ECU notes
The Daily Reflector
Monday, January 16, 2006
College acquires Hubble mural
East Carolina University's College of Education Department of Mathematics and Science Education was one of two locations in North Carolina selected to participate in a national unveiling of a mural-sized image of the Great Orion Nebula.
The photograph of the nebula shows the turbulent star birth cloud recorded by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in exquisite and unprecedented detail. ECU and the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh each unveiled images on Wednesday.
Seventy participants in the United States and three international participants were selected to receive copies of the image. Shawn Laatsch of the Department of Mathematics and Science Education led the unveiling in Flanagan Hall, Room 312. It will remain on display in Flanagan Hall, and Laatsch will bring it to local schools as part of his astronomy education outreach programs.
The 4-by-4 foot picture, a seamless mosaic of 104 Hubble images, reveals a tapestry of star formation with features never before seen. It is one of the largest images recorded by the Hubble telescope.
The Earth-orbiting observatory was deployed on April 25, 1990, above the atmosphere, which distorts light from celestial objects. During its 15 plus years of viewing the universe, the Hubble telescope has taken more than 700,000 snapshots of galaxies, dying stars and giant gas clouds, the birthplace of stars.
The telescope gave the world a front-row seat to watch chunks of a comet slam into the giant planet Jupiter. Hubble also photographed galaxies that existed billions of years ago, when the universe was a youngster.
Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is available at http://hubblesite.org/. For more information, contact Laatsch at 328-9365 or 412-4964.
McRae scholarship
Edward C. McRae of Hope Mills recently made a $100,000 gift to create and endow the Linda Haddock McRae Memorial Fellowship scholarship in memory of his wife, Linda.
She was a 1966 ECU graduate with a bachelor's degree in library studies and educational technology. She was originally from Greene County and taught in the state public schools for 30 years.
She taught in Richmond County and Cumberland County schools and spent most of her career in Pitt and Greene counties. The McRaes have three children.
The purpose of the fund is to provide scholarship support to deserving graduate students who are pursuing a master of library science degree in the College of Education. First preference will be given to candidates from Greene or Cumberland counties.
“By providing scholarship funds to educate future generations of librarians, the McRae scholarship enables the College of Education's Department of Library Science and Instructional Technology to support ECU's mission to train the leaders of tomorrow,” department Chairman Al Jones said.
Grant renewed
The Karen and Christopher Payne Family Foundation has renewed a new teacher grant with the Rural Education Institute, the service outreach arm of the College of Education.
The grant was developed as a partnership between the Rural Education Institute and Perquimans County school system.
Phase I of the grant began during the 2004-05 school system and resulted in 18 of 19 new teachers renewing their teaching contract with the school system, the college reports. The lone teacher to leave the system did so to work on a master's degree.
Phase II of the grant, valued at $34,000, will allow the school system to continue using a retired mentor teacher to work with new teachers in the school system.
The mentor teacher has the flexibility of time to work with teachers during the regular school day on issues such as classroom management, teaching strategies and lesson plan development.
Nancy Davis, director of the rural education institute, views the model of using highly trained retired teachers as mentors as the most effective and cost saving method of reducing teacher turnover in eastern North Carolina.
ECU notes are compiled from releases issued by university news bureaus, colleges, schools and departments