Professor Michelle Buchanan, who administers early childhood programs, works with children and UW students at the Early Care and Education Center.
When it comes to early childhood education across the state, you can bet Professor Michelle Buchanan, department head of Elementary and Early Childhood Education, is involved. Since joining UW in 1997, she has been instrumental in developing a number of outreach initiatives, including the distance certificate program for early childhood special education teachers. “At any given time, we have an average of 40 students enrolled in the program,” Buchanan says. “Of those, 95 percent are currently working in child development centers all over the state.”
As the administrator for early childhood programs, Buchanan also oversees two other programs with distance options via the UW Outreach School—a birth-to-8 endorsement and a birth-to-5 certificate program.
“It’s just not reasonable to expect that all people can come here to access these programs,” she says of the distance options. “It’s important that everyone have access to the opportunity to continue their education. I love it because it puts me in direct connection with the educational settings that my students work in.”
Buchanan’s efforts don’t end there. “Another big part of my work in the past 10 years has been to serve on state committees, including Wyoming Kids First, Child Development Services of Wyoming and the Wyoming Early Childhood State Advisory Council,” she says. “I was able to help with the development of the new Wyoming Early Learning Foundations for preschool-age children. This publication is currently being disseminated throughout the state.”
The UW Outreach School is offering a 1-credit distance class to help nontraditional students—including home-based and center-based child care providers—understand how to use the Early Learning Foundations. The early childhood program also partners with the UW Literacy Research Center and Clinic to post video training modules on its website and to coordinate outreach efforts.
“We’re fortunate to have Excellence in Early Childhood Education funds provided by the Ellbogen Foundation,” Buchanan says. “These funds allow us to sponsor conferences for early care and education professionals. Funds also allow faculty to do outreach across the state. Last year we conducted 22 workshops with more than 500 participants.” And these funds support on-site consultation to programs. Last year, the early childhood program provided individual child consultations to nearly 50 different classrooms across Wyoming.
Thanks to Buchanan’s and the College of Education’s many outreach efforts, children, families, child care workers and teachers in Wyoming receive the ongoing training, support and expertise they need to succeed.
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