The SOE held its fourth annual social on September 12 in the Claire Moore room on the Owings Mills campus. Over 60 students and faculty attended to play games, engage in activities, learn about education organizations, receive an SOE t-shirt, and participate in the famous cake walk.
After every student received a complimentary Stevenson green Education t-shirt, the event kicked off with a craft activity. Students created “stained-glass” apples made of different color transparent plastic to hang in their windows. Next three officers of Kappa Delta Pi, an international honor society in education, shared their roles and described the organization. Seniors Kylie Zimmerman, Treasurer, Anna Johnston, Recruitment, and Abby Slovikosky, Secretary, explained the criteria to join KDP and some of the benefits of membership, such as an induction ceremony, Praxis preparation, teacher discounts, and access to scholarships. The officers then had the participants play a BINGO icebreaker activity. Each participant had to fill up their BINGO card by finding someone that could answer a question, a different person for each square. The winner of BINGO was awarded a $15 gift card. The other officers are Erica Goodwin, President, Gabby Green, Vice President, and Emma Breznak, Historian. The faculty sponsors are Dr. Meers-Gimon and Dr. Shafi.
Teachers of Tomorrow is a club designed to provide a community for future teachers on campus. Three TOT officers circulated while students were creating their stained-glass window crafting, introducing themselves to each table of education students and explaining what their club is about. TOT vice president Atlas Hutt ran an icebreaker called debate team, freshmen and sophomores versus juniors and seniors. The topic was Chipotle (freshmen and sophomores) versus Chick-fil-a (juniors and seniors). The teams had 5 minutes each to come up with three debating points in favorite of their assigned restaurant, and each team selected three representatives to share their points. The debating was lively and expressive, with passions running high during rebuttals. After the debating, a panel of professors deliberated and decided that the freshmen and sophomores had won with their debate on the substance of why Chipotle was better, but the juniors and seniors won on spirit and overall performance. It was an active and amazing way to meet members of the new freshmen class and have fun with the SOE community!
The club is actively searching for a freshmen representative and will be sending out a form for freshman representative elections. TOT had their first event, a pennant flag making activity, on September 18. The TOT executive board consists of: Hannah Hamill, president, Atlas Hutt, Vice-President, Justine Bagasbas, treasurer, Anna Willey, social media manger, Gabrielle Wilson, event planner, Erica Goodwin. secretary, Emmalyn Kohl, senator, Zaria Smith, senior representative, Jamillya Henry, junior representative, and Caleb Hadyka, sophomore representative.
Following these exciting activities, student participated in the famous annual cake walk. Faculty brought a total of 27 cakes of all varieties. Numbered colored card stock were laid on the floor in a huge circle, and students walked from number to number as music played. When the music stopped, a number wheel was spun on the large screen to reveal who won a cake. This continued until all cakes had been awarded. Congratulations to the lucky winners!
The social was a tremendous success, with students of all years in the program as well as faculty and university mentors mingling and getting to know one another. The social has become a tradition to kick-off the fall semester and school year. Thank you to Dean Kobett for planning, organizing, and facilitating the event.
