Tennessee State University’s Communications Department Head Dr. Terry Likes has won numerous national, regional and local honors for reporting about media.

Likes produced a radio documentary dealing with the state of international news coverage.  The programs aired on the Tennessee Radio Network and received the following recognitions:

• Broadcast Education Association “Best of Competition” award
• Edward R. Murrow Regional award (from the Radio/TV Digital News Association) *program now moves on to compete against other regional winners in the national competition
• Tennessee Associated Press, 1^st Place, Best Public Affairs program
• National Broadcasting Society 2^nd place award

Likes has produced a number of audio and video documentary and educational programs over the last 12 years and has won nearly 24 awards during his career.

He joined TSU in 2008 after teaching for 20 years at Western Kentucky University. At WKU, Likes was the adviser for student radio/TV newscasts and his students won more than 200 awards for their reporting during a 10-year span, 1996-2006.

As head of the Department of Communications at TSU, Likes oversees the areas of Mass Communication and Speech Communication and Theatre, which includes affiliations with student organizations such as the national award-winning Forensics Team, WTST campus radio, TSU TV and The Meter.

Likes is originally from St. Louis, MO.  He earned his undergraduate degree from Maryville University-St. Louis, his master’s from Western Kentucky University and his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky.

For more information about the Department of Communications, visit www.tnstate.edu/comm.

Many would probably scoff at the idea of using poetry and storytelling techniques to introduce complex engineering concepts to a room full of freshmen, but they don’t know Montanez Wade.

Wade, who teaches orientation courses to incoming students in the College of Engineering, Technology and Computer Science, can as easily wow students with a recitation of Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” or enthrall guests with a beautifully woven story in the tradition of her African and African-American heritage as she explains concepts that bring electrical circuits to life.

In fact, she has found a teaching style that combines her love of poetry and metaphor with engineering concepts, so that students can not only know how engineering works but also see how it works as well. To make students understand the dual circuits concepts of power-supply vs. power-absorbed, she related the two to the flow of money in a transaction. To help a group of students struggling with negative and positive integers, she pointed them to the stairwell around the corner.

“I am in love with the very idea of metaphor. To me, that’s what teaching is about. It’s about finding an area of relatability. When you’re teaching, the challenge is to find that space of mutual understanding,” Wade said. “I ask a lot of questions in my classes. Call and response resonate with me. It’s my job to find out where the knowledge is lacking.”

Wade makes no apologies for her candor and brings her entire existence to the classroom – the place she endearingly calls, “the center.” She is a firm believer that education must be about its root word, “educaria,” which means, “to bring out what is within.”

For even complex issues like making students understand the importance of knowing why they are in college and finding their purpose, Wade made the entire class stand and then had seven of each 10 students sit down to illustrate the University’s current graduation statistics.

“I believe in active learning. Each class session is a new journey. The more you can discuss with students how you are thinking, the more engaged they will become. An engaged student is a student ready for any challenges,” Wade said. “As an instructor it is important for me to be both present and aware. When you are, it’s a little different. (The classroom) is then not on autopilot.”

Recently, Wade was asked to tell one of her stories at an event. Each time she tells a story, she weaves in inspiration and energy from the audience that transform a basic framework into new and different horizons. That night, she told the story of the journey one takes to find their purpose for which she titled, “Hidden In Plain Sight.” She recalled that while telling the story, she experienced an epiphany that made her instantly think of the students she teaches: “That’s exactly how I want my classes to be remembered,” she said.

For the next two weeks, Tennessee elementary and middle school teachers will be receiving additional instruction as a means of  better equipping their students with the math skills necessary to excel in the classroom.

The College of Education is hosting 150 to 200 Metro-Nashville Public School (MNPS) teachers at the Avon Williams Campus in downtown Nashville through the Strengthening Instruction in Tennessee Elementary Schools: Focus on Mathematics (SITES-M) project.

This federally funded professional development opportunity is designed for teachers of elementary and middle schools to help them improve student performance. The project is coordinated by Tennessee State University and the Educational Testing Service. Project participants include Fisk University, LeMoyne-Owen College, Lane College and Knoxville College.

“The teachers that have come to the program will work with TSU professors as well as external consultants to increase their own knowledge of mathematics and bolster their skills at teaching math to their students,” said Dr. Peter Millet, dean of the College of Education.

Objectives of the SITES-M project are based on results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).  The 2009 NAEP Mathematics Assessment shows that African-Americans lag far behind their white counterparts, and that the gap–which begins early–only grows wider as they progress along the educational continuum.  To break this cycle of under prepared African-American students, evidence suggests that society must look to teachers for help.

The program, which is directed by Associate Professor Dr. Trinetia Respress, will also use the connections generated by participating teachers to recruit more students for the College of Education.

“We want to encourage the teachers coming here to further their education with graduate degrees from Tennessee State University,” Millet said.