Neighbors in the news
• Denise Hatcher, associate professor of Spanish at Aurora University, was among presenters at the 17th annual African-American and Latino-American Adult Education Research Symposium at Northeastern Illinois University in April. Hatcher, an Aurora resident, presented "Community and Language Immersion: Working Towards Empowering a Silent Minority." She reported how eight college students in a community- and language-immersion Spanish course spent the spring semester working with 10 university employees to improve their English language skills.
• Patrice Sullivan, director of Hobson Cooperative Nursery School in Naperville, recently was selected as one of 50 participants from Illinois to travel to the town of Reggio Emila, Italy, to study a unique system of early childhood education that has attracted worldwide attention. The "Reggio Approach" is child-directed, meaning educators follow the child's interests, and is based on the premise that children learn best through interaction with others.
• Ralph Meeker of Naperville, a professor of computer science and information systems at Benedictine University in Lisle, recently received the university's Faculty Award for Service. Meeker has taught at Benedictine for nearly 40 years.
• The Naperville North Huskies Leadership Program held its first fundraiser with a dodgeball tournament. The event raised $413 for the Naperville Unit District 203 Special Olympics program.
• Washington Junior High students took first place in the spring semester of The Stock Market Game, an educational program of the Illinois Council on Economic Education, an online portfolio simulation. The winning student team includes Jonathan Yu, Jonathan Sprague, Robert Drucker, Kyle Hilburger and Matthew Du. Under the guidance of library resource center director Helen Blinder, students increased their original $100,000 cash to a final portfolio equity of $128,174.58
• The Kennedy Junior High Science Olympiad team finished second at the state competition and qualified for the national tournament in Washington, D.C. At the state level, the team received medals in 14 of 23 events. Earning gold metals for the Eagles were Peter Lu and Eric Zhang in Anatomy, Eric Speiglan and Kirthi Belamkonda in Crave the Wave, Peter Lu and Avi Prakash in Scrambler, Grace Deetjen and Aadi Tolappain Simple Machines, and Kirthi Belamkondaand Avi Prakashin Food Science.