OXFORD, Miss. – Ann Monroe, assistant dean and associate professor at the University of Mississippi School of Education, is the 2018 recipient of the Elsie M. Hood Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, the highest honor a UM faculty member can receive for teaching.

Each year, the Hood Award honors one Ole Miss faculty member who represents the highest standard of teaching excellence and student engagement. Students and faculty submit letters of nomination and many award winners are nominated multiple times over years before being selected for the honor.

Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter presented the award Thursday evening at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts as part of the annual Honors Convocation.

“I am shocked and honored,” Monroe said. “I think that, to me, the most touching part of this award is the fact that the nominations came from students who took away something meaningful from their experience with me and had the willingness to take the time to share it.

“For me, that’s very special. I’m humbled that they would do that.”

During the ceremony, Vitter noted how Monroe’s professional accomplishments complement and inform her excellence in teaching.

“In reading her nomination letters, perhaps most impressive is how, through her example, she has shown her students the value of ‘paying it forward’ as a teacher,” he said. “She helps them see the rewards of teaching for their own merits, from the joy of being in the classroom to the value of engaging with students.”

An educator for more than 21 years, Monroe identifies herself as a third-grade teacher who is preparing future teachers for the classroom – a fact she is quick to point out to others. On the wall of her office in Guyton Hall, Monroe has framed photos of her third-grade classes from her first teaching job at Thrasher Elementary School in Signal Mountain, Tennessee, which she started in 1997.

Monroe still keeps up with a few of her first students – at least one has even crossed her path as an Ole Miss student. She estimates that she has taught more than 5,000 students in her career at both the elementary and college level.

“When I left my third-grade classroom, it was a bittersweet moment, but I had to do it to come here,” Monroe said.

“I still miss the opportunity to be in a third-grade classroom sometimes, but working at the university level, I don’t just impact 25 students at a time. I get the chance to impact future teachers who go on to inspire thousands. For me, that’s awesome.”

Monroe’s teaching philosophy centers on building relationships, and, that’s exactly what she instills in her students at Ole Miss. In their nomination letters, Monroe’s students describe her as “passionate,” “dedicated” and “enthusiastic,” among other praises.

“Teaching is not a one-way relationship,” Monroe said. “There needs to be opportunities for back-and-forth because your students are not going to learn from you if they don’t know you.

“I try to be a model of what good teaching looks like for my students so they can embody that in their own classrooms. I’m not just teaching content, I am teaching how to become an effective teacher. So, without modeling that in my classroom, my message is empty.”

Claire Rearick, a 2017 graduate from Diamondhead, is one of Monroe’s former students who nominated her for the Hood Award.

“Dr. Monroe values teaching and teachers,” Rearick wrote. “She has an excitement about teaching that is infectious. For any student who goes through the School of Education, Dr. Monroe’s name will always be thrown around. Students walking through the halls will advise all of their friends to take (her class).”

Graduating English education major Gaby Vogt, of Metairie, Louisiana, also nominated her favorite professor for the award.

“Although Dr. Monroe’s class was at 8 a.m., I managed to never miss a class,” Vogt wrote. “Dr. Monroe teaches with such passion and enthusiasm that you want to be in every class. Sitting in her classroom is like watching a Broadway performance.

“The stories she shared about her experiences as a third-grade teacher are ones that I will never forget. I have already taken so much of what I have learned from her class with me into my classroom as a student teacher.”

Monroe moved to Oxford with her husband, Stephen Monroe, UM chair of writing and rhetoric, in 2001 for graduate school. She started at the School of Education as a master’s student and teaching assistant.

“Stephen received a fellowship to study Faulkner at Ole Miss and I wasn’t about to let him go alone,” she said. “When I arrived in Oxford, I met with Dr. Fannye Love, the associate dean (of education) at the time, and she offered me an assistantship on the spot because I already had four years of teaching experience. We knew after our first year in Oxford that we wanted to go all the way here.”

In her effort to “go all the way,” Monroe said that she tries to “never say no to an opportunity.” As a result, she has held a series of roles at the school including teaching assistant, graduate instructor, instructor, doctoral student, visiting assistant professor, assistant professor, associate professor and, most recently, assistant dean and director of assessment.

She has also received multiple honors at the school level, including: Outstanding Doctoral Student in Elementary Education (twice), the Outstanding Teacher Award, the Outstanding Student Service Award and others.

Science education major Carly Rock of Oxford is also one of Monroe’s students.

“(Dr. Monroe) is setting the ultimate example of what we, as future teachers, should strive to be when we are teaching in our own classrooms one day,” Rock wrote. “One way I look at this award is that all of the previous recipients are outstanding professors in their content area for so many reasons, but they all have one thing in common … they started out in a classroom being taught by a teacher who inspired them.

“Dr. Monroe is that teacher who inspires us to go into the classroom and change the world one student at a time.”

OXFORD, Miss. – The seeds are planted for a new learning garden at the University of Mississippi’s Willie Price Lab School, which will allow the pre-K facility to integrate gardening and an understanding of food sources into its curriculum.

Several 3- and 4-year-olds at Willie Price, part of the UM School of Education, recently planted radishes, lettuce, carrots and garlic with the help of FoodCorps service member and parent Tess Johnson and others.

Sarah Langley, director of Willie Price, also partnered with preschool parents, UM Landscape Services, the Office of Sustainability and the Mississippi Farm to School Network to reinstall the garden, which had previously been part of the school’s curriculum.

“Tess became involved with FoodCorps and she approached us about revitalizing the space and has volunteered to lead a parent committee and organize all of the planting and harvesting events for our Willie Price students,” Langley said. “Before, the garden was an amazing space with tomatoes, blackberries, carrots and herbs everywhere, and the children were out there all the time.

“They were working with two gardeners, but for budget reasons, from what I understand, the space became neglected and we were no longer able to maintain that partnership.”

Johnson said that it was her work with Oxford Elementary School students that inspired her to help bring gardening back to Willie Price.

“I’m always blown away when I ask even fourth- or fifth-graders, ‘What’s your favorite food?’ and, if they say French fries, they think they came from McDonald’s or the grocery store,” Johnson said. “They have no idea that someone grew those potatoes and that’s how their food got there.”

Johnson also helped Willie Price students make a healthy snack of homemade hummus with pita chips and carrots on the day of the planting.

“It’s just so important for kids to be outside with fresh air, green space and to know where their food comes from,” she said.

In addition to enthusiastic parents, Willie Price also received a $500 grant from the Mississippi Farm to School Network to reopen the garden.

“We are interested in reaching out to more early child care programs with our school garden grants because we know that the earlier we can reach kids with good produce, fruits and vegetables, the more likely they will be interested in those foods when they are older,” said Sunny Young Baker, co-director of the Mississippi Farm to School Network.

 Langley said she feels there’s a bright future for Willie Price’s garden.

“We are partnering with landscape services, which is awesome because we have the most beautiful campus in the country,” Langley said. “They’ve been coming over to help us and just do as much as they can to help us protect the space.”

Langley also partnered with the UM Office of Sustainability to obtain compost from the university’s compost program for the garden.

Before the installation of the garden, Willie Price students learned about nutritious food and healthy living in a two-week unit on health that concluded with planting seeds in the reopened garden.

The Willie Price Lab School is a preschool facility on the UM campus. It provides opportunities for Ole Miss students and faculty to provide services and conduct research.

OXFORD, Miss. – The Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library has teamed up with the University of Mississippi Center for Excellence in Literacy Instruction and the LOU Reads Coalition to install six new Little Free Libraries in Lafayette County.

The small book exchanges, which operate on a “take a book, return a book” basis, are at Lafayette County fire stations in Harmontown and Paris and on Highway 30 East, as well as at Mary Cathey Head Start Center, Gordon Community and Cultural Center in Abbeville and in the Community Green neighborhood.

While three other officially registered Little Free Libraries have been set up in Oxford, including those at Avent Park and the Stone Center, several unofficial libraries exist in town. That’s why the Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library, CELI and LOU Reads chose to focus their efforts on communities in the county.

“We know that it can be much harder for those who live in the outer reaches of the county to make it to the public library, and Little Free Libraries allow us to take a bit of the library to them,” said Nancy Opalko, children’s librarian and assistant branch manager at the Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library.

The libraries were built by Oxford resident and Ole Miss student Harriman Abernathy with materials donated by Elliott Lumber Co. Each library is overseen by an individual steward in that community who checks it weekly to ensure it is stocked and in good repair.

“We are so excited to have a Little Free Library here,” says Harmontown resident and First Regional Library staff member Randie Cotton, who serves as steward of the Little Free Library there.

“People can just grab a book for themselves or their kids on their way to and from work or church and bring them back when they’re done. It doesn’t get much easier than that!”

The libraries are stocked with books for both children and adults. Putting books in the hands of children is a priority for the library, CELI and LOU Reads. All three organizations are part of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, a nationwide effort that focuses on grade-level reading by the end of third grade, an important predictor of school success and high school graduation.

In Mississippi, 74 percent of fourth-graders and 80 percent of eighth-graders scored below proficient in reading on the 2015 National Assessment of Education Progress.

“The Little Free Libraries make it easy for parents and caregivers to make reading and early literacy skills a fun part of everyday life starting at birth, which is critical to their children’s early development and how they do in school,” said Angela Rutherford, CELI director.

Besides books, the libraries contain information for parents and caregivers about how to use books and other resources to develop children’s early learning skills.

“This library really supplements all we do to promote family literacy every day by putting more books in the hands of our students and their caregivers,” said Charline Hubbard, director of the Mary Cathey Head Start Center. “They love having it here so they can just pick up or bring back a book as they come and go every day.”

Little Free Libraries are a global phenomenon, with more than 36,000 around the world in 70 countries. The Little Free Library nonprofit organization has been honored by the Library of Congress, the National Book Foundation and the American Library Association. Each year, nearly 10 million books are shared in Little Free Libraries.

To learn more, visit https://littlefreelibrary.org/.