Vesta Mickel, an associate professor of education and director of reading at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Delhi Township, has again achieved international recognition.

        She was named one of 35 finalists from five countries for the Ernest L. Boyer International Award for Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Technology.

        The award recognizes exceptional faculty achievements.

        Ms. Mickel received the recognition based on her innovative use of technology. She taught a technology course, using electronic portfolios for teacher accountability, which was the topic of a talk she gave at a conference in Jacksonville, Fla., last month.

        “An electronic portfolio is a student's resume, documenting what the student has achieved, the competency level, how the student will teach and the student's philosophy,” Ms. Mickel said.

        “It can be put on a CD and sent to a potential employer.”

        She was chosen from among 100 faculty members nominated by colleges and universities worldwide. She is the only nominee selected from an Ohio institution and the only professor of teacher education to be nominated for the award.

        “I didn't recognize how prestigious the award was until we were called to stage and was told that we were the top 35 educators in the world,” she said.

        In 1994, Ms. Mickel was nominated by students at St. Joseph and received the Sister Adele Clifford Excellence in Teaching Award.

In 1992, she was one of 25 educators chosen from across the United States to visit foreign school systems through the People-to-People Ambassador program, sponsored by Harvard University.

        She was chosen because of a study she did on reading at the fourth-grade level in two elementary schools in Columbus during the 1990-91 school year. The study was titled “Listening and Reading Achievement.”

        Ms. Mickel believes everybody can learn to read.

        “If you go far enough, you can find a level at which a person can learn to read,” she said. “Everybody has some kind of ability. It is the responsibility of the teacher to help the student find that ability and develop it. In teaching younger children to read, a teacher has to keep the child's mind on track so that the child can understand what is read.”

        In 1996, she took a sabbatical from Mount St. Joseph and spent a year in an elementary and a junior high school to examine methods she had taught to students to see if they worked.

        “Some of them worked and some of them didn't,” she said.

        She was listed in Who's Who in American Education in 1989-90 by the National Reference Institute of Outstanding Leaders in Education.

        Allen Howard's “Some Good News” column runs daily except Saturday. If you have suggestions about outstanding achievements, contact him at 768-8362, at ahoward@enquirer.com or by fax at 768-8340.

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