In most respects, Sweet Briar College’s 96th Annual Commencement ceremony was business as usual. College officials, students, and a visiting speaker delivered stirring words. And despite some concern about rain, all remained dry on the Quad, where a lengthy queue of smiling graduates accepted their diplomas to cheers and applause.
What set this event apart was a second, shorter line of students, all of whom had graduated once before. As they accepted Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) diplomas from James Alouf, SBC education department chair, these four students — Julia Ambersley, Anne Benham, Ellen Phillips, and Angela White — made Sweet Briar history as the College’s first to receive master’s degrees.
For Alouf, the occasion was nothing less than the culmination of a 23-year career at Sweet Briar. “It’s like the fulfillment of a dream for me,” he said. “One of the reasons I chose to teach at Sweet Briar was to create a program at a liberal arts college where teacher education has a real home. There is no better place for teacher education than a liberal arts college where you can focus on teaching content and high-quality majors.”
In spring 2004 Alouf launched the MAT and master of education degree (M.Ed.) programs with colleagues Kay Brimijoin, assistant professor of education, and Holly Gould, visiting assistant professor of education. Six students pursued the M.Ed. program for licensed teaching professionals with at least three years of classroom experience. Four enrolled in the MAT, in which a bachelor’s degree, teaching licensure, and master’s degree requirements can be completed in a five-year program.
Both programs are based on a foundation of “differentiated” curriculum and instruction, a philosophy focusing on the unique qualities of students. A rejection of the traditional “one-size-fits-all” classroom teaching style, differentiation provides learning options to match students’ readiness levels, interests, and learning profiles.
Two MAT candidates — Ambersley and Benham — received their undergraduate degrees from Sweet Briar in 2004 and remained at the College to complete their graduate requirements. Phillips and White earned their degrees earlier from Virginia Tech and Eastern Mennonite College, respectively.
Phillips, a resident of Faber, Va., decided to pursue teaching while working as a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) officer at Nelson County Middle School. Upon hearing about Sweet Briar’s MAT offering, she decided to take her English minor from Tech to greater heights. “I knew I wanted to move into the classroom full time,” she said. “I saw an ad in the Nelson paper that Sweet Briar was starting a program and went to a February [informational] meeting. The rest is history,” she said. “It’s been a fast and furious year.”
Phillips said she was impressed not only with the instructors themselves, but the way Alouf, Brimijoin, and Gould work together as a unit. “It’s a real honor to be able to be a reflection of our instructors,” she said. “That’s what really strikes me the most — the quality and the caring that comes from our instructors. They are a wonderful, wonderful team. So knowledgeable and so down to earth.”
The program’s differentiated curriculum philosophy appealed to her sensibilities both as a student and aspiring teacher. “I really was glad to see that,” she said. “As a [K-12] student myself, I wished the teachers would have looked to me and what my learning needs were.
“To have [SBC instructors] modeling this approach and actually using it in our classroom and knowing I could teach children that way was really great. I loved that focus. We see how it works because it worked with us as grad students.”
Amherst resident Angela White concurs. Being able to learn through differentiation and immediately apply the concepts put her on a fast learning track. “There are so many positives to having constant modeling on how to bring out the gifts of each student,” she said. “I had a chance to use some of the same techniques in student teaching and had very positive results.”
For someone who had worked for years on the fringes of education but never in the classroom itself, it was quite a turnaround. “At first I was unaware of a lot of the terms and practices they used [in the differentiated curriculum]. Now I’m ready to teach,” she said. “I have the resources available to accomplish what I need to do. They brought me a very long way in a short period of time.”
White’s sentiments are music to the ears of Jim Alouf, who has endured one of the most challenging years of his career. While implementing the brand-new programs, he and his colleagues weathered two evaluation visits from the state accreditation board as well. He credits partners Brimijoin and Gould with the successful outcomes. “Without Kay and Holly there wouldn’t be a program,” he said.
In addition to positive feedback from state officials and his first graduates, Alouf has some numbers to further mitigate the pressure of the past year. No fewer than 10 MAT candidates are expected for the upcoming term. “With 10 more coming in, the program looks like it’s going to grow. We’re pretty excited to hear that,” he said.
Although he keeps looking forward, the 2005 Commencement ceremony allowed Alouf a moment to reflect on the SBC education program’s progress. “It was a very emotional day,” he said. “To know that the [College’s] first master’s degree graduates are ours, to realize you’re part of the history of the institution is extremely edifying.”
— By Shannon Wells, SBC staff writer
