Student Wins National Education Award

For the second year in a row, Knox College student Jordan Lanfair has been awarded a Prospective Educator Scholarship from Phi Delta Kappa, the national honor society for professional educators. (Photo, right: Jordan Lanfair speaks at campus event in April on a youth service learning grant that he helped write.)

A junior educational studies major from Chicago, Lanfair is one of only two college students in the nation to win a 2010 Prospective Educator Scholarship. The other 37 award winners are high school students planning to go into teaching. Scholarship amounts range from $500 to $1,500 -- Lanfair's award includes a $1,000 scholarship from the Phi Delta Kappa Education Foundation. Lanfair also won the award in 2009.

"The award is based on academic excellence, a faculty nomination and an essay by the student nominees on their career goals in education," said Stephen Schroth, assistant professor of education and president of the Phi Delta Kappa chapter that includes Knox College and other schools in Knox County.

At Knox, Lanfair has taught in the Knox College for Kids Program, under "Project REACH: A Model for Preparing Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers to Better Serve Gifted Children," a program developed by Schroth and Jason Helfer, associate professor of education. This summer, he will again teach in the Knox College for Kids program, and in Knox's Navajo Professional Teaching Development Program, in which Knox students teach at the Navajo Lutheran Mission School in Arizona.

"I love the education department at Knox," Lanfair said. "My fraternity pledge father Mike Dooley is an education major and one of my best friends." Dooley and Lanfair are both members of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.

"Mike is teaching me educational technology, and I'm teaching him classroom management," Lanfair said. A senior from Brookfield, Illinois, majoring in Spanish and education, Dooley was named one of 2009's "Fifty for the Future," by the Illinois Technology Association, in recognition of educational software that he developed.

Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 45 states and 48 countries. Knox's 'Old Main' is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.