Kudos: Paula Dagnon

Making community connections is one of Paula Dagnon’s specialties. She consistently volunteers her time to welcome those new to the WWU and Bellingham communities. Additionally, Paula offers her time and expertise without hesitation; empowering her colleagues to utilize and innovate with technology.

When the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order began, necessitating the closure of the WWU AS Child Development Center, it was somewhat challenging to find ways to interact with our young learners and families in a meaningful way. Especially so with our desire to be mindful of not adding additional burden or stress, knowing that parents would simultaneously be completing their own work from home. Serendipitously, a few weeks earlier, Paula had volunteered to instruct us in a highly interactive software application that can combine photos, videos, and music in an easily manipulated 360 degree space. As technical as all of that sounds, the heart of what it truly enabled was a way for Western’s youngest community members to maintain connections to the people and places they had abruptly lost.

With Paula helping to guide future teachers in these innovative new ways of learning through her role as a professor in Woodring College, the opportunities they have for making profound connections with their students seem limitless.

-- Katie Johnson-Lee