Welcome to the service section of my portfolio. Volunteering is extremely important to me because I've come to realize that it is through service work that I can help to form a collaborative, cooperative community. Additionally, I have found that I enjoy taking leadership roles when serving on committees.

The following information provides a listing of my service at my different levels of involvement. Please scroll down to read my reflection of my service.

Professional Service/National Level
     American Educational Research Association
     American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)
     Annual Meeting Proposal Reviewer
     (Fall 2006 - present)

     Teaching and Teacher Education
     Annual Meeting Proposal Reviewer
     Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education
     (Summer 2005 - present)

     Manuscript and Book Reviewer
     Allyn & Bacon Publishers
     (Fall 2006 - present)

     Education and Information Systems, Technologies and Applications (EISTA)
     Annual Conference Paper Session Chair
     July 2008

Professional Service/Statewide Level
     Higher Education for Systems Change (HESC)
     New York Mid-State Regional Taskforce on Quality Inclusive Schooling
     Taskforce Co-liaison
     (Fall 2007 - Summer 2010)

 Professional Service/College Level
     SUNY Cortland/College Service
      Teacher Education Council, member
      (Fall 2010 - present)

     Graduate Coordinators' Committee, member
     (Fall 2006 - present)

     College Scholarship Committee, member
     (Spring 2005 - present)

     Long Range Planning Committee, member
     (Spring 2007 - Spring 2009)

     Faculty Development Committee, member
     (Summer 2005 - Spring 2009)

     Graduate Commencement Hooder
     (May 2006, May 2007, May 2008, May 2009, May 2010)
 
     Commencement Marshal
     (May 2005, May 2009, May 2010)

     SUNY Cortland/School of Education Service
     Title II: Teaching Students with Disabilities, member
     (Fall 2010 - present)

     Field Placement Office Advisory Council; member
     (Fall 2006 - present)

     Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education Counselor
     (Spring 2007)

     Faculty Senator - School of Education Representative
     (Fall 2004 - Fall 2006)

     Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Search Committee, member
     School of Education Representative
     (Summer 2005)

     SUNY Cortland/Department of Childhood/Early Childhood Service
     Master of Science in Teaching Program; Coordinator
     (Spring 2006 - present)

     Chair's Advisory Council, member
     (Fall 2006 - present)

     Graduate Curriculum Committee, member
     (Fall 2009 - present)

     Department Personnel Committee; Member
     (Fall 2008 - Spring 2009)

     Social Studies Search Committee; Chair
     (Fall 2006 - Spring 2007)

     Research and Technology Committee; Chair
     (Fall 2005 - Fall 2006)

     Research and Technology Committee member
     (Fall 2005 - present)
    
     Lecturer Search Committee member
     (Spring 2005)

     Maxwell & Myrtle Park Education Award Committee member
     (Spring 2005)

     Social Studies Faculty Search Committee member
     (Fall 2004 - Spring 2005)

Professional Service/Local Community Level
     Cortland County Teacher Center, professional development presenter
     (Fall 2009)

     Children's Museum, committee member
     (Fall 2004 - Fall 2005)

Reflection of my service

During my first year and a half of being a faculty member, I served on a few different faculty searches and one administrative search committee. Through these experiences, I learned how to conduct searches effectively. Afterward, I chaired our department's social studies search committee. I suppose what has surprised me most in such a leadership is how time consuming it is to organize all aspects of the search. However, I have enjoyed serving in this capacity and intend to take on leadership roles such as this in the future as well.

I was a member of the Faculty Development Committee for over four years now. While faculty development was not new to me (I facilitated and volunteered on faculty development committees for more than ten years prior to being at Cortland), I continue to realize its importance in the lives of professionals. Our committee helps new faculty become oriented to Cortland and to their teaching and research endeavors. I have co-facilitated a campus-wide workshop on electronic portfolio development and believe that this portfolio has become a model for novice and veteran faculty members as they begin the adventure of creating their own web-based portfolio.

I have served as the coordinator of the Master of Science in Teaching (MST) for Childhood Education for nearly six years now. During this time, I have worked to have the program become stronger in several areas. First, I created an orientation meeting for all new graduate students (please click here to view the orientation PowerPoint presentation). Orientation meetings are held at the beginning of each semester (during my EDU 510 class) to welcome new students to our program and to SUNY Cortland (please click here to view a past letter of invitation for MST faculty and staff). Second, I have added a web-based portfolio for all MST students. This is certainly no small task because many of our MST students are new to technology and web authoring. However, since I teach their initial course (EDU 510), I have been able to provide instruction in class on website design and provide out-of-class tutorials to facilitate students' growth and development. Near the end of each semester, students who have completed all of their on-campus coursework (prior to student teaching), present their portfolio to demonstrate their course and early field experiences accomplishments (please click here to view a student's portfolio).  I've invited host teachers (please click here to view a past invitation), host administrators (please click here to view a past invitation) and other faculty to this formal event. Many have said that it has been worthwhile to both the students and to the reviewers. The third area that I have been working on to strengthen the MST Program has been with student acceptance. In the past, students were admitted with GPAs lower than 2.5. This is no longer happening; students must have near or over a 3.0 for application review. A current challenge is with increasing our student population while simultaneously maintaining our entrance criteria. I have begun to work with some faculty in our Foundations and Social Advocacy Department to think about ways that we could revise our current MST Program so it offers a dual certification process for students (childhood education and special education).

Being the MST coordinator is one of the most satisfying accomplishments I've had while I have been a faculty member at Cortland. I am very proud of the changes that I've made in this area and am proud to serve in this leadership role.

I served as a manuscript reviewer for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and other research organizations and publishing companies and am doing so because I believe that there is a need to increase the rigor of educational research design and I wanted to participate in the effort to move towards that goal. I initially chose to volunteer in this way because I wanted to gain an understanding of the types of papers that are submitted to organizations and publishers and wanted to utilize what I know about effective research methodology to review studies that have been conducted.

I have been a book reviewer for Allyn and Bacon and Pearson Publishing throughout the past few years. In this role, I serve to review books to identify what content would be valuable for preservice teachers and what might need to be added to make the text stronger. It was a worthwhile experience. Editors at Allyn and Bacon and Pearson continue to mention that they would use me as a reviewer in the future.