News

Lamb a finalist for NDBHE

By Alicia Wicklund

04/10/2012

Carmelita Lamb, Turtle Mountain Community College administrator, is one of three finalists that were picked by a panel for an opening on North Dakota’s Board of Higher Education.

Before June 30, 2012, Lamb, Microsoft executive Don Morton or Bismarck School Board member Scott Halvorson will succeed current board member Mike Haugen. Haugen is leaving after four years on the panel.

North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple will appoint one of the three for a four year term to the higher education board, which has eight voting members.
Education has been part of Lamb’s entire life. Lamb is originally from Texas and moved to North Dakota in 1979. She currently resides on the north edge of Bottineau. She received a bachelor’s of science in animal science from Texas A&M University, where she met her husband, the late Dr. L. Dean Lamb DVM.

“He was doing a Master’s in veterinary surgery and I was completing my undergraduate program,” said Lamb. “Dean was originally from North Dakota in the Peace Garden area, so after we married we moved back to North Dakota and he started his private practice in Rolette. During those early years I spent quite a bit of my time helping him in the clinic and raising our family.”

When their youngest daughter Bianca was in kindergarten, she decided to go back for her Master’s at North Dakota State University in animal science to study equine physiology.

“At the time I was working for the extension service as a state program coordinator for the 4-H equine program. The kids and I were able to travel all over the state for 4-H horse programs,” Lamb said. “I think my kids thought everybody’s mom ran horse camps all summer. It was a great way to spend the summers with your children.”

In the meantime, the superintendent for Rolette County, Dwayne Getzlaff, asked if she wanted to come teach physics and chemistry at Dunseith.

“I told him I didn’t have a teaching license,” said Lamb. “He said, ‘You don’t need one!’ That year the North Dakota Standards and Practices Board under the direction of Dr. Janet Welk granted 10 emergency licenses for extreme high need areas, one of which was science. They gave you a license to teach, for a period of two years, and in that time you were expected to complete the coursework necessary for state licensure. So after class in Dunseith, I drove to Minot and took the necessary courses for my teaching license at night.”

Dunseith had about 350 kids K-12 at that time. She was there for six years when the academic dean, Larry Henry at Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt asked her to kick off a teacher education program for secondary science.

“It was called Native Ways of Knowing, a multi-million dollar grant the National Science Foundation awarded to the college to develop a teacher education secondary science program,” Lamb said. “The grant provided crucial support in the development of curriculum for program accreditation, faculty recruitment and student support. Through this program, 15 secondary science teachers were trained and licensed in North Dakota.”

The program is still active at the tribal college and continues to train individuals in secondary science teacher education.

Lamb began her doctoral studies in June of 2003 and received a PhD in Institutional Analysis and Adult Higher Education. She realized while she was teaching at Dunseith there was a huge piece of education that was missing in rural schools and sought to become more involved in the training of teachers to meet the high demands of K-12 classrooms—especially in science.

“I didn’t like the way classroom education was based almost exclusively on textbooks and worksheets,” said Lamb. “There was just completely nothing engaging about the classroom. As a science teacher, it seemed as if there was always smoke coming out the windows of my classroom or we were making self propelled vehicles out of milk cartons, batteries and little motors and the students were racing them down the hallway.”
She continued, “We were learning science, and the students barely knew it was happening because the experience was student-driven and inquiry based. My students knew something was going to ‘happen’ in Mrs. Lamb’s classroom on Thursday, because every Thursday was lab day.”

So she told herself, “I want to be involved in something that will allow me to teach students how to teach science.”

While Lamb was program director for secondary science she was selected to become the department chair for teacher education at the tribal college. She now supervises K-12 teacher education and remarked,

“We have graduated teachers that are currently working all over the state. Commencement at the tribal college this May will confer 13 more Bachelor’s degrees in teacher education. It’s a very exciting time for us at the college. The program continues to grow and I am very proud of the caliber of educators we are sending out into the classrooms.”

“I have been fortunate because working at the tribal college has allowed me to make inroads into teacher education in this community,” said Lamb. “I get calls regularly now because schools are looking for high quality teachers that are extremely technology savvy and we are generating them. Our graduates are also willing to work in rural areas.”

She added, “My interests lie in higher education and particularly the education that is being conducted in the tribal colleges across the United States. The state of North Dakota has five tribal colleges; four of them have fully accredited teacher education programs.”

Lamb said 67 percent of Native Americans that go to college in North Dakota enroll in tribal colleges. The five tribal colleges in North Dakota are United Tribes Technical College, Sitting Bull College, Fort Berthold College, Turtle Mountain Community College and Little Hoop Community College. Of the four tribal colleges that have teacher education programs, Lamb has been directly involved in three: Fort Berthold College, Sitting Bull College and Turtle Mountain Community College.

As for community colleges, Lamb has an endless amount of respect for the unique contributions being made by them in the realm of our state’s higher education.

“Sometimes students need the extra support the smaller schools can provide before going to a larger university and finding success,” she said.

All three of her children, as well as her husband Dean, began their college studies at Dakota College at Bottineau. Her son Lauren Dean is now a board certified equine practitioner in Oklahoma, Felicia is entering graduate school at NDSU and Bianca is in her first year of medical school at the University of North Dakota.

Lamb said the tribal college is highly supportive of the extra activities she is involved with as they support education as a whole.

“I think my academic dean, Larry Henry and President, Dr. Jim Davis see my professional commitments outside of the college as a source of enrichment that will add value to our institution overall.” Lamb said. “It’s always good to step out of the bubble. It helps you grow.”

As for her upcoming interview with the governor, she said, “I am looking forward to it. I told the governor’s administrative assistant how tremendously honored I was to be selected when she called to set up the appointment.”

When asked about what she felt were significant changes in education Lamb responded, “Technology way overshoots what many of our teachers have been able to keep up with,” she said. “I have been in some districts that have paid thousands of dollars for technology only to have it sitting in the classroom idle.”

The other thing that has changed is the extent to which teachers have to address students with exceptionalities. She said teaching, “Is the noblest of all professions but is exhausting and consuming at the same time.”

Lamb often times brings her students into a classroom and observes while they teach.

She said, “When my students are breaking a sweat, I know they are working hard to bring the lesson across to all students in the classroom.”

Yet, she said, “as much as we want to prepare our college students to teach, we (teacher education faculty) are so time constrained. From the perspective of the college or university, we have to be stronger on how we mentor our students and how we provide support, especially in the first year following graduation and licensure.”

She added, “To be a truly good teacher, you must have a passion for education, but more importantly a passion to teach children. You must be thinking about them all the time…in what unique ways will you bring knowledge to them that is truly meaningful and a part of their lives.”