Tony Calabrese is a figurehead in the Kinesiology department here at SIU, and when he talks people listen. Tony has worked in the field as a physical education teacher longer then some of the other faculties in the department have been alive. So when he talks about anything related to the field people listen, and this is how he controls the society for the department. Tony has done a lot of great things this month to make him the Faculty/Staff of the month for March.

The first thing that I believe makes Tony deserving of this award is the fact that he has taken more responsibility within the department to make sure things run smoothly. In the Kinesiology department we have had a shortage of teachers for classes this past year, and he has stepped up and helped out with a lot more including a search for another professor. The past month he helped our department chair evaluate and decide on whom they wished to offer a position. This helped the chances that the candidates would be of a higher standard because of Tony being at these initial lunch meetings with candidates. There were some candidates that knew who Tony was before they even arrived. The candidates knew that the bar was set higher now that Tony was there making the decisions if they got an offer.

The next thing that Tony did this past month that was outstanding was his planning of the 8th annual Southern Illinois Health and PE conference. This is a conference held for local teachers and also for the students of the kinesiology department. Also for students the conference is free of charge because Tony believes it is important that PE teachers of the future get a chance to learn and make connections early on. Tony was the founder of this conference and has made it better every year that it has been around. Tony has organized this event for the past eight years by doing things mostly by him in order to make the conference a great time. He has brought in many different speakers that are well known around the state and the country including a national teacher of the year final candidate. Brining in so many great presenters is important to making a conference something that stands out and will be remembered. This conference was one of those that stood out to me, and a lot of other teachers and attendees of the conference. There were many new and exciting topics at the conference, which included cup stacking, warrior training, and many others. The people that attended that conference all agreed that this was a very beneficial conference to them. For the teachers in the area they said that they learned a lot about new things they could try in their classrooms, and for the students they said they learned some new activities that they will use in their curriculums when they teach. In addition the students said they made a lot of positive networking connections.

Finally Tony has just been a great teacher to the students studying physical education and myself included. He takes time to make sure the students understand the concept he is explaining he is truly a teacher who cares about the students more than him.

Tony is the one who tells the stories in our classes and department, and he is clearly the one person who controls the society. I believe all these things are what make Tony the Institutional Faculty/Staff for the month of March.

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