The three-week Summer Institute runs through July 20, with teachers training in small group workshops to teach courses from accounting to web design. In all, 23 courses are being introduced to the teachers at this year’s institute. Teachers who successfully complete Summer Institute become certified SU adjunct instructors, qualified to teach the SU courses for which they have been trained.

New courses joining SUPA’s roster in 2012 are sport management, an essential introduction to this growing field designed by Gina Pauline, professor in SU’s David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics; and personal finance, a course that offers practical advice about loans, credit cards, investments, savings and taxes, designed by Don Dutkowsky, professor of economics in The College of Arts and Sciences.

A total of 61 schools have sent teachers to work with SU faculty. They are visiting from schools as close as the ���ϲ����� City School District and as far as districts in Topsfield, Mass., and Saddlebrook, N.J., and further still.

For the first time, SUPA’s Summer Institute welcomes teachers from Vietnam’s International School Ho Chi Minh City (ISHCMC) and ISHCMC-American Academy. Teachers Nathan Bryant, Heather Carreiro, Rae Deely and Michael Jollimore will learn how to teach SU economics, writing and English, calculus and physics respectively.

Carreiro is joining the ISHCMC-American Academy English faculty in fall 2012, having most recently lived in Fall River, Mass. “My supervisor is really excited about Project Advance, and he asked me to attend Summer Institute because, thanks to my master’s in English, I’m qualified to teach SU courses,” she says. “This is an exciting opportunity for me to teach university-level courses in a high school and to offer Vietnamese students who want to study in the U.S. the chance to shift their worldview, learn to think critically, challenge their understanding of what knowledge is and get a taste of American culture.”

Carreiro, who also has taught in Pakistan, says that Asian education methods are quite different from those in the United States. One challenge she’ll face is encouraging the students to join a research and analytical conversation in their studies, rather than simply synthesize what others have said about a subject. The tools and exercise she’s learning at Summer Institute will help her do this, she says.

“Another challenge of teaching SU’s writing courses to my Vietnamese students is anchoring the texts they will analyze in experiences they understand,” Carreiro says. “They might not necessarily know the references to American culture in our books, so I’m curious about how to adapt my course so that it is relevant and interesting to them.”

Also new to Summer Institute this year are two additional “core strategies workshops,” customized for 7th- 10th grade teachers, that continue SUPA’s longstanding commitment to offer its secondary school partners relevant, practical and leading-edge professional development opportunities. These workshops—“Strategic Learning” and “Reading With Purpose”—give teachers the tools they need to impart college readiness skills (such as effective note taking, active reading and critical thinking) to college-bound students.

The Williams family was unable to attend the Oswego awards assembly, so Skinner’s award was announced at the assembly, and he was presented the official plaque later at his graduation.

“When any family loses a service member, it impacts the entire community,” says Ed Stacy, an Oswego High School economics teacher who also teaches SU economics at his high school through Project Advance. Stacy notes that Williams’ parents are both well known in the community—his father, Alan, taught at Minetto, N.Y. Elementary School and his mother, Gay, is a local attorney. “There was a large public outpouring at the news of Nathan’s passing because so many students had been taught by his father,” says Stacy. “So, I reached out to the SU Economics Department and Project Advance to see if there was a way to honor Nathan’s memory at Oswego High School.”

Williams’ family is also connected with SU. His mother attended ���ϲ����� College of Law, and Nathan and his two brothers all took SU economics at Oswego High School through Project Advance. After graduating high school, Nathan attended the University of Rochester through the ROTC program, before joining the Navy in 2004 and serving in Afghanistan. In April 2011, Williams, then 28, was killed in a plane crash during a training mission in California.

It’s Stacy’s job each year to choose the recipient of the Williams Scholarship Award. This year, he turned to one of his SU economics students. True to the memory of Nathan Williams, Skinner stood out—he is an accomplished athlete, he is in the top 15 in his class, and he is planning to go through the ROTC program at SU. “He’s just an outstanding member of his school community; highly respected by his peers and teachers, and he comes from a great family,” Stacy says.

Skinner took advanced classes, such as SU economics, throughout high school and served as the captain on the all-league soccer team for two years. In addition, he was involved with the television program at his school, doing play-by-play and color commentary for sports broadcasts in the winter season. “The kids respect him for his intelligence and his integrity,” Stacy adds.

“Everything I do, I’m leading,” says Skinner, reflecting on the leadership roles he has taken in his school projects. “That’s what I want to do in life.”

Skinner says that he will be attending SU in the fall through ROTC on a full scholarship and that he plans to go into the armed forces, like Williams. His aspirations also include completing the pre-med program and becoming a radiologist. “Getting the award was completely unexpected! It means a lot because it comes from Nathan Williams,” he says. “It’s a really good feeling knowing that you’re associated with Nate since he was such a good guy. It makes you want to live up to those expectations.”