Tracy Gov

UCI Writing Project Program Manager
School of Education

May 1, 2013

“I am blessed to be a part of a community where we place the highest value on education.”

The UCI Writing Project is a community of lifelong learners, educators, and scholars who are passionate about education, and I am blessed to be a part of that community where we place the highest value on education. I also am blessed to be working under the direction of Dr. Carol Olson, whose visions and values on education are immeasurable.

The Writing Project consists of three components: (1) research/grant-funded projects, (2) in-services and professional development, and (3) community outreach programs. Our mission is to improve the quality of teaching through intensive teacher professional development in the latest reading/writing intervention.

For me, the centerpiece of the Writing Project is our highly successful Summer Youth Program, which offers enrichment classes in writing and math/science for grades K-12 throughout Orange County, with more than 2,000 young people enrolled every year.

As the Program Manager of the UCI Writing Project, I am vested in maintaining and directing the unit’s goals and objectives. However, the most rewarding reason for my working here is the positive impacts that these programs have on teacher collaboration and performance and student outcomes. Personally, it is gratifying to see first hand the influence that our programs have within the Irvine community. For instance, the Summer Youth Program provides an enriching environment where students are able to come together to share their ideas, fine-tune their writing skills, and have fun among friends. I am thankful that I am given the opportunity to make a difference by working with both teachers and students in supporting and providing them with an engaging program.

Like many in the School of Education, I juggle a career at UC Irvine with motherhood. My children’s imagination, creativity, and love of learning keep me motivated and push me to constantly work to maintain an environment where learning is an opportunity to expand their knowledge and arouse their curiosity. As a mom, I know what it means when parents approach me to tell me that the Summer Program provided their child with the tools and resources to write, or the program ignited and sparked a passion in their child that was not there before. For that, I continue to strive to make every summer better than the one before.

I try to take every encounter, each event, and even less-than-positive occurrences as an opportunity to learn, grow, and better myself. I believe that we all have in us an infinite amount of strength and courage that we draw upon to keep us strong, and I rely on this belief to make every day count and to never stop learning.

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