Medaille College News

The Medaille College Reading Clinic will receive a $1,000 grant from the Junior League of Buffalo.

The funding will be applied towards books and hands-on materials that enhance reading acquisition and spelling skills. The clinic serves over 100 elementary school students each year, and is staffed by over 100 graduate students in the Literacy program.

Michelle Cefaratti, the Reading Clinic Director, offers, “It’s exciting because we know how important proper instructional materials are to student growth. This money affords us the opportunity to purchase new books that will directly impact our graduate students’ teaching as well as our elementary students’ learning.”

On Thursday, April 3, graduate students in the education, business and organizational leadership programs gave presentations at the Amherst campus on “Building a Better Buffalo, Medaille’s Role in a Civic and Sustainable Future.”

• The Role of Education in a Civic and Sustainable Future
• Get Dressed, Downtown: Developing a Downtown Community
• Leadership and the Four Foundations of a Sustainable Society

The presentations helped conclude a week of campus events leading up to the Inauguration of Dr. Richard T. Jurasek, sixth president of Medaille, on Saturday, April 5.

A complete description of each project is available at the Inauguration web site.

The Medaille College Reading Clinic is accepting applications for its summer session. The clinic, staffed by graduate students pursuing master’s degrees in literacy, provides one-on-one assessment and instruction to K-6 students in the Buffalo area.

Parents of elementary students who may benefit from the Reading Clinic should submit an application to Michelle Cefaratti, reading clinic director, at 18 Agassiz Circle, Buffalo, NY 14214.

The Reading Clinic tutors students year-round, with the summer session beginning the first week of July and continuing for seven weeks. The Reading Clinic’s fall and spring sessions run for 12 weeks each.

The School of Education’s Literacy Program will welcome local author Norma Gentner and Dr. Fran Murphy, Founding Dean of the School of Education, at an event for alumni and guests on April 2, 2008 from 6 - 8 p.m. at the Amherst Campus Multipurpose Room.

Gentner has 33 years of experience as an elementary, special education and enrichment teacher, and was honored as a finalist representing New York State in the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Award for Science and Mathematics Teaching in 1995 and 1997. She regularly speaks to state and regional reading and literacy conferences, and visits local schools to give grade-level workshops to elementary students.

Prior to coming to Medaille, Dr. Murphy was an associate professor at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY, where he was the chair of the Education Administration Program and a co-author of the Doctoral Program in Executive Leadership. He taught special education and English in elementary, middle and high schools before becoming a principal and a superintendent of schools for 23 years.

Mary Donahue, a graduate student in the special education program, was named WGRZ television’s Educator of the Week for December 3-9.

Donahue teaches at the Alexander Hamilton Elementary School in Tonawanda.

The School of Education Graduate Student Society (E.G.S.S.) has published information of use to students in the literacy, special education and elementary education programs on the Medaille web site.

The E.G.S.S. began in October 2007 as a way to facilitate student engagement with the education programs and with the teaching profession. Rooted in the principles of educational, professional, and social development, the E.G.S.S. welcomes all graduate students as active citizens of the Medaille community.

Carrie Orr and Bilal Qureshi, students in the Canadian Education Program, compiled the teaching resources, volunteer opportunities, and student and faculty profiles available on the site.

Carrie Orr and Bilal Quereshi.

Please contact Carrie Orr at co62@medaille.edu or Claudia Conway, faculty advisor, at cconway@medaille.edu for more information or to offer suggestions.