Paducah-McCracken County Branch of the NAACP at its annual Freedom Fund Banquet. Hawkins is a 1974 graduate of Paducah Tilghman High School and received a master of arts in education from Murray State University in 1979. She began teaching elementary school in Paducah in August 1978. In August 2007 she began teaching in the College of Education at Murray State University. She is married to Henderson Hawkins, Jr. and they have one son, Henderson Jamale.

McCuiston presents at Washington, D.C. conference

Karen McCuiston, the post-secondary director of Murray State University’s Kentucky School Safety (KCSS) resource center, was a featured speaker at the first Washington, D.C. School Safety Conference.

The U.S. Department of Education and the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) grant sponsored the conference, which trained Washington, D.C., school administrators under the “One City, One Plan” initiative for unified, collaborative emergency preparedness. More than three hundred D.C. administrators received emergency response management training.

As the KCSS post-secondary director, McCuiston collaborated with REMS project director Brian Killian to produce “One City One Plan,” an initiative uniting D.C. administrators under a collaborative emergency preparedness plan.