MAGNOLIA─ Southern Arkansas University will host the 2009 Albemarle Lecture at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 12, in Grand Hall of the Donald W. Reynolds Campus and Community Center. Albemarle Corporation sponsors the annual event, and works in conjunction with the SAU College of Education to organize the lecture. This year’s speaker, Dr. Pat Cooper, chief executive officer of the Early Childhood and Family Learning Foundation in New Orleans will present “There is Life After Tests…and Before.” The lecture is free and open to public.
Cooper serves as a national expert consultant in the areas of promotion of early childhood education/ care and coordinated school health and has done so for the past 25 years. He has also testified twice before the Congress of the United States as well as before several state legislatures. His work with the Early Childhood and Family Learning Foundation is to oversee the agencies work in establishing community centers in the most economically depressed and crime-ridden neighborhoods in New Orleans.
In the course of his 38-year career in public education, Cooper has served as a special education teacher, principal, university faculty member, and as a Louisiana Department of Education Assistant State Superintendant. Cooper also served as the Centers for Disease Control Executive Director, a position funded by the National School Health Education Coalition in Washington, D.C. His background in education also includes being a superintendent of schools in McComb, Miss. Cooper served for 10 years as a superintendent in McComb prior to his appointment as CEO of the Early Childhood Education and Family Learning Foundation in New Orleans.
Prior to the lecture, there will be an “Administrator’s Roundtable” at 9:30 a.m. for preschool through grade 12 administrators in Grand Hall B, as well as a reception for Cooper following at 10:30 a.m. Other speakers for the event include Southern Arkansas University President Dr. David Rankin and Dr. Zaidy MohdZain, dean of the SAU College of Education.
For more information regarding the Albemarle Lecture visit www.saufoundation.org or call Jeanie Bismark, executive director of the SAU Foundation at 235-4991 or contact her by e-mail at mjbismark@saumag.edu.
