MBIT Work-Based Education Teacher & Coordinator receives the 2021 Pennsylvania Cooperative Educator of the Year award from the Pennsylvania Association for Career and Technical Education

Middle Bucks Institute of Technology (MBIT) is pleased to announce that Work-Based Education Teacher & Coordinator, Pamela Swoyer, has been select­ed as the 2021 Pennsylvania Cooperative Educator of the Year spon­sored by the Pennsylvania Association for Career and Technical Education (PA-ACTE).

The PA-ACTE Pennsylvania Cooperative Educator of the Year award rec­og­nizes inspi­ra­tional lead­ers that embody the core val­ues of the Association for Career and Technical Education through con­tri­bu­tions to stu­dent suc­cess, inno­va­tions in teach­ing, and lead­er­ship in the local or greater CTE community.

As the Work-Based Education Teacher & Coordinator, Pamela Swoyer’s pas­sion for high school stu­dents extends out­side the class­room.  Whether she is chap­er­on­ing a SkillsUSA (stu­dent gov­ern­ment) activ­i­ty, help­ing stu­dents pre­pare for a com­pe­ti­tion or men­tor­ing a fel­low teacher pur­su­ing their Cooperative Education cer­tifi­cate, she demon­strates her com­mit­ment to her pro­fes­sion.  She is a strong voice when it comes to pro­mot­ing cus­tomized indus­try train­ing pro­grams, recruit­ing new Occupational Advisory Committee mem­bers, or increas­ing com­mu­ni­ty aware­ness about MBIT.

Kathryn Strouse, MBIT Administrative Director, states, “ Swoyer is com­mit­ted to meet­ing the very real and imme­di­ate chal­lenges of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, stu­dent achieve­ment and glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness by devel­op­ing our most valu­able resource: our stu­dents. She con­fi­dent­ly bal­ances her respon­si­bil­i­ties in pro­vid­ing coop­er­a­tive edu­ca­tion place­ment ser­vices with job site super­vi­sion of stu­dents inter­est­ed in shad­ow­ing, intern­ships, appren­tice­ships and clin­i­cal expe­ri­ences. She assures that our stu­dents are pre­pared with the inter­per­son­al skills nec­es­sary for work­place suc­cess by deliv­er­ing a series of pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment lessons that sup­port Career & Work Standards. Our Cooperative Education pro­gram is well-respected among local employ­ers. During the 2020–21 school year, despite the pan­dem­ic, 101 stu­dents were placed in employ­ment with­in our com­mu­ni­ty with anoth­er 9 stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing in unpaid internships.”