School of Education Faculty, Student Receive State and International Recognition

By: Erik Pedersen, Senior Communications Manager

BALTIMORE – A pair of Notre Dame of Maryland University School of Education representatives were recently honored by state and international organizations for their work in the classroom. Adjunct faculty member Stephanie Hastings was recognized as the Elementary Social Studies Teacher of the Year by the Maryland Council for Social Studies, while Kelli Hickey D’23 was the recipient of the Mildred Murray Memorial Recruitment Grant from the Xi Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an honor society for women educators.

Hastings, who works as a library media specialist at Lisbon Elementary School in Howard County in addition to her School of Education teaching responsibilities, received her award at a ceremony on Sunday. In her role at Lisbon, she uses cross-curricular social studies connections to support research and identification skills, and analysis of primary and secondary sources. Nominees for the award must be a current elementary educator who has made a significant contribution to social studies in a public or private Maryland school. Hastings was also recently nominated for the Gilder Lehrman National History Teacher of the Year Award, with honorees from all 50 states set to be announced in July.

“As a library media teacher who uses social studies and history to meet MSDE library media standards and objectives, it is an honor to be seen as a valuable educator in the field of social studies,” Hastings said. “The chance to showcase the integral role that library media specialists play in any child's education is something I am extremely proud of.”

Hickey is an elementary school teacher in Baltimore County who is working towards her doctorate in Instructional Leadership for Changing Populations. The Mildred Murray Memorial Recruitment Grant is awarded to women who are studying to become teachers, who are gaining recertification, or who are working towards an advanced degree in the field of education. Recipients were required to explain why they chose teaching as a career, their educational plans for the next two years and how they plan to utilize the grant money in their application form.

Hickey’s working dissertation is titled, “Is A for Assimilation or Advocacy? An Analysis of Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Use of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and their Implementation of Sociopolitical Consciousness." NDMU faculty members Dr. Stephanie Savick ’92, M’99, D’09, Dr. Rachel Durham and Dr. Candice Logan-Washington are all part of Hickey’s dissertation committee.

Established in 1895, Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU) is a private, Catholic institution in Baltimore, Maryland, with the mission to educate leaders to transform the world. Notre Dame has been named one of the best "Regional Universities North" by U.S. News & World Report.