NOTE: DUE TO AN UNEXPECTED EVENT, DRS. KARADENES AND ESQUIVEL HAVE HAD TO RESCHEDULE THEIR APPEARANCE ON CAMPUS TO A DATE TO BE ANNOUNCED.
It is certainly special for SUNY Fredonia to host a visit by two pioneers in bilingual education, but it’s all the more thrilling when it takes place just weeks following state approval of the College of Education’s new Bilingual Extension program.
And when one of those experts, Dr. Mark Karadenes, is a SUNY Fredonia graduate, it raises the level of excitement another notch for Dr. Christine Givner, dean of the College of Education, and her entire staff leading up to the three-day visit that begins Wednesday, April 28.
“It’s going to be a wonderful opportunity for us to learn more about bilingual education nationally,” Dean Givner said.
Joining Karadenes, a member of the Class of 1953, on campus will be Dr. Rita Esquivel, a former director of the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs, U.S. Department of Education, during the first George Bush administration.
“It’s also a great opportunity for us to share with Drs. Karadenes and Esquivel what our graduate students are doing relating to bilingual education and some of the initiatives in our region around bilingual education,” Dr. Givner added.
More than 15 years have passed since the retired educator and administrator last visited his alma mater. Dr. Karadenes was the recipient of the 1992 Outstanding Achievement Award and a year later was inducted into the SUNY Fredonia Athletic Hall of Fame in honor of his stellar Blue Devil careers in basketball and baseball. In fact, he was a member of the university’s first baseball team and also played for the old Fredonia Concords village semi-pro team.
Karadenes served as assistant superintendent, deputy superintendent and supervisor of secondary education in the Santa Monica, Calif., school district, home to a large Latino population, where he successfully implemented bilingual education programs in the 1980s. He has also worked as a principal, assistant principal and teacher in secondary schools comprised of culturally and linguistically diverse populations in both California and New York. Today, Karadenes operates his own consulting firm, Karadenes and Associates, Inc., in Los Angeles.
“In preparing students to go out to become teachers in Western New York, they have to be prepared to deal with immigrant children who do not speak English,” he said, especially when there’s a sizeable Hispanic population drawn to the region by the large grape industry.
Givner hailed Karadenes as a “real leader and supporter of bilingual education” who makes sure it has a high visibility and that people understand what it is.
Dr. Esquivel’s past leadership positions include director of adult education, assistant superintendent of instruction and director of state and federal projects, all with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. Currently vice president of Karadenes & Associates, she lectures extensively throughout the country on methodology of Second Language Acquisition and teaching of English to Non-English and Limited English speaking children and adults.
As a Bush appointee, Esquivel visited every state that had bilingual education programs and also testified in front of Congress, Karadenes said. As a team, Karadenes and Esquivel have collaborated to secure grants from the U.S. Department of Education for faculty at recipient schools.
Their busy Fredonia itinerary includes meetings with Givner and her staff, Vice President for Academic Affairs Virginia Horvath and President Dennis Hefner, informal gatherings with faculty, graduate students and community leaders and possibly tours of a model bilingual class in Buffalo and preschool for migrant children in Dunkirk. Karadenes, who recalls that only around 1,000 students were enrolled at SUNY Fredonia when he attended, is also expected to visit the newer athletic facilities constructed and renew ties with former area colleagues.
Bilingual Extension becomes the third Certificate of Advanced Studies program at the College of Education, joining School Building Leadership and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). Graduates of the new program will be fluent in a language other than English and also trained to teach that language, as well as English, at the three certification core levels of early childhood, childhood and adolescence education.
Its implementation is also a logical next step for SUNY Fredonia, given the growing Spanish-speaking population in Chautauqua County and the prominent role that the college plays in training future teachers to serve in schools in the region and elsewhere. Bilingual education programs, which have a long history in large cities, are offered in every state, and SUNY Fredonia’s proposal to launch its own program was enthusiastically welcomed by the New York Department of Education.
Family background suggests that Karadenes may have been destined for a career in education and language. He was born in a humble Greek immigrant family on Long Island and grew up fluent in both Greek and English. Karadenes earned a bachelor’s in Elementary Education at SUNY Fredonia and developed a strong interest in bilingual education later in his career when children of immigrant families were entering public schools speaking a primary language of a foreign heritage that their parents spoke at home.
Karadenes has two master’s degrees, one in Administration/Supervision and the other in Political Science/International Relations, as well as a doctorate in education in Administration/Supervision. His dissertation compared the differences in achievement and learning abilities between Anglo and Mexican-American children when the two groups are equated by intelligence.
