Contact: Annie Rodgers, 277-3638 Media Contact: Laurie Mellas-Ramirez, 277-5915

Jan. 14, 2003 UNM EDUCATION PROFESSORS HONORED WITH EDUCATOR IN THE WORKPLACE AWARD UNM College of Education Professor Ginger Blalock, Ph.D., and Associate Professor Deborah Rifenbary-Murphy, Ph.D., are recipients of the Educator in the Workplace Award for 2002 awarded by the Middle Rio Grande Business and Education Collaborative (MRGBEC), a non-profit regional school-to-careers partnership for Central New Mexico. MRGBEC is also the Central Area Workforce Investment Board's Youth Council. The award is given annually to a business, organization or individuals who best contribute toward systemic reform in education by connecting educators with professional development through work-based learning experiences. MRGBEC's Educator in the Workplace program exposes educators in the mid Rio Grande region to careers and occupations through workplace tours, job shadowing and externships. Blalock and Rifenbary-Murphy have proposed a new Academy of Career Awareness, Exploration, and Education, in collaboration with MRGBEC, area schools and colleges, and state and local agencies. Their long-range goal is to help teachers, counselors and administrators understand and incorporate career development principles and strategies in their work with K-16 students. "These initiatives help educators learn how to provide a real world context to help motivate students to stay in school and achieve higher academic standards by seeing the connection between content learning and their own long-range goals," Blalock says. For more than 17 years, Blalock, who teaches in the College of Education (COE) Special Education Program, has been teaching ways to guide youth with disabilities through the transition from high school to work and adulthood. Rifenbary-Murphy is program coordinator for the COE Counselor Education Program. She has been at UNM since 1990. She is co-author of a career/life skills curriculum, partner in the Germany-U.S. dual vocational system for educators, and has instructed the UNM COE school-counseling course through which many graduate students have experienced work-based learning with MRGBEC's help. "The work the faculty have done with school/business/university partnerships has been outstanding. This recognition is one of those wonderful partnership successes," College of Education Dean Viola Florez said. In 2001 MRGBEC honored the Public Service Company of New Mexico and UNM's College of Education and Career Services Office. ###

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