“Family is a good word. It’s a learning
community, but it’s a learning family. We
work together, and we learn together.”
Dr. Joanne Roberts, professor, advisor, retired public school
teacher and principal
Every spring and fall, a new group of transfer students in their 20s and 30s
enroll in the education program at the Gainesville Education Center in central
Florida. The future elementary and middle school teachers form cohorts as
they make their way together toward their teaching degrees.
They attend rigorous classes four nights a week while holding down full- or
part-time jobs to pay expenses. Luckily, they enjoy the kinship they develop
within their cohorts and benefit individually and collectively from the benevolent
leadership of Dr. Joanne “Tippy” Roberts, professor, advisor, and retired public
school system teacher and principal.
Roberts says she understands why the classes become close-knit. These
young adults—often the first in their families to attend college—receive moral
support from one another as they proceed through a tough curriculum.
“Our cohorts sometimes spend more time with each other than with their
own families,” Roberts said. So her approach incorporates two philosophies.
The first is that the program at the center will create a sense of belonging for all
committed education students. The second is that the student kinship can be
nurtured into professional collegiality that will serve them well in their careers.
“Family is a good word,” Roberts said of the center environment for the education
students. “It’s a learning community, but it’s a learning family. We work
together, and we learn together.”
Recent middle grades education graduate Justina Guptill ’18 affirms that “the
education program is special all in its own because you really get to know your
professors and classmates. You spend so much time as a cohort, it becomes
impossible to do anything other than care for the people around you and help
in their successes as well as your own. Dr. Roberts put together a very caring
faculty to help create the family atmosphere throughout the entire program!”
The faculty she is referring to includes adjunct instructors and professors Roberts
hired and supervises to teach the education courses in Gainesville. The adjuncts are
a vital part of the family, as well.
Given Roberts’ multiple responsibilities, it is difficult to quantify the impact
she has made during her years at Saint Leo. By her own count, Roberts estimates
she has worked with 450 undergraduate and graduate students in various
educational programs at the center.
Although Roberts considers teaching the hardest job in the world, second
only to being a parent, she said she cannot imagine doing anything else with her
life or finding a deeper sense of fulfillment in any other learning environment.
“During the 15 years I have worked at Saint Leo, I have become a better
educator and gained more from my students and colleagues than I ever learned
from textbooks.” •
4 FALL 18 Spirit Magazine
– Dr. Joanne Roberts
Above: Joanne Roberts with spring 2018
scholarship recipient Justina Guptill