2005 Faculty & Staff Spotlight

 Lynn Wilder

From her days as a high school student in Richmond, Indiana, Lynn Wilder, professor in the Counseling Psychology and Special Education Department at the McKay School of Education, has known that she wanted to help people in need. "I knew I would spend my life being an advocate for the outcast," she said. "I have a picture of Christ holding a black lamb hanging over my fireplace.  My theme in life is going after the one, finding the marginalized folks and finding ways to bring them in, and keep them in." 

That theme has focused and driven much of her personal and professional activities.  While earning her doctorate at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, Wilder worked part time as a public school teacher, and raised four children.  For the past twenty years she has worked with minorities, special needs students, and adult learners.  Her effort to bring outcasts into the education system has taken her inside prisons, homeless shelters and mental health facilities.  She has spent countless hours one-on-one with students who needed extra attention and support in order to finish high school.

With help from an $800,000 federal grant, Wilder spends her time at BYU recruiting and preparing future teachers to handle the needs of both special education and English as a second language (ESL) students.  "BYU is only the 8th school in the country to combine special education certification with ESL certification," said Wilder. "By turning out teachers who are disabled or who speak English as a second language, we are sending disabled and ESL students a message of hope that they can succeed."

Wilder has compiled many of her ideas for helping marginalized students succeed in education into a paper entitled, "Transitioning Learners With Emotional/Behavioral Disabilities," which she was invited to present at the 2005 Annual Convention and Expo of the Council for Exceptional Children held in Baltimore, Maryland last April.  The paper will also be included as a chapter in the book Transition of Students With Emotional or Behavioral Disability from School to Community: Current Approaches for Positive Outcomes, edited by Douglas Chaney.

"The most important tool for an educator," said Wilder, "is the ability to access divine help in reaching kids who others haven't been able to reach.  He knows how to do it, and He can teach you how to do it." 

Wilder looks forward to seeing the first cohort of dual certified ESL and special education teachers graduate from BYU in April 2006 and has high expectations of their ability to help students overcome language difficulties and learning disabilities as well as learn the culture of schools in the United States.

Dr. Melissa Heath

Few children grow up dreaming of becoming a school psychologist. However, Melissa Heath knew from a very young age that was what she wanted. When Dr. Heath was 11-years-old she read Dibs In Search of Self, a book on child therapy. This book instilled the desire in her to become a school psychologist.

Dr. Heath is now a professor in the McKay School of Education’s Counseling Psychology and Special Education Department. Having fulfilled her career goals, she is now enabling others to achieve theirs. Dr. Heath helped to establish the School Psychology specialty program, and teaches graduate students who will go on to work in schools.

Before coming to BYU in 1999, Melissa worked as a school psychologist in Texas. This is her passion. She says, “I love to go into schools where the teachers are excited about teaching and the students are excited about learning.”

In her own classroom Dr. Heath likes her students to have valuable real life experiences. “I like practical hands-on things for students—to get down to the brass tacks,” she said. However, Melissa enjoys incorporating creativity into her lessons as well.  She invites professionals in the field to speak to her students.  She enjoys photography and card making as her own creative outlets.  

Earlier this semester Dr. Heath and Professor Rachel Crook took 15 of their graduate students to Navajo reservations in Blanding, Utah to do assessments of students in the San Juan School District. 

This April Dr. Heath had a book published that she co-authored with her student Dawn Sheen entitled, School Based Crisis Intervention. 

Dr. Martin Fujiki

Martin Fujiki is a man who loves his family, his i-pod, and the pragmatics of language. This final love makes his recent honor extremely meaningful. Dr. Fujiki was asked to be an editor of the 25th anniversary edition of the journal “Topics in Language Disorders,” which will be printed in 2006.   

Dr. Fujiki’s current work at BYU ensures he is prepared to excel in his new assignment. Currently Dr. Fujiki, in conjunction with other BYU professors is researching the social effects of language impairment on children.  His research centers on how children with language impairments—such as limited vocabularies, and difficulty with syntax—interact with other children and decipher emotion.  With a musical analogy, Dr. Fujiki explains that these children are learning to play simple tunes (with language) while their counterparts are composing symphonies. 

Dr. Fujiki hopes to equip his students with skills that will help them throughout their careers.  He comments, “An educator needs the ability to solve problems with more than the information found in the classes, problem solving [is] a skill you take beyond your classes.” Dr. Fujiki’s own children make special appearances in his classroom via old home videos from which the class dissects their language use.   He reflects, “What you learn indirectly is as valuable as what you learn directly.

Dr. Charles Graham

Dr. Charles Graham was sitting in a cubicle at Intel in Oregon when he had an epiphany, “I wanted to work with people more than sit in a cubicle,” he recalls. Now, at BYU, he teaches and models a concept that is receiving international focus: incorporating technology into teaching.

“Teaching gives a sense of altruism, you can really feel like you are doing something valuable,” said Dr. Graham.  “My passion,” he continued, “is how technology can be used to make teaching and learning more effective.”  To accomplish this, Dr. Graham hopes to “teach students to be fearless users of technology.”  One way he does this is by introducing cutting edge technology in the classrooms and seeing how students can integrate it into their curriculum. 

Currently Dr. Graham is co-editing a handbook on blended learning, which will be published in November.  Blended learning incorporates face-to-face traditional learning with online learning.  Dr. Graham also just finished a study on how BYU faculty uses technology in teaching.

When he is away from his keyboard and his classroom Dr. Graham enjoys racquetball, hiking, and camping, and he is a Varsity Scout coach.  To relax, he enjoys reading young adult literature. After all, as he says, “You can’t let technology control your life.”

Dr. J. Olin Campbell

Throughout his career, Dr. J. Olin Campbell has been asking one particular question, “How do you help people learn?” According to Dr. Campbell, the answer is computer-based learning. Using this tool, Dr. Campbell has helped young children, Boeing pilots, and even college students enhance their academic skills.   

Presently, Dr. Campbell is working on cost effective ways to help individuals who cannot participate in traditional (classroom) education. Learning on the Internet lowers the cost dramatically. Dr. Campbell describes BYU as the, “Granddaddy of online learning.”  According to Dr. Campbell, BYU began correspondence courses early on, making the university one of the largest independent study programs in the nation. 

After working with lower-class children in Palo Alto, California, Dr. Campbell saw the dramatic effects of a computer-based learning program. He describes how 15 minutes a day greatly improves the children’s ability to retain information. “Nothing else I have seen in education doubles the rate of learning like that,” commented Dr. Campbell.

After seeing the great impact a computer-based learning program can have, Dr. Campbell has dedicated a lot of his time to instructional design of educational programs. 

Dr. Campbell has five children; one is a freshman at BYU.  In his free time he enjoys photography, especially photographing nature.

Dr. Roni Jo Draper

Ten years ago Dr. Roni Jo Draper never would have expected to be a professor at Brigham Young University.  Today, however, she serves as the Graduate Coordinator, and assistant professor of graduate courses in the McKay School Teacher Education department. Consequently, Dr. Draper advises, “[Stay] open to all possibilities that come down the pike.”

Most recently Dr. Draper, a former high school math teacher in Reno, Nevada, has been working with Dan Siebert in Mathematics Education.  For the past few years they have been researching what literacy instruction should look like in a mathematics classroom.

Dr. Draper is attempting to find how literacy instruction best fits into mathematics. 

Although still conducting research, one literacy method being explored is having students peer-edit math work.  Dr. Draper explains, “It [peer editing] is forcing them to learn how to read in a different way.”

Dr. Draper is the mother of two teenage sons and has a very supportive husband who works at BYU as well.  It was her husband who encouraged her to go back to school and get her doctorate degree in Literacy Studies.  Dr. Draper has co-authored a book called, Write Starts: 101 Learning Logs for the Mathematics Classroom (1997).

“The most important tool,” Draper comments about qualities for an educator, “is the willingness to reflect.  It’s a little bit like repentance, we know we are supposed to do it, but it is a little bit painful, you need to be willing to question your own effectiveness.”

Dr. Draper enjoys working at the graduate level, and through her own reflection has become an effective educator.  She notes, “Without that kind of reflection we peak or stagnate, or eventually wither, and we never become the teacher we are capable of becoming.”

Dr. Michael Tunnell

The walls of Dr. Michael Tunnell’s office are crammed with hundreds of children’s and young adult books.  A few more are piled on a rolling shelf, and boxes filled with books set beneath his desk: truly, this is an office of a children’s literature professor. 

Among the many books on his shelves are several with “Tunnell” on the spine.  Dr. Michael Tunnell is in his thirteenth year as a professor at BYU.  In the last 12 years Tunnell has published 10 picture books and 5 professional books.

Most of Dr. Tunnell’s books are historical fiction and require a lot of research; the research for Wishing Moon (2004) took him to the Middle East.  Other unique research has included calls to Nabisco and a visit with a locksmith.  Growing up, Michael loved to read mystery stories but as an adult he discovered Lloyd Alexander and J.R.R. Tolkien.

“I do like historical things, but I always thought I’d write fantasy in the vein of Tolkien and Alexander, but it [writing historical fiction] just happened naturally,” Tunnell said.  Dr. Tunnell has written some fantasy though, as well as The Prydain Companion: A Reference Guide to Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles.

Currently Dr. Tunnell, in association with Dr. Jim Jacobs in Teacher Education, is working on the fourth edition of Children’s Literature Briefly, which will have a fully annotated index of over 19,000 children’s books.

Tunnel firmly believes in the importance of a teacher who loves to read. He jokes that a passion for reading should somehow be a criterion for admittance to the program.

“Educators need to be lifelong learners themselves, that means being a life long reader—that makes you a learning model,” Tunnell said.

Dr. Tunnell continues his journey as a lifelong learner, and strives to inspire those that enter his classroom to do the same. He comments, “We can’t model what we aren’t.” 

Aurora Torrejon

Aurora Torrejon has been hired as a new student secretary in the Dean’s office.  Aurora explains that she intended to move to Europe but changed her mind after feeling directed that BYU is the place that she needs to be at this time. 

Originally from Lima, Peru, Aurora earned a degree in Literature and the Arts, with a major in literature and minor in theater.  After teaching literature in elementary and high school in Lima, she served a mission there, then got a job at the Peruvian Mission Training Center.  Although she loved the job and was grateful to have the position in a country where jobs are hard to find, she felt that she needed to study more and develop her abilities.  “The Lord opens doors and is there to help us. Our part is to trust him and do our best, “ says Aurora.

Aurora has been in the United States for two years.After arriving in Provo she attended the English Language Center; now she is working on her Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership and Foundations.  She is also earning an English as a Second Language certificate.

Aurora knows the Lord has a purpose for her birth in the rich Peruvian culture and her present opportunity to live in America.  She loves the diversity and enjoys mixing the best of both cultures.  She misses her family (she is the youngest of five children), but is grateful for new experiences available to her as a single person in the United States.  She’s not certain what the future holds for her, but says she wants to be prepared for anything here, in her beloved Peru, or anywhere else in the world.