DeSales University

Grants to aid teacher prep program

Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) Executive Deputy Secretary Angela Fitterer and Dr. Carissa Pokorny-Golden, director of PDE’s Bureau of School Leadership and Teacher Quality today visited DeSales University in Center Valley. During the visit, DeSales University staff facilitated a discussion about the college’s education programs and how it plans to use more than $183,000 in grant funding from PDE to prepare future educators and provide for ongoing professional development.

DeSales is the only institution of higher education in the Lehigh Valley to receive the Teacher Prep to Practice and Aspiring to Educate: STEM/Computer Science grants.

Northampton Community College

Heft gets Fulbright grant

Northampton Community College Art Professor, Carol Heft, has been awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant to run a series of workshops at Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic this November 2023.

Through the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and World Learning, Heft will help train populations in art and art education as a Fulbright Specialist for three years until 2026.

The purpose of this program is to provide students, community program workers, and educators with an opportunity to share ideas and explore ways to adapt basic art education principles to a range of individuals and groups. Through the program, Heft will help train and assist young professionals of all ages, abilities and within diverse cultural populations in a studio atmosphere.

The hands-on workshops will use materials commonly available to art educators in public schools and universities, community centers, and congregate living facilities to help participants understand how to adapt these materials and ideas to subjects across the curriculum. Examples may include a workshop on portraits and/or self-portraits using drawing, painting, and photography to deconstruct and construct images that reflect the student’s self-image, mood and internal narrative.

Heft has extensive experience working as a teaching artist and professor, with time spent working with students from Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. She has a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling and an understanding of clinical issues that play a role in art education. As a result, Heft has utilized her art education background as a facet of her counseling for individuals with developmental disabilities as well as substance abuse and psychiatric disorders.