NDP Alumna Makes Her Mark On Education in Utah

Utah

NDP ALUMNA MAKES A MARK ON Education in Utah

By Emily Neil ’10

Mayland

FROM BALTIMORE FROM BALTIMORE TO A FRONTIER TOWN IN UTAH, TO A FRONTIER TOWN IN UTAH, ELIZABETH JULIAN ’99, ELIZABETH JULIAN ’99, IS BROADENING IS BROADENING EDUCATIONAL HORIZONS. EDUCATIONAL HORIZONS.

Boulder, Utah, is, Elizabeth Rosen Julian admits, a very different place from where she grew up, in Baltimore City.

The town of roughly 250 people is located in Garfield County, Utah, and is an hour drive from the next town in any direction. Most of the families in the close-knit community are homesteaders, or make a living by ranching and subsistence farming.

As Head Teacher and Principal at Boulder Elementary School (BES), Elizabeth ‘99 sees it as her goal in this frontier town to ensure that students have the same access to quality education, arts, and technology as do students at schools with more resources.

Elizabeth Julian teaches at the rural, Title I Boulder Elementary School, which serves 20 students.

Work that Elizabeth has done at BES was recognized statewide in 2019, when she was one of 10 educators who were chosen from over 200 nominees to receive an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Utah Education Association.

In her position at BES, Elizabeth wears many hats. She serves as the school advocate and building administrator, runs operations and finances, works to retain staff and provide professional development opportunities, and coordinates external visits and opportunities, all on top of what she views as the core of her work: teaching in a multi-age learning environment for the 20 students that attend the kindergarten through sixth grade Title I school.

“I have a really unique ability and opportunity to teach students of different ages,” Elizabeth said. has been a highlight” of her experience so far since she stepped into the role six years ago. It is a teaching method which she first began to explore as a student majoring in elementary education at the University of Vermont.

For Elizabeth, the nontraditional learning environment, which also incorporates a Responsive Classroom approach, is “an opportunity to pay special attention to teaching the whole child.”

The educator says that the multi-age learning environment allows children to engage in different ideas, and explore new concepts, while still feeling part of a peer group. One of the proudest moments for Elizabeth as a teacher is to see one student who has mastered a particular concept teach it to another student.

Elizabeth said that support from her husband as well as from the community as a whole, helps her to fulfill her goals for the school and make her ideas a reality.

“It’s an extremely challenging position, but at the same time there’s nothing that can be more rewarding because you’re watching kids grow,” Elizabeth said.

Most of the students in Boulder go to the next town over for the seventh through 12

th

grade school, and Elizabeth says it is her responsibility to ensure her students are prepared for this school or any other.

“My expectation for the kids is that they could go to Notre Dame in sixth grade and they could be one of the most successful students in that classroom,” Elizabeth said.

Elizabeth also always makes an effort to host adult classes at the school whenever possible. The only school in the district that provides adult education is a little over two hours away, nearly 200 miles on less than ideal roads.

“I GREW UP IN A FAMILY WHERE THERE WERE NO LIMITATIONS OF WHAT I COULD DO AS A WOMAN, ” AND THAT WAS REINFORCED BY MY EDUCATION AT NOTRE DAME.

And when Elizabeth brings in arts and STEM opportunities to the school, including visits from professional playwrights, the Utah Opera, the Utah Children’s Theatre, Robotics instructors, and a pilot program of visual artwork donated by the Phillips Gallery, she makes sure the entire community is able to access those resources and benefit.

Her other leadership roles in the community include: volunteer at the community library; Vice President of the Boulder Arts Council; Boulder Town Planning Commissioner; and Boulder Town Councilmember.

Elizabeth attended Notre Dame Prep from sixth through 12

th

grades; when the time came to apply for college, she knew she wanted to be an educator, and only looked at colleges and universities that had strong education programs. “A lot of people in my family are educators and it was something that I gravitated to,” Elizabeth says.

At NDP, Elizabeth said that she embraced the concept of being “a lifelong learner,” and welcomed the message that many of her teachers there shared, and which she currently practices as an educator: that learning does not stop in the classroom.

She said that School Sisters of Notre Dame Sr. Helen Marie Duffy and Sr. Ellis Denny, in particular, each made a deep impression on her as educators.

“Their love of their jobs and the way they interacted with people and the relationships they had with myself and with other students has been a memorable moment in my life,” Elizabeth said.

Elizabeth said that she admires both her mother and her two sisters, all of whom attended NDP. “I grew up in a family where there were no limitations of what I could do as a woman, and that was reinforced by my education at Notre Dame,” Elizabeth said. g