Schools

John Bapst Memorial High School

BANGOR – Rebecca Ogden, a junior at John Bapst Memorial High School, was named the 2007 recipient of the Saint Michael’s College Scholarship and Service Book Award.

The award recognizes students who demonstrate a commitment to volunteerism and leadership through community service. St. Michael’s College, located in Colchester, Vt., was founded on the belief that serving others is part of its Catholic tradition. The award seeks to honor those who demonstrate the true spirit of volunteerism.

Award recipients, named at schools throughout the United States, are high school juniors who are inductees of the National Honor Society or an equivalent school-sponsored organization. They must demonstrate a commitment to service activities in high school or community organizations, taking leadership roles in these activities.

Ogden received the book “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers” by Loung Ung, a 1993 St. Michael’s College graduate. Ung gives a powerful autobiographical account, from a child’s perspective, of surviving captivity during the genocidal Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.

Ogden is the daughter of Stephen Ogden of Glenburn.

Colleges

Boston University

BOSTON – Shannon Zolper of Bangor was named to the dean’s list for the spring semester at Boston University.

Eastern University

ST. DAVIDS, Pa. – Shannon Swartz graduated with a degree in musical theater from Eastern University. She was a dean’s list recipient throughout her four years of college, and a member of Eastern Theatre and the worship team. A member of Columbia Street Baptist Church in Bangor, she is the daughter of Les and Lillian Swartz of Bangor.

UM reception at festival

Organizers of the American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront, together with the University of Maine Alumni Association and the Bangor Region Development Alliance, announced that there will be a special reception for UM alumni, students and faculty during the festival this year.

Scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 25, the reception is being coordinated by the association in partnership with the Bangor Region Development Alliance and festival organizers. University of Maine President Robert Kennedy will be on hand with association president Todd Saucier and representatives from several Black Bear athletic teams. The reception site provides a perfect vantage point from which to enjoy the Railroad Stage performance by the Dixie Hummingbirds.

The festival’s Bucket Brigade volunteers will hand out University of Maine “bearpaw” stickers in thanks for donations to the festival.

Alumni, students and faculty of the University of Maine are invited to attend the event.

For information about the 2007 American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront, visit www.americanfolkfestival.com, www.mainealumni.com, contact the American Folk Festival at 40 Harlow St., or call the office at 992-2630.

English as a Second Language

ORONO – The University of Maine has received a $1.5 million, five-year grant to better prepare Maine teachers to work with a growing number of students just learning or still perfecting their English language skills.

The U.S. Department of Education Title III grant will enable research and teacher training in the area of English as a Second Language. The program being created through the grant also is expected to sensitize teachers to the diverse and specific educational needs of a range of students who bring cultural, language and even significant religious differences to the classroom.

“I think it’s going to enhance everybody’s teaching experience,” said Gisela Hoecherl-Alden, a professor of German and co-director of the program with Laura Lindenfeld, a professor of mass communication and the university’s Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.

Maine schools have more than 3,000 children and young adults who speak Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Serb-Croatian, Somali, Sudanese, Russian, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy or American Sign languages, according to the Maine Department of Education. To accommodate that growing number of students, the population of ELS-trained teachers in Maine “is growing exponentially,” Hoecherl-Alden said.

While the classroom focus for multicultural students typically has been on learning English, Hoecherl-Alden and Lindenfeld say students should be encouraged to retain their native languages, since so much of their cultural identity is reflected in language.

“It’s imperative for the University of Maine to reach out to teachers to help them provide the best possible support for the state’s ESL students,” Lindenfeld said. “We think it’s very important to value people’s languages and their cultural heritage.”

“By allowing them to lose their native language, we’re impoverishing the state of Maine and its ability to become a player in a global economy,” Hoecherl-Alden added.

New teaching methods designed to accommodate limited-English students also could help English-speaking students with learning disabilities, according to Lindenfeld and Hoecherl-Alden.

Several new classes are being developed for inclusion into the curriculum of the College of Education and Human Development to reach a specified number of education students and a group of current Maine school teachers who will take the classes during the summer. The courses include a focus on English as a Second Language in math, science and mainstream classrooms.

Grant requirements mandate that UM and the Maine Department of Education create a faculty research team to produce research in ESL teaching methods, and offer workshops on the subject for all teachers.

“The reality is every teacher, whether an ESL teacher or not, will face a diverse classroom,” Hoecherl-Alden said.

The program begins this fall with 10 undergraduate and graduate students who will receive a stipend to assist with expenses. Additionally, the program will provide coursework leading to state ESL certification for teachers already in the field.

After the five-year grant period concludes, Lindenfeld and Hoecherl-Alden expect 50 UMaine student teachers and 30 teachers already practicing will be certified as English as a Second Language teachers.

Anne Pooler, interim dean of the College of Education and Human Development, said the grant is welcome news as the university rises to meet the challenge of increasing multiculturalism in classrooms.

“We recognize the changing demographics in the country, in Maine and in the number of students who are of limited proficiency in English in today’s classrooms,” she said. “As a college, we’ve been looking toward adding a concentration that would allow our students to be ESL-certified, so this helps us accelerate a program we were about to design. This just propels us further.”