Outstanding Educator Award Recipient, 1998 Elaine Elledge It was formally announced at the 21st Annual FDEA Conference, November 6, 1998, that Ms. Elaine Elledge, Director of Testing and Assessment, Pensacola Junior College, was selected as the FDEA Outstanding Educator for 1998. "Teaching underprepared students is not just a job to most of us: it is our lives," Elledge told the 21st annual FDEA convention attendees in Orlando, Florida. Totally surprised and tearful, Elledge had just received the FDEA's Educator of the Year award, and the audience could not have been more delighted. Here was a woman who had dedicated thirty-one years of her life to teaching, and her intense love of her work was probably never more evident than when she spoke emotionally about how much the award meant to her. Ruth Becker, Elaine's colleague at Pensacola Junior College, felt so strongly about Elaine's talent and dedication that she wrote the following in her nomination letter to the committee: "Elaine is a motivator. Her enthusiasm is contagious, it's magical, and all who serve under her are encouraged to 'get in the parade'." Elaine is a mountain mover. Obstacles become opportunities for this visionary. If she can picture it, it probably can be done. "Make a wish list, and get it to me," she tells her faculty each semester. Elaine is a mentor. Not only is she a sounding board to her faculty, but her door is always open to students, who are her heartbeat. She loves to listen to them, to encourage them, and to help them work around their problems. She works one on one with them, and they feel important, valued, and confident because of the time she gives them. Elaine is committed to developmental education. She has established its mission and its worth, and she is convinced it is a vehicle to reach the underprepared. Elaine has always had a heart for the student who needed extra help. After earning her B.A. degree in speech and history from Alabama College (Montevallo, Alabama) in 1967, Elaine immersed herself in developmental education by teaching in junior and senior high schools in Alabama and Florida. She earned her MSEd from the University of Florida in 1972 and then taught reading, English, and humanities as well as serving as assistant administrator and director of developmental studies at Atlantis Academy in Miami, Florida, from 1973-1977. From 1977-1979, she was state supervisor of learning disabilities at the University of Montevallo, her alma mater. She also served as director of Student Support Services there from 1979-1990. Elledge was the academic department head in developmental studies at Pensacola Junior College from 1990 to 1998 when she was appointed director of the PJC Testing Center. Over the years she has continued to do postgraduate work in higher education, learning disabilities, speech pathology, counseling, and assessment. Her research and publications have dealt with topics such as handicapped students, student support service programs, and developmental reading. Elaine has served as a consultant and trainer in the areas of retention, counseling, evaluation, and public relations for the University of Wyoming as well as other university and business groups in the Northwest (Aspire, Association for Special Programs in Region Eight), Howard University, Faulkner University, University of Alabama, educational and governmental agencies in Alabama, and SAEOPP (Southeastern Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel), and TRIO programs in Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia. She has been active in many national, regional, and state professional organizations. Elaine is especially proud of a scholarship established in her honor by the Alabama Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel in 1991. One of her favorite groups is FDEA, which she describes as "a group of educators who are 'called' to the mission of developmental studies and who feel they are making a real difference in the lives of their students." Her work with FDEA includes serving on the FDEA Executive Board since 1993 as conference chair, conference program chair, and publishers' exhibits chair. From 1996 to 1997, Elaine was state president. The members of FDEA thank Elaine for dedicating so much time, talent, and love to FDEA and would like to congratulate her on becoming their 1998 Outstanding Educator of the Year.    Return to the FDEA homepage.