Newberry College Appoints Melissa Awenowicz Chair of Department of Teacher Education

NEWBERRY, S.C. (July 24, 2015) – Dr. Melissa Awenowicz joined Newberry College on July 15 as chair of the Department of Teacher Education.

Awenowicz comes to Newberry College from the Department of Education at Ohio Wesleyan University. She joined OWU in 2009 and served as director of the Adolescent Young Adult Program and Multi-Age Licensure Program from 2010-2015. She also served as the department’s accreditation coordinator from 2014-2015. Her teaching responsibilities included methods and clinical courses that supported the secondary teaching candidates.

"Dr. Awenowicz’s leadership will be invaluable to ensuring the Teacher Education department continues to innovate,” said Dale Brown, Associate Dean of College and interim chair of the Teacher Education department. “Her public school experience and training in national education program review (CAEP) will greatly benefit our students and our Teacher Education program."

Prior to her work at OWU, Awenowicz served as Director of Clinical Experiences for the School of Education and clinical instructor at the University of Pittsburgh, where she taught courses in English Education and coordinated clinical experiences, supervision and licensure requirements for all candidates in the teacher certification programs.

As a certified middle and high school English teacher (1989-2004), she spent the majority of her teaching career in urban schools teaching multicultural literature, classical literature, teaching literature and composition to support struggling adolescent readers and writers. 

Awenowicz’s research focuses on examining the beliefs and cultural models of teacher candidates as they negotiate the competing ideological and conceptual spaces of a teacher education program and clinical experiences, examining the influences that context and time have on their emerging and developing beliefs, thinking, and practices.  In addition, she has been examining the use of Action Research in teacher candidates’ instructional decision making.

Awenowicz earned both her Ph.D (2009) and her MAT (1989) in English Education and Language, Literacy and Culture from the University of Pittsburgh. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English (1988) from Indiana University of Pennsylvania