The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Winners of the 2015 ATA fellowships and scholarships have been awarded a total of $37,500 to go toward the pursuit of further education.

Doctoral Fellowship in Education

Each year, the Alberta Teachers’ Association awards two fellowships, valued at $15,000 each, to ATA members who have been accepted into or who have already embarked upon full-time study in a doctoral program in education at a recognized Alberta public university. The fellowship program is intended to recognize academic excellence and to help defray the financial costs of university study.

Theodora Foscolos

Dora Foscolos is a doctoral student at the University of Calgary specializing in languages and literacy. Over the last 19 years, she has taken on many leadership roles with the Calgary Board of Education, focusing on designing personalized learning environments for all students.

Foscolos’ research investigates how educators can engage young English language learners in order to support and accelerate their language development. As an active member of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, she has also served as the president and vice-president of the ATA’s English as a Second Language Council.

Nicole Jamison

Nicole Jamison has been an early childhood educator for nine years with Edmonton Public Schools. She is an active member of the ATA’s Early Childhood Education Council and a mentor for preservice teachers and kindergarten teachers. Her conference presentations and publications highlight approaches to support early learning. She is entering her second year of doctoral studies at the University of Alberta, focused on early childhood education.

Jamison’s doctoral research will examine the interrelationships among art and play in the early years classroom, and investigate how these can be used to support learning and meaning making with young children who are culturally and linguistically diverse.

John Mazurek Memorial — Morgex Insurance Scholarship

Sponsored by Morgex Insurance, this $2,500 scholarship is to be used for an approved professional development course or part of an organized program of study in the field of business education and/or the use of computer technology in education from a recognized Canadian public institution.

Craig David Baskerville

After completing a bachelor of education degree at the University of Alberta, Baskerville was a teacher and technology coach for nine years with Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools. He has been the vice-president, secretary and social committee chairperson for Local 80, and he represented Red Deer Catholic Teachers at the Annual Representative Assembly for the past three years.

Baskerville is transitioning into a new position with Northern Lights School Division as a lead teacher for instructional technology integration with the division’s schools in Cold Lake. In the fall, he will also begin studying with a cohort of educators in the University of

Saskatchewan’s master of educational technology and design program.

Nadene M Thomas Graduate Research Bursary

The $5,000 Nadene M Thomas Graduate Research Bursary is offered annually to an Association member who is enrolled in a graduate program in a specialty in education at a recognized Canadian university.

Susan Jean Paton

Susan Paton lives in the town of Didsbury and teaches Grade 2 at Ross Ford Elementary School. This is her 30th year of teaching, and most of her experience has been in kindergarten and Grade 2. For the past 23 years she has been actively involved with the planning and implementing of the Palliser District Teachers’ Convention. She is currently working on her master of educational leadership at the University of Alberta.

Paton has two children in college, and her husband teaches physics and math at Didsbury High School. ❚