Please join me in extending the best of wishes to Jennifer Wofford, Ph.D., our long-time Director of Extended Studies, who will be departing Ithaca College effective August 15 to pursue full-time her passion for writing (she is known as Giulia Torre - check out her work at this link). In her 12 years on south hill, Jennifer has provided direction and oversight for a range of complex initiatives, including our:
- summer and winter academic sessions;
- pre-college programs (nearly half of which involve fully subsidized scholars), such as the Summer College for High School Students; Summer Piano Institute; Theatre Intensive, and Ithaca Young Writers Institute; and
- a variety of professional certificate programs.
Her contributions to Ithaca College extended beyond these programs and into our classroom, particularly impacting our first-year students. As a contingent faculty member with the Writing Department, Dr. Wofford worked with the ICSM program (as both a professor and steering committee member) and taught the ICSM - Reading Popular Romance. She also previously taught our Academic Writing I course.
She pursued community partnerships and was instrumental in extending the Cornell Prison Education Program to Ithaca College via a two-year pilot program. This program offers courses for inmates at Elmira Correctional Facility, with the goal of helping people who are incarcerated earn a degree from Corning Community College. While interrupted by COVID, this program will hopefully resume soon, and she has shared that teaching at Elmira was one of the most rewarding classroom experiences of her career.
Her passion for partnerships, both on and off campus, and her push for Ithaca College to pursue partnerships with community organizations across the country that financially and academically support students from low-income schools and families has been critical to our strategic direction. On campus, she is well known for her effective interactions with dean’s offices, department chairs, and individual faculty, as well as campus life partners, to assure that all our extended studies efforts operate smoothly.
Jen has shared that in addition to writing, she will continue to make jewelry (you can see her work at this link), enjoy her family and all that Trumansburg has to offer, and looks forward to getting to know the Buffalo area as one of her children heads to college there this fall. On behalf of all of us who have been impacted by your contributions, thank you for the time that you spent with us Jen and the best of luck in your future endeavors.