James A. Black's Page

Yeah, yeah, the speakers were great and the workshops were informative, but the real highlights were behind the scenes…

Take One Parent, One Student, and One Teacher, and what do you get?
A trio of awesome volunteers! Anahit Harutyunyan (parent), Shamair Garib (student) and Jonathan Lau (teacher) worked tirelessly from the crack of dawn through to the very end of the conference, and met every challenge we gave them. Jonathan became the true hero of the day when he managed to hunt down someone to re-stock the toilet paper.

Knit One, Purl Two, Register a Participant.
I loved watching our conference registrar, Jan Sugerman, and Kathy Bradden, the Chair of People for Education’s board, madly knitting at the registration table while listening to speeches and answering questions. It was a perfect P4E moment. I better get a really nice pair of wool socks, though.

More Incredible Volunteers
Cathy Boote, Arlene Morell and Verna Ferencik, registration queens. Your warm welcome and jolly spirit made the registration process fun and easy.
Monique St. Aude, our student from last year, who came back again to help this year. It paid off big-time – her conversation with Dennis Shirley led him to encourage her to apply to do her Ph.D. with him. Go for it, Monique!
Greg Laws, who tirelessly moved tables and chairs, alphabetized name tags, then moved some more furniture.
Garret Titus, our student this year, who also happens to be a musician – he was our go-to guy for help with recording the speeches, and bravely took on moderating a workshop too.
All of our amazing speakers and moderators, who volunteered their time, expertise, and talent to make the day a huge success!

More Student Stories
At the end of a long day, after the dinner was over, there was still some food left. It made my day to be able to offer it up to the incredibly grateful ‘starving students’ who were hanging out in Stong College. They were utterly charming, and thrilled with all the food, especially the cookies. They even backed me up and vouched for my lack of craziness when some more students wandered in and I made them the same offer. There are seven very well-fed students wandering campus now!

It was a great day all round, and there are probably a million more stories to be told. Thanks to everyone who came, and I hope to see all of you out again next year.