USU dean has long history in education
Most professors have experience in education, right? Probably. But, Ronda Menlove has a lot of experience in public education.
She is the assistant dean of continuing education at Utah State University, where she sets up off-campus programs. She is the president-elect of the American Council on Rural Special Education. She also just received the Golden Mouse Award, recognizing her achievements in technology teaching and learning.
Prior to this, she was an assistant professor in special education and directed a distance education program for off-campus students.
And before all of these, she was a special education teacher, teacher, elementary school principal and high school assistant principal.
“In Utah we have a critical shortage of special ed teachers, and every year we have classrooms that are left without qualified teachers,” Menlove said.
A few years ago, USU decided to develop a distance education program to train teachers out in their local communities, she said. Most of those trained were women and nontraditional students because they couldn’t leave their families and come to the university, but they wanted to have an education. So the department started this program and broadcast some of its classes out there.
“We recruit the students and then we deliver the program out there via technology so they can just stay in their own communities and get their degrees,” she said.
Menlove got interested in the special education program because of her past experiences, she said. She used to live in Randolph, a rural town by Bear Lake, and her husband was the school superintendent. His school didn’t have a special education teacher, and Menlove had a master’s degree in alternative secondary education, so the day before school started she got the job.
Since she didn’t have a degree specifically in special education, Menlove drove an hour and a half each way to Logan a couple of times each week to get her degree. Because of this driving, it made her sensitive to people in rural communities not being able to get an education, she said. When Menlove came to the university to get her doctorate, she realized there was a lot of distance ed technology available to train people so they didn’t have to travel so far like she did, she said.
Another reason she said she was interested in the program is her strong desire for kids to get a good education.
“Anytime we train a great teacher, that teacher goes out and touches the lives of hundreds of kids and their families,” she said.
She loves the challenge of setting up a new program and getting it going for her new job, she said, although she doesn’t like all of the political things that go along with it, like how you have to promote yourself.
“I don’t like to be in the limelight,” she said. “I’m happier to be in the background working really hard.”
Menlove has also been teaching a legal issues, policies, and procedures class for special ed students getting ready to be teachers. She said it’s exciting to start out with a group of students who think education legal issues are dry. At the end of the semester some students told her that it was their favorite class, she said.
“There’s nothing more thrilling than watching people get it and to see their eyes light up,” she said. “That, to me, is what it’s all about.”
Menlove said it’s nice for her to think that there might be a special education teacher who, because of her class, might avoid a lawsuit
someday.
And even though she doesn’t get to do as much teaching now, she gets to facilitate other people teaching through the program development.
The plaque on her recent Golden Mouse Award reads “in recognition of outstanding innovation in technology teaching and learning.” She was nominated for the award by the department of special education and rehabilitation.
She said she was really excited about that recognition from her peers and her colleagues. The students in the special education department also voted her teacher of the year for 2002 and 2003.
Menlove is married to the superintendent for Box Elder School District and has five children.
-sarahwest@cc.usu.edu