Teacher’s Pet

A good teacher makes a world of difference. And the things they say and do stay with us. By the time he was twenty years old, Gary Dop had lived in 20 different homes. He was a military kid. He never really felt like he belonged. So he focuses on ensuring that students know that they belong – without that, he says, students can’t really learn.

Cayelan Carey spent her childhood in the streams, lakes and old-growth forests of upstate New York’s Adirondack Mountains. Then, she broke her foot and had to spend a summer in a cast. Her dad brought her a jar of lake water to examine under a magnifying glass to cheer her up. Now, she works to ensure that Virginia’s freshwater systems remain healthy.

Jennifer Banning Tomás had a very non-traditional path to higher education. She was a first generation student, AND she was raising school-aged children while she herself was in school. It was her history professors that captivated and motivated her from her associate’s degree all the way to her doctorate.

Jackson Ward was the first federally registered Black neighborhood in the United States. Through the JXN Project, Sesha Moon and Enjoli Moon have reconstructed the gambrel roof cottage of Jackson Ward’s first known homeowner, Abraham Skipwith.