1. Can you briefly describe your current position?
Well, I’m a former social studies teacher that now works at the Cleveland Clinic running health and wellness and workforce development education programs. My programs are mostly virtual with middle and high school students joining from their classrooms all over Ohio and from states across the country. I’ve been with Cleveland Clinic for just over 5 years and love the challenge of creating engaging and innovative programs. I’ll also point out that my programs were virtual before the Covid-19 pandemic!
2. What is your relationship to Teaching Cleveland and how have you been involved with it?
I’ve been a big fan of Teaching Cleveland for the past 8 years. I’ve attended several TCI’s and attended most of their happy hour events. I was drawn to TC because they were social studies teachers that provided killer PD, it was engaging, interactive, and so interesting. I was also new to Cleveland and thirsty to learn its history. TC’s events gave me a great foundational knowledge and gave me some amazing instructional strategies that I was able to incorporate into my programs.
3. What are some specific resources/information that might be helpful to local educators?
Cleveland Clinic just celebrated its 100th anniversary, our website has some amazing info about our history and the healthcare innovations.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/about/history/century-of-care
Our middle school and high school programs focus on career exploration and health and wellness topics. We have internships (that run in the summer) and free virtual programs that run throughout the school year.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/about/community/hire
Cleveland Clinic also hosts a free virtual speaker series called Ideas for Tomorrow, that provides a forum for the world’s most distinguished thinkers, speakers, and personalities to engage in a dialogue with members of our community. We’ve had Kevin Love, Katie Couric, and Thomas Friedman as featured speakers. There’s a great archive of all our past speakers as well.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/about/community/events/ideas-for-tomorrow#upcoming-speakers-tab
4. What do you find unique and interesting about your organization?
Cleveland Clinic was founded as a teaching hospital and that shines through 100 years later. There is a culture of innovation which permeates the organization. I’ve been encouraged and challenged to create engaging and innovative programs that meet those standards, which is very rewarding to me as an educator.
5. If a local educator wanted to connect with you to learn more, and to get his/her students connected, what should they know?
Start with our website or contact me directly ([email protected]). Some of our programs require and application process (like our internships), others are free and just require registration.
