The End of An Era: Spring '08

We're just about done with the year! Officially, exams end tomorrow and graduation is on Saturday, but it's close enough to the end to reflect on a great year for us as ECU students and as Teaching Fellows. We have a lot to be proud of: countless hours of service and tutoring in our community, successful practicums and internships, participation and recognition in other campus activities from musical recitals to honor societies. We traveled to Asheboro, New York City, and Atlanta as part of our program's travel enrichment activities.

Freshman Nieves Villasenor had this to say about this year: "To me, it feels like yesterday that we were new here to East Carolina. It doesn’t feel so long ago that we all met at Camp Don Lee for the Teaching Fellows & Maynard Scholars retreat. I can still remember vividly my first football game at Virginia Tech, running across the opposite side of the football field to my spot after my fellow band members and Teaching Fellow/Maynard Scholar friends had begun the show without me. It’s crazy how these priceless memories have all taken place so quickly within just our time at ECU. It’s gone by so fast, yet so much has happened."

We have a lot to look forward to for next year. We have a full slate of enrichment activities provided by the state for the summer: rising sophomores will go on the Discovery bus trip, rising juniors will participate in Junior Enrichment and Junior Conference, and rising seniors will complete Senior Orientation activities and attend Senior Conference. We have a promising class of incoming freshmen (as always!) and we can't wait to meet them in the fall. We're launching a new committee to work with a new academic outreach program here at ECU, the Pirate Tutoring Center. Many of the secondary education degree programs are undergoing revisions to make our graduates even more competitive and well-prepared, and we're very excited about these opportunities.

If you're joining us in the fall, you're in elite company! We all have fantastic stories of growth, perseverance, and success as a result of this semester. This summer, we'll continue to post some of these stories, chronicling our adventures as Fellows and Scholars - but also as student teachers, travelers, resident advisers, and, of course, college students. We hope you'll continue to follow our adventures as we end one year and begin the next.

- Sarah Wittmer, junior
Communications Committee Co-Chair