Two Osseo Area Schools employees, who were previously invited to take part in learning and development opportunities that were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, now have the chance to participate in their respective programs within the next year.
Kristen Hauge
Kristen Hauge, principal of Osseo Area Learning Center and the Distance Learning Academy, was awarded a Fulbright Leaders for Global Schools Program grant from the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board last winter. The grant will take her to Finland in January 2022 for an intensive 10-day program to learn about best practices for enhancing student learning and preparing them for careers and citizenship in a global economy.
Hauge is one of only 20 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad through the Fulbright Leaders for Global Schools Program next winter. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential. Hauge has been principal at Osseo Area Learning Center since 2016.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many areas, including 59 who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, 84 who have received Pulitzer Prizes, and 37 who have served as a head of state or government.
Megan Thompson
In May 2019, the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation, of Alexandria, Virginia, named Megan Thompson one of its 53 James Madison fellows. A social studies teacher at Osseo Senior High, Thompson was the only teacher in Minnesota to earn this fellowship in 2019. After pandemic-related delays, she will now begin her fellowship program this June.
James Madison Fellowships support the graduate study of American history by aspiring and experienced secondary school teachers of American history, government and civics. Named in honor of the fourth president of the United States and acknowledged “Father of the Constitution and Bill of Rights,” a James Madison Fellowship funds up to $24,000 of each fellow’s course of study toward a master’s degree.
The award is intended to recognize promising and distinguished teachers, to strengthen their knowledge of the origins and development of American constitutional government, and thus to expose the nation’s secondary school students to accurate knowledge of the nation’s constitutional heritage.
Pictured in the attached images are Kristen Hauge (first photo) and Megan Thompson (second photo).
