Reed Hankinson
’92 B.S. Elementary Education Director of Programs EduLink, Inc. In 1988, Reed, who grew up in Ambridge, Pa., was recruited to play basketball at the Penn State Beaver Campus. The invitation made it financially possible for him to attend college. Four years later, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. He went on to earn master’s and Ph.D. degrees in education at Duquesne University. Reed taught elementary school for Gateway School District for nearly 10 years before co-founding EduLink, Inc., in Pittsburgh, Pa. His role as director of programs at EduLink, Inc., allows him to work closely with school districts, colleges, and universities, as well as other educational agencies throughout Pennsylvania and across the country to provide programs and services that help improve education. For example, he currently is helping to pilot a teacher evaluation process, called PA-ETEP (Pennsylvania Electronic Teacher Evaluation Portal), that allows principals in Pennsylvania to conduct teacher evaluations on their iPads or smart phones and synch them to their school districts’ teacher evaluation dashboards to analyze the results, run reports, and manage data.
“I believe that teaching is one of the most important careers that any person can have. If done well, it is also one of the most difficult jobs on the planet. A teacher, quite literally, has a direct impact on shaping the future. Teachers change the world, one child at a time. I am proud to say, ‘I am a teacher,’ even though I am no longer currently in the classroom teaching students. The current roles that I have at EduLink are all, in some way, related to—or have an impact on—teaching. I also have a lifelong debt of gratitude to Penn State. I can truly say that I love Penn State, not one particular thing about it, but Penn State as a whole; what it is collectively—the indescribable feeling that it gives me when I am standing on campus. I think fellow Penn Staters know what I mean.”
Penn State Education
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