FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Susie P. Gonzalez

susie.gonzalez@trinity.edu

April 9, 2009

Two High School Educators Awarded 2009 Trinity Prize for Excellence in Teaching

SAN ANTONIO – Two high school educators have been awarded the 2009 Trinity Prize for Excellence in Teaching for their outstanding performance in public education.  Karen LaPorte Pumphrey, applied learning teacher at Clark High School in the Northside Independent School District, and Louis Sifuentes, a math teacher at Cole Middle/High School in the Fort Sam Houston Independent School District, were selected from 20 distinguished educators nominated by area schools for their commitment and passion to education. 

Each winner received a crystal apple and a $2,500 check during surprise visits to their classrooms on April 9 by Paul Kelleher, chair and the Murchison Distinguished Professor of Education at Trinity. Professor Kelleher believes that announcing the award in front of their peers and students is very meaningful to the teachers and enhances the celebratory nature of the Trinity Prize.

The winners will be honored in an April 17 ceremony on the campus of Trinity University, which sponsors the award along with the H-E-B Grocery Co. and the San Antonio Express-News.  The Trinity Prize, instituted in 1982 by the University’s department of education, is the area’s longest-running award to honor and recognize outstanding public school teachers in greater San Antonio and Bexar County and surrounding counties.

As the lead applied learning environment teacher and coordinator of the special education department at Clark High School, Mrs. Pumphrey reaches developmentally challenged students and forever changes their perception of the world around them. She says teaching is a lifestyle, not a job, and invites students to celebrate milestones in her own life. She created the Friends Having Fun clubs to provide opportunities for students with disabilities to meet and socialize with their non-disabled peers. Outings have included ranch camps, spaghetti dinners, and karaoke nights that have become the model for similar clubs at other district high schools. Her students not only have disabilities such as autism or visual impairments, but are refugees from Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iran. “Teaching them is my privilege and their stories of success summarize the highlights of my professional career.”

Students walking into the classroom of Mr. Sifuentes know they enter a welcoming environment, but they also know he has high expectations for their class work and behavior.  Some are children of military members deployed to war zones or recovering from injuries, so he knows they might be preoccupied with thoughts not related to mathematics. Thus, he says he must reach them before he can teach them, so he offers tutoring at lunch and after school at what he calls “Cole University.” An excellent role model, Mr. Sifuentes says his managerial and leadership skills were honed by his military service in both the U.S. Marine Corps and the Air Force. He also is an adjunct professor at St. Philip’s College and has organized a Habitat for Humanity project for Cole students. To guide his work, he asks himself, “Would I enjoy being a student in my own classroom?”

A committee of business leaders and Trinity education students selected the Trinity Prize winners.  Committee members were Amy Dameron Phipps, executive director of the Zachry Foundation; Joseph M. Lazor, director of the UTEACH Program in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Texas at San Antonio; Richard Perez, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce; and Trinity students Niki Sandifer, outstanding senior in education, who will earn a bachelor’s degree in May and pursue a Master of Arts in Teaching in 2010, and Eloisa Flores, outstanding junior in education, who is a candidate for a bachelor’s degree in 2010 and a master’s in 2011.

At the April 17 ceremony, the 2008 National Teacher of the Year, Michael Geisen, will deliver the annual Kappa Delta Pi lecture to celebrate the practice of teaching. He was educated in forest resource management but felt during the early days of his forestry career that he was missing a direct connection with people. He discovered that he needed to have a relationship in his work, and he needed to teach. Returning to the classroom, Mr. Geisen earned a Master of Arts in Teaching with a science endorsement from Southern Oregon University and began teaching science at Crook County Middle School in Prineville, Ore. His classroom goal is to ignite a passion for learning in as many people as possible. “In my teaching I strive to bring together creativity and science, to unite my students into a community, and to help each person in this community connect with the big ideas of science.” Mr. Geisen’s principal calls him a “natural” at understanding the middle school student, and one of those students said of his skills, “If he wanted to, he could make watching grass grow interesting.”

For more information, contact Trinity’s department of education at 210-999-7501.

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