M.U.M. education department hosts educational advocate, author Vollmer

Author, speaker and consultant Jamie Vollmer will be in Fairfield Jan. 23 presenting ?The Power to Change: Improving Schooling in America.?

The presentation, 7:45-9:15 p.m., is free and open to the public in Festival Hall at the Argiro Center on the Maharishi University of Management campus.

Vollmer is the kick-off guest speaker for the first in a series of presentations on educational change, hosted by the university?s education department.

Moderator for the evening is Chris Jones, dean of teaching and learning at M.U.M.

Art Sathoff, superintendent of Fairfield Community School District, and Richard Beall, director of the pre-kindergarten to 12th grade Maharishi School will participate with Vollmer to respond to audience questions and discussions.

?Jamie Vollmer is a sought-after speaker by public school boards,? said Jones. ?He has given keynote addresses at school board conventions. We are hosting him for the benefit of our students in the undergraduate and graduate teaching and education classes, and we welcome the community to participate, also.?

Vollmer?s presentation is not solely for educators. It will be of interest to community groups and business leaders ? or anyone interested in working with educators to build successful schools.

Innovation and progress in this country?s educational systems are Vollmer?s passions. His website, jamievollmer.com, provides a background of this Philadelphia, Pa., native who had careers in law, manufacturing and was president of the Great Midwestern Ice Cream Company in Fairfield before becoming an advocate of education.

?Once a harsh critic, Vollmer has become an articulate friend of America?s public schools,? his web bio reads. ?His presentations combine statistics, logic and humor to energize and encourage communities.?

Sathoff has read Vollmer?s book, ?Schools Cannot Do It Alone,? and discussed some of its ideas with Fairfield school board members.

?The education community and community at large can learn from and glean from Mr. Vollmer?s own evolving perspective on public education,? said Sathoff.

?Public education doesn?t just need to work harder or act more like a business. It does need to re-create itself in order to prepare students for success in a quickly changing world,? he said.

?As Mr. Vollmer has learned from decades of traveling nationally and internationally, studying public schools, ?Schools cannot do it alone?. Quality public schools are the responsibility a community has to its youth and its future. I am really pleased to be part of this important conversation.?

Vollmer also has written and produced the videos, ?Why Our Schools Need to Change,? ?Teachers Are Heroes? and ?Building Support for America?s Schools,? as well as numerous articles, according to his website. He has served on boards of the National PTA and the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.

His website provides more information from his book, including: His blueberries story; a list of responsibilities placed upon America?s school decade by decade from 1900 to 2010; his coined term, ?nostesia? a reference to those with nostalgia and amnesia about their own ?golden years? of school days; and ?The Great Conversation? about how America?s schools need to change because they are designed to ?select and sort children for an industrial society that no longer exists.?

This inaugural presentation is billed as one of a series of colloquia. The series is designed as open forums around the general themes of innovation and progress in American education.

The rest of the series is not locked in on specific dates yet, said Jones. Information about upcoming colloquia will be announced once the programs are set.