November Academic Staff of the Month

November Academic Staff of the Month

by | Dec 3, 2022 | Academic, Staff of The Month

November Academic Staff of the Month

Barb Drew is the embodiment of the Brehm spirit and culture that reminds us that learning, though challenging, can be fun when you have someone who incorporates a strength-based caring approach that builds trust and rapport with students that allows her to tap into the untapped potential that otherwise would be neglected or missed altogether in a traditional classroom setting.

Barb Drew has been working tirelessly to restart Student Council on Brehm’s campus, ensuring that our students have a voice in the process and helping them organize themselves into committees designed to address the specific issues that mean most to each of them and their constituents.

In conjunction with her Student Council co-facilitator Jen Conwell, Barb has sacrificed countless lunch periods to meet with students to help them organize their thoughts into sensible policies that can be put forth to Brehm’s Administrative Team to better help address the issues that are most salient to the student body.  If you’ve had the pleasure of working with Barb before, you’ll understand that this process is informative, fun, and engaging.

Barb has also spent her personal time reorganizing the Brehm Student Store.  For those unfamiliar with the Brehm Student Store, it’s an opportunity to provide students with real-world job experience involving engaging with customers, processing orders, and providing correct change.  This provides them with real-world employability skills that are transferable across a variety of industries.  The Brehm Student Store also provides Student Council with a fundraising opportunity, with the proceeds largely going to fund Brehm’s Prom, which is tentatively scheduled for Friday, May 5th, 2023, provided that Student Council raises enough money to rent space off-campus.

Barb has worked to implement the Lexia Learning program Core5 Reading and PowerUp Literacy programs in her work with our students and has been instrumental in its implementation across the program. Barb has worked to understand the program so she can provide training to other faculty and staff and it has helped to better our on-campus literacy initiative as a result.

Barb and Jen worked with the student body, in conjunction with Jeremy Robbins, LaNeal Nance, Jordan Vandeveer, and Brehm’s newest employee, Licensed School Social Worker Cody Roberts, to string the lights on the Lights Fantastic Float, aka the maintenance truck, which we are thankful to Tom Coffel and Mike Hosman for letting us procure for a large part of the week.  Barb and Jen worked to design the float and got vital help from Brad Siemer and Monte Hefner, who helped to get the bright “BREHM” lights strung on a sturdy sign that will go across the grill of the truck.

October Academic Employee of the Month

October Academic Employee of the Month

by | Nov 4, 2022 | Academic, Staff of The Month

October Academic Employee of the Month

Jen Conwell has been instrumental in helping decorate our campus for both the Fall Parents Weekend Gala and our Halloween festivities, working with students to create an array of really spectacular artwork that was auctioned off for the Gala.
Jen Conwell has been instrumental in helping decorate our campus for both the Fall Parents Weekend Gala and our Halloween festivities, working with students to create an array of really spectacular artwork that was auctioned off for the Gala.
Jen also volunteered her own time and expertise to help Nathan Talley, our Admissions Director, and LaNeal Nance, our Marketing Coordinator, to plan a fun and enjoyable Paint and Sip event for the Parents, Alumni, and Students to participate in during the Fall Parents Weekend. Participants were asked to draw geodes and Jen did a great job of keeping it lighthearted, yet informative so everyone could follow along.
Not only did they line our campus with carved pumpkins, Jen and her Art students dutifully carved at least 50 pumpkins that were on display as part of the Green Earth’s Pumpkin Glow event. The Green Earth Inc. operates nature trails throughout Carbondale, and on this particular trail, they lined the walkways with illuminated pumpkins that created a beautiful scene at night. Our students helped to set up the carved pumpkins, add lights to them, and ensured that everything worked before the evening’s festivities. One worker remarked that the work usually took them 7 hours to complete, but with our group, it was finished within an hour and a half.
Not only did they line our campus with carved pumpkins, Jen and her Art students dutifully carved at least 50 pumpkins that were on display as part of the Green Earth’s Pumpkin Glow event. The Green Earth Inc. operates nature trails throughout Carbondale, and on this particular trail, they lined the walkways with illuminated pumpkins that created a beautiful scene at night. Our students helped to set up the carved pumpkins, add lights to them, and ensured that everything worked before the evening’s festivities. One worker remarked that the work usually took them 7 hours to complete, but with our group, it was finished within an hour and a half.
Jen is also co-sponsoring Student Council this year, and they have a lot of really exciting ideas and initiatives lined up for us this year, the first of which was the Boo Bash. In coordination with Barb Drew, our fantastic Speech and Language Pathologist and Student Council co-sponsor, Jen and her Student Council set up and tore down the Boo Bash in record speed! The Boo Bash was also a tremendous success amongst the student body, in no small part because of the tireless effort put forth by Jen.
Academic Student Staff of the Month: September

Academic Student Staff of the Month: September

by | Oct 6, 2022 | Academic, All Posts, Blog Post, Staff of The Month

Academic Student Staff of the Month: September

Jocelyn Keehn has been instrumental in creating a sense of unity and cohesion on campus, working with student advisors and dorm staff to create homework management plans for students who are in Arrowsmith.

Jocelyn has taken that a step further, by making herself available to work in the dorms on Wednesday nights to better support Arrowsmith Homework completion, but also to get a better sense of what the evening programming looks like for our students. Dorm Parents and teachers often work collaboratively during various meetings, but they rarely get the opportunity to work their respective jobs while the other is on campus, seeing as the teachers largely work from 8-4 and the dorm staff largely work from 5-10 pm. Without someone like Jocelyn making that level of effort, that level of collaboration doesn’t occur.

Jocelyn has taken that a step further, by making herself available to work in the dorms on Wednesday nights to better support Arrowsmith Homework completion, but also to get a better sense of what the evening programming looks like for our students. Dorm Parents and teachers often work collaboratively during various meetings, but they rarely get the opportunity to work their respective jobs while the other is on campus, seeing as the teachers largely work from 8-4 and the dorm staff largely work from 5-10 pm. Without someone like Jocelyn making that level of effort, that level of collaboration doesn’t occur.