Award-Winning Alumni
In our learner-centered professional community, we blend tradition with innovation to explore the challenges that readers and writers face today.
Our alumni are frequently named Maine Teacher of the Year and recognized for innovation, professionalism, and dedication in teaching.
Graduates of our Literacy program are prepared to enhance literacy instruction in their classroom as PreK-12 teacher-leaders, or to serve as literacy specialists, literacy coaches, Title I Directors, and literacy interventionists.
Our TESOL program is home to a multicultural and international community. Our graduates teach in Maine, elsewhere in the U.S., and internationally, including Japan, United Arab Emirates, Belgium, and Egypt, among other countries.
As lifelong learners, we encourage our alumni to continuously explore, study, analyze, and critically discuss matters of culture, equity, access, and diversity.
Our alumni are frequently named Maine Teacher of the Year and have also been named a Boren Fellow and Fulbright Fellow.
USM TESOL Student is a 2019-20 Boren Fellow Recipient
Kimberly McLaughlin was selected as a 2019-2020 National Security Education Program (NSEP) David L. Boren Fellowship recipient. A mid-career professional, Kimberly is a Master of Science in Education candidate for her TESOL certification from USM and holds two masters in International Community Economic Development (ICED) and Public Health.
As a TESOL candidate, she will complete her practicum in Tanzania where she is taking part in the Kiswahili African Flagship Languages Initiative (AFLI), a cultural immersion program designed for students of all proficiency levels who are committed to the study of a critical language.
This past summer, Kimberly and twenty-two other Boren Fellows and Scholars selected from across the United States were engaged in an intensive Kiswahili study program at a domestic university. And since mid-August, they have been living in Tanzania, where they are continuing their language studies in a culturally immersive environment into the spring.
Considered highly prestigious, the Boren awards are designed for students interested in federal public service careers that advance U.S. interests on the global stage.
USM Education alumna awarded Fulbright to teach in Indonesia
After teaching immigrant children from Somalia, Djibouti, Angola, Congo and Kenya in Maine classrooms, USM alumna Amy Quirion wants to use her skills as an English teacher abroad.
And she’s doing it as a Fulbrighter.
The 2016 graduate has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to Indonesia.
“I really wanted to step out of my comfort zone,” said Quirion, who leaves in July for the country some 10,000 miles away.
She hopes to experience some of the same emotions felt by her third grade English language learners at Lewiston’s James B. Longley Elementary School.
Some of the children know several languages. All are adjusting to life in the Maine city, she said.
“A lot of them come with trauma in their backgrounds,” she said. “It’s scary for them and a big culture shock. I guess I want to step into their shoes and see what the culture shock is like for me.”
She’s not sure what to expect.
All she knows is that she’ll be teaching high school-aged children and she’ll be somewhere in the distant Southeast Asian country. She’ll get a detailed assignment in June in Washington. She is due to leave one month later.
“I have been looking at all the different parts of Indonesia,” she said. “I know there are over 18,000 islands. It’s very cultured. It’s very diverse. There are a lot of languages spoken there.”
Learning languages has not been a particular chore for Quirion, who grew up in Connecticut to French Canadian parents. Her father came to the U.S. from Quebec when he was 12. Her mother left Quebec at 26. Quirion, a U.S. citizen, grew up speaking French at home and English in school.
“Doing that switch in your brain — home to school — is really very interesting to me,” she said.
It led her to earn her master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Quirion is one of over 1,900 U.S. citizens who will conduct research, teach English, and provide expertise abroad for the 2017-2018 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement as well as a record of service and leadership potential in their respective fields.
Though she’s traveled to Canada and the Dominican Republic, this will be Quirion’s first trip outside of North America.