January 23, 2015

Campus Connections, In the Spotlight, Jan. 26

Student spotlight: Maisarah Miskoon, from Singapore to SMCC

Maisarah Miskoon is a long way from home – nearly 10,000 miles. But she’s found a new home at SMCC far from her homeland of Singapore. She’s enrolled in the Liberal Studies program, is a vice president in the Phi Theta Kappa honor society, is a coordinator for the Captain’s Cupboard and writes for The Beacon. Maisarah, who previously earned a nursing degree in Singapore, plans to transfer to a four-year college or university after graduation this spring. “I came to SMCC to study liberal studies and find out what I’m good at and interested in besides nursing and the health field. I’ve taken a lot of classes. I took philosophy, I took anthropology, I took women’s studies, and I decided that Literature was it.”

Alumni Spotlight: Deb King and Mary Partridge go from college to preschool

Deb King and Mary Partridge started their own preschool business immediately after graduating from SMCC’s Early Childhood Education program in 1999. Their pre-school, A Child’s World in Windham, now has 43 families enrolled in its morning preschool, all-day preschool and after-school care programs. Before coming to SMCC, Deb and Mary had been stay-at-home moms, raising three children each. From the start, they liked SMCC’s childhood education philosophy focused on hands-on, play-based, child-directed learning. “We knew the philosophy at SMCC was what we wanted to incorporate into a business,” says Deb. “It’s the philosophy we embraced and we believe in.”