Director of Learning Opportunities Center Wins National Association for Developmental Education Award

by Jim Stanley

Karen Tompson-Wolfe, the head of Westminster’s Tomnitz Family Learning Opportunities Center, has been named the NADE 2014 recipient of the Kellogg Institute-NADE Scholarship. NADE is the National Association for Developmental Education and promotes the philosophy of “helping underprepared students prepare, prepared students advance, and advanced students excel.”

The award consists of a scholarship to attend a four-week developmental education seminar June 28-July 25 at Appalachian State University in Boone N.C. She will receive a $500 tuition waiver and a $500 stipend, presented at one of the plenary sessions of the NADE annual conference; the workshop is called the Kellogg Institute and attracts well-known and respected leaders in her field.

“The benefit of this seminar is that I will be able to develop a model of best practices in the field and apply it to Westminster College’s Learning Opportunities Center programs,” Tompson-Wolfe says. “I hope that it will help me design better programs and learning environments, and enhance our evaluation of programs and placement of students into appropriate programs.”

Tompson-Wolfe began working at Westminster College in the spring of 1996 and her duties have been varied since then, from teaching economics and statistics to creating and delivering quality academic support programs for all students on campus.

“I enjoy working at Westminster because the school’s environment encourages the faculty and staff to be involved with students on both a personal and professional level,” she says. “Another interesting aspect of working here is how Westminster encourages faculty to explore areas of interest outside of our field.

“My fascination with board games led me to create a seminar on board games and their influence on the games of today. I also find the modern Olympic Games to be fascinating and have developed a seminar around exploring the transformation of the modern Games.”