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- Dr. Ann Cranston-Gingras
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Ann Cranston-Gingras
LB: There’s a strawberry sale on campus every year I look forward to. Is that part of the program?
AC: Yes, that’s all part of it. In fact, the proceeds from the strawberry sale go towards some of the expenses, like for example, if a student in the migrant program needs to take the ACT and we need a way to pay for that. Some of the sales go towards things like that to help them to get into college and to stay in college.
LB: Does your program relate to the Latino Scholarship Program at USF?
AC: We have some overlap with that program and we have some of the students that are in that program come to our CAMP program. The CAMP program supports students during their first year in college. Some of those students then subsequently get the Latino Scholarship for the rest of the time that they’re here and vice versa. Some of the students that they find end up qualifying for our program and so we work with them. So we work together a lot.
LB: Now I’m sure over the years, since 1987, there are a number of success stories that the program has had. Could you give statistics or just individual stories?
AC: Okay, well statistically it’s a little difficult. On average over all of the years between 70-80% of the students who have participated in the high school program have gone to earn their GEDs and transition into postsecondary settings. Some of those students…a lot of those students went to community college after leaving here. We’ve had some students come here to USF. We’ve had students enter the military. We’ve had students who have become nurses and teachers. We have one student who did go on to an advanced graduate degree. So there’s been a lot of success. It’s hard for us to keep track of the students once they leave. Unless they contact us, we don’t really a lot of times know what they end up doing. The program to prepare students to be teachers we call the migrant scholars program. We had one student from the migrant scholars program who taught for several years and now is in medical school. We have several of our students have gone on to leadership positions and are earning graduate degrees, so we really have a lot of success with those students.
LB: I’d expect among those who finish your program, many are first time high school graduates in their families.
AC: Yes, many are the first to graduate in their families.
LB: And it enhances their success in terms of what they’ve been able to achieve through the program.
AC: Yes, many of our students are parents. They had children themselves, some of them at a young age. So, we really do see a lot of benefits when they do earn their diplomas. It makes a big difference in their lives and they’re able to do a lot better.
LB: Now I’m sure the migrant education program has been a full time job in many ways, but have you had time to teach in the Department of Special Education?
AC: Absolutely. And that’s one of the things that I really enjoy about the role…about higher education because you do have a diversity of opportunities and you know my passion is special education. It’s something that I feel very committed to, and I teach primarily now in the area of mental retardation and developmental disabilities. A couple of years ago I started teaching the undergraduate class at an actual center for students with mental retardation developmental disabilities. I teach my class at Caminiti Exceptional Center in the media center at the school. Then after class these students go into classrooms and work with teachers and children. That’s been very exciting. And for the past two years we’ve been part of the Laptop Initiative, so the students have been using their laptops and working with the children at the center and with the teachers. That’s been something that’s been really exciting also. I also teach in the doctoral program, and I work a lot with doctoral students and their research.
LB: Now I’ve had a chance to interview some of the early faculty members, like Surrendra Singh and Jim Paul who came along a little bit later. I’ve interviewed Jim Barnard and so forth, but I really don’t have a complete grasp on what other things are going on in the Department of Special Education in terms of special projects or grants and so forth. Can you enlighten me?
AC: Well, one of the programs that are very successful that we have now is the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) to prepare second career teachers or second career professionals, people who have decided that they would like to be teachers later in life. That’s one of the programs that have been federally funded. Betty Epanchin was responsible for helping to get that funding, and that’s a very successful program that we have in our department. We also have a very unique situation where we have the Carousel Center which is directed by Dr. Brenda Townsend and which also has several federal projects. One of those projects helps to prepare people to work in historically black colleges and universities. Not only does it prepare individuals to work in those settings, but it also works with individuals who are already in those settings on their professional development. We’ve had a lot of opportunities in our department to interact with those individuals and also the students that have come into that program have really added to the diversity in our department. I’ve had the opportunity to work with students from very diverse backgrounds.