Honor Roll
Recognizing the accomplishments of Western New Yorkers
Elizabeth Smallwood, a science teacher at Tapestry Charter High School in Buffalo, has received a $10,000 grant for excellence and innovation in science education, awarded by Toyota and the National Science Teachers Association.
Smallwood was honored for her outstanding science program at the association’s recent National Conference on Science Education in New Orleans.
Her “Chemistry of Art” classes will begin this fall. Under Smallwood’s direction, students will work with Buffalo artists to learn chemistry concepts in a hands-on way. Projects will include making oil paints with a chemist, blowing glass with glassmakers at the Corning Museum of Glass, studying gas-fired ceramic glazes and dyeing silk scarves.
Sponsored by Toyota U. S. A. and administered by the Science Teachers Association, the grant program—coincidentally titled “Tapestry”—is the largest annual K-12 science-teacher grant program in the nation.
Tapestry officials also have announced the awarding of a $50,000 grant from the Next Generation Giving Program, a component of the East Hill Foundation, of Williamsville. The school will use the money to buy its first activities bus and to support the ninth-and 10th-grade Camp Weona Expedition, a team-building trip at the start of each school year.
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• The restoration of the former Asbury Delaware Church, now known as Babeville, and the publication “The Olmsted City — the Buffalo Olmsted Park System: Plan for the 21st Century” have received top awards from a statewide preservation organization.
The Preservation League of New York State gave each an Excellence in Historic Preservation award earlier this month at a ceremony in New York City.
The church nearly averted demolition in the 1990s and became a $10 million restoration project initiated by musician Ani DiFranco and manager Scot Fisher of Righteous Babe Records, which has office space there. The Asbury Hall performance space is in the former sanctuary, the smaller 9th Ward performance space in the basement, and Hallwalls Performing Arts Center also shares space.
The Olmsted publication, which was aided by the Urban Design Project of the University at Buffalo and others, was published in January 2008 outlining a 20-year restoration and management plan.
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• The Singer Family Prize for Excellence in Secondary School Teaching was recently awarded to Nancy Brady, Sacred Heart Academy English teacher.
She was chosen by the University of Rochester; the award was presented at a recent ceremony followed by a dinner with the university’s president, Joel Seligman. As part of the award, Brady received $3,000 and Sacred Heart Academy received $2,500. The award, funded by the Paul Singer Family Foundation, was established by University of Rochester graduate Singer to recognize outstanding secondary school teachers for the role they play in the intellectual development of American society.
University of Rochester seniors were asked to submit essays to nominate a particularly influential secondary-school teacher for the prize, and a committee of university faculty members reviewed the nominations. The finalists were then selected and asked to submit additional supporting material before the winners were chosen. Brady’s former student Caitlin Powalski, a 2004 Sacred Heart Academy graduate, nominated Brady. Powalski, who graduated earlier this month with a history degree from the university, introduced Brady and presented her the Singer award.
In her nomination essay, Powalski described Brady, her ninth-grade English teacher, as a “tough teacher” who taught her the writing and public speaking skills that helped her succeed at the university level, and also as someone who empowered her as a learner and as a person. “She was an amazing teacher and mentor because she not only expected excellence from me, she inspired it. In a very basic and intuitive way, Mrs. Brady found ways to encourage our strengths not only as writers, critical thinkers and readers, but as women. Her passion, which she brought to class every day, provided each student with the expectation that she would and could achieve greatness,” Powalski noted.
Brady has taught at Sacred Heart Academy for 11 years and currently teaches ninth-and 11th-grade English, as well as Advanced Placement English Language and Composition. She’s also the founder and moderator of the Franciscan Scholars program and serves as the Mock Trial coach. Sacred Heart Academy’s Mock Trial team won this year’s Erie County Championship. The team has won this championship four times in the six years of Brady’s tenure as coach.
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• Diane L. Rowe, who heads the Boys & Girls Clubs of Buffalo, has been recognized on the national level, having been named the Boys & Girls Clubs of America National Executive of the Year. This award is given to those, like Rowe, who exemplify personal merit, dedication to the Boys & Girls Clubs movement, achievements and success.
Rowe began her human-services career as a case worker and teacher, while pursuing a position where she could challenge herself as an executive “change agent.” She held numerous executive positions at the YWCA of Western New York and the Anorexia Bulimia Association.
She began her career with Boys & Girls Clubs of Buffalo in 1996 and expanded the agency from five to 16 clubs. Rowe manages a work force of more than 100 employees and has turned the agency from a $500,000 into a $3.5 million organization, serving more than 8,000 youth, ages 6 to 18, in Buffalo, Cheektowaga and Amherst. She works to create programs geared to developing young people, especially relative to gang violence and academic improvement. Rowe has developed a prevention-strategy program for these boys and girls.
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