Megan Kasper, Assistant Director for Student Involvement & Success in Reich College of Education’s (RCOE) James Center for Student Success and Advising, and Rebekah Saylors, RCOE’s Scholarship Coordinator and Accelerated Admission Recruiter, have been accepted to present a poster at the NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising (NACADA) Region 3 Conference which will be held in Charleston, South Carolina, May 28-30. The conference theme is the intersection of history, culture, and innovation.
Their poster is titled “Making Global Connections for First Year Students Using Campus Resources” and focuses on the first-year seminar course they taught together.
Their course, the Happiness Project, explored different concepts, theories, and perspectives of happiness and practices that lead to promoting personal happiness as well as happiness in communities or groups. The presentation focuses on the evolution of an innovative global project that they incorporated into the course, the procedure of how university resources were utilized and example projects from the students.
These projects incorporated research on culture and included collaboration with international guests through the Teaching Excellence and Achievement Fellows program. The presentation also creates a template and allows for brainstorming about how faculty can incorporate visiting international students, scholars, professors, and groups into courses, course projects and/or programming.
About Megan Kasper
Kasper, a former North Carolina Teaching Fellow, earned a B.S. in Mathematics, Secondary Education and an M.A. in College Student Development from Appalachian State University.
She taught high school mathematics in Charlotte, North Carolina before returning to Appalachian to complete her graduate studies. Following graduate school, she accepted a position as the Assistant Director for Student Involvement & Success with the Reich College of Education’s James Center.
Since returning to Appalachian, Kasper has been able to advise a variety of student groups and implement new retention initiatives. She has taught a first-year seminar course, served on the Transfer Services Team and created the Teacher Education Ambassador program which she now supervises.
Kasper loves that her role allows her to work with teacher education students transitioning to college or their career.
About Rebekah Saylors
Saylors earned with a B.A. in English/Communication Arts from Lees-McRae College (LMC) where she was a scholarship athlete on the cross-country team (Division II) and an M.A. in Higher Education, Teaching (ESL) from Appalachian State University. She is currently pursuing her M.B.A. from Appalachian.
She has worked at The Mountain Times newspaper in the production and graphic design departments and at LMC as the Associate Director of Admissions. Also at LMC, Saylors taught a study abroad course, where they ventured to Cuernavaca, Mexico, and lived with a group of nuns.
Saylors now works in the Reich College of Education in the Office of the Dean as the Scholarship Coordinator and Accelerated Admissions Recruiter. She also teaches a first-year seminar course UCO 1200 based on Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project", as well as CI 1010 "So You Think You Want To Teach".
About NACADA
NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising (NACADA) promotes and supports quality academic advising in institutions of higher education to enhance the educational development of students. NACADA provides a forum for discussion, debate, and the exchange of ideas pertaining to academic advising through numerous activities and publications. NACADA also serves as an advocate for effective academic advising by providing a Consulting and Speaker Service and funding for Research related to academic advising.
NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising
