Perspectives STUDENT
6
Lillian Glynos ’15 Pursues Dream of Working with Orcas
Katrina Wert ’14 Plans Career Teaching Art
Courtney Tway ’13 Conveys the Joy of Learning
For as long as she can remember, Lillian Glynos has wanted to work with whales in general, Orcas in particular. While on a trip to Sea World at the age of five, she was spotted by a trainer chastising other children for banging the glass of the dolphin observation tank. The trainer put Glynos and her mother in the stadium show with a false killer whale and bottlenose dolphin. Now in her second year as a marine biology major, Glynos is well on her way to reaching her dream. A native of Waterford, Connecticut, she spent the summer of 2012 on a research internship with the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection. The research project she participated in primarily focused on studying the Atlantic sturgeon and short nose sturgeon population on the Connecticut River near Old Lyme. For an endangered species the sturgeon are little known, even by local fishermen. “There are fishermen who catch sturgeon and don’t know what they are,” Glynos said. Over the summer she also gained experience periodically assisting with other studies, including one that examined juvenile and pre-juvenile American chad, blueback herring, and alewives. The result was a fulfilling experience that sharpened many of the skills that she had developed during her first year.
By the time that Katrina Wert began her studies at Unity College, she had seen more of the world than many people nearing retirement. The daughter of a career United States Marine, she travelled widely. Her exposure to different people and places fueled her interest in the arts. “I have always liked art,” Wert said. “I’m a jack of all trades when it comes to art.” She does pottery, drawing, painting, and photography. Though she enjoyed her studies as a marine biology major with a studio arts minor, when Unity announced its new major in arts and the environment, the path forward became crystal clear. She transferred into that program and regularly pursues a variety of arts projects as part of her new major. One project she worked on early in the fall semester involved making a series of clocks in ceramics class in the image of a different relative. Next, for her environmental photo journalism class, she regularly photographed Pondicherry, a wildlife refuge in Jefferson, New Hampshire. The capstone of that experience came in October when she photographed a special bird themed weekend. Her digital photography is now being used in a variety of ways by the refuge in its educational and promotional efforts.
Courtney Tway ’13, conveyed the joy of learning to her students while immersing herself in an extended field experience at China Middle School in China, Maine, a school working to establish customized learning experiences for all students. During the spring semester she will pursue the last phase of her journey to receive her life science teacher certification for grades 7-12. A native of Chillicothe, Ohio, Tway has grown to enjoy living in Maine and plans to stay after graduating from Unity College. Tway’s broad experiences in marine biology and teaching and learning will help her kick start her career as a full-time educator. “The teaching program here at Unity College is hands-on, innovative, and focused on the newest technologies and standards of teaching,” noted Tway. She praised the differentiated instruction approach to teaching and learning. “We’re learning so much about differentiated instruction, which is a method to teach students in a manner they learn best,” Tway explained. “It’s a means of individualized instruction and utilizes a variety of instructional strategies. Direct instruction is just sit there and lecture, and I’m not ok with that.” She is infused with a desire to teach. “Can you imagine, some teacher had an impact on John F. Kennedy,” Tway said. “The magic of teaching is in the possibilities of each student.”
| UNITY SPRING 2013