New NWP Leader in Western Mass
Sharon Washington, the new executive director of the National Writing Project, paid a visit to the offices of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project this past week. Washington has taken over leadership of the NWP from Richard Sterling. She has strong connections to the Western Massachusetts region, as she was the founding director of Project SPIRIT at Springfield College (before moving on to leadership slots at University of California, Spelman College and Bennett College for Women). Washington still has family ties here in the area.
Washington sat down with WMWP Executive Director Anne Herrington, in-Service Coordinator Susan Biggs, Technology Liaison Kevin Hodgson, and English Language Learners Network leaders Wilma Ortiz and Karen Sumaryono, who also represented Project Outreach in the chat. The discussion ranged from an overview of the wealth of offerings at our site to integration of technology into WMWP programs to the creation of leadership opportunities through the ELL network.
(Wilma talks about the development of the ELL Network to Sharon Washington, new executive director of NWP)
Washington was curious to know how the NWP can continue to support the work of the sites and Herrington pointed out that much of the work being done at WMWP is supported through NWP mini-grants and the flow of those grants would continue to be valuable to develop and support projects at the site level and in the classrooms.
