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Longwood
Alum Shapes Decade in American Education
Barbara Bannin Kelley is an elementary physical education teacher in Vine Street School in Bangor, Maine. In 1997, she became the first teacher to chair the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, succeeding founding chair Governor Jim Hunt of North Carolina. This is her ninth year on the Board, including a two-year term as vice-chair. In 1999, Teacher Magazine named her one of 10 people who shaped the decade in American education. Ms. Kelley received a National Educator Award from the Milken Family Foundation in 1998. She is a former Maine Physical Education Teacher of the Year and past Maine High School Coach of the Year. She has served as Vice-President of the Maine Education Association and on the Board of Directors of the National Education Association. She graduated magna cum laude from Longwood College in 1974 and holds a Masters of Education from the University of Maine and a Masters of Science in Business from Husson College in Maine. Students in Curry Raise $1,644 for FACES Food Pantry A whole lot of pennies from a Longwood residence hall helped brighten the holidays for needy Farmville-area residents. Students in Curry raised $1,644 for the FACES Food Pantry of Farmville. The staff of resident assistants came up with the idea for the project, known as Penny Wars. "Each RA created a jar for their floor, and we put them on the front desk when it was staffed," says Skip Begley, residence education coordinator for Curry. "Pennies were positive points, with points assigned according to their face value, and silver change and dollar bills were negative points, also based on their face value. Each student was supposed to put money in the jar for his or her floor, which promoted the spirit of competition. The 6th floor won, with 9,140 points." The idea came from an RA, Kellie Jones, who had transferred from the Cunninghams, where a similar fund-raiser last spring raised a little more than $600. Begley decided to donate the money to the Food Pantry after a campus-wide e-mail from Dr. Geoff Orth, professor of German and vice president of FACES, announced that an anonymous donor had offered to match all contributions of up to $5,000 before December 25. Begley hopes this will become an "annual tradition." The combined funds of the Longwood donation and the matching gift, a total of $3,288, will enable the Food Pantry to buy 23,428 pounds of food from the Central Virginia Foodbank. The Longwood community is deeply involved in the FACES Food Pantry, which distributes food to 300 to 400 families per week.
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"Four or five Longwood organizations regularly help on Saturday when we distribute the food," Dr. Orth says. "Twice a month, when a truck from the foodbank makes a delivery, students help unload it. Students also have shelved canned goods, taken bags out to cars of elderly customers, and cleaned up around the pantry; a Longwood volleyball tournament last year raised money for FACES; and the Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council recently contributed 400 pounds of canned goods, which they raised by placing trash cans in Greek areas (of residence halls). Student interest had been scattered, but this year it's been like a tidal wave." Ground Broken for Renovated Continuing Education Center Ground was broken September 1 for the renovation of a new site for the Continuing Education Center (CEC) of Southern Virginia, of which Longwood is a major partner. The former tobacco warehouse in downtown South Boston will increase the CEC's size from 5,000 square feet at its current location to more than 30,000 square feet. The CEC has occupied a former Lowe's store just outside of South Boston since 1989. The renovated building is expected to be occupied in the fall of 2001. To fund the project, Halifax County residents approved a $1.75 million bond referendum in 1998, and the Halifax Educational Foundation raised over $1.8 million in private funds and also received a community block grant of $650,000. Total capital costs are estimated at about $4 million. The three-story warehouse, called the Export Leaf Building, will house six state-of-the art computer labs, eight classrooms, one biology/chemistry lab, and a library. It will be fully wired for technology, including distance learning. Erected around 1900, with offices added in the 1950s, the building is vacant and in recent years has been used as a furniture showroom, for storage by computer and fabrics firms, and as the office of an electrical company. The Southern Higher Education Consortium chaired by Longwood President Patricia Cormier and comprised of Danville Community College, Longwood, and Southside Virginia Community College coordinates degree and non-degree programs, as well as workforce training opportunities at the Center. Courses are offered by the Consortium and by Old Dominion University, Virginia Commonwealth University-Medical College of Virginia, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech. The CEC had more than 6,200 enrollments last year.
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