Professor | Pacemaker | Fighter
Jennifer Asimow is a one-of-a-kind teacher at Harold Washington College.
She has traveled to West Africa, studied in France and has taught at HWC for 15 years. Asimow is a part of the Early Child Development program (ECD) in the applied sciences department and plays a big part in bringing that specific program to HWC.
Asimow is part of what she calls the "first generation" of the Child Development program. She began teaching when those who founded the program were preparing to retire and she has played a big part of making the ECD program what it is today.
"When I first came in, the message was always 'Build-Grow, Build-Grow'. Bigger program means more students, offer more and make it more available to fill your classes. That was the message, so that's what I did," Asimow said.
"We prepare people to work with children from ages of birth to age 8 (early childhood spectrum) and get them ready to go out into the workforce to work with young children or transfer them to a four-year college to get a license to work with young children," Asimow said.
"The program is developmentally based, so we think about learning growth in terms of human development rather than psych or biology. We look at children through a developmental lens. Basically, we prepare teachers," Asimow said.
ECD offers both degrees and certificates to its students. On top of that it is an entitled institution that provides credentials that are issued by the state of Illinois. This ensures students who earn a degree or certificate will be ready to go out and work with children.
Asimow, the longest tenured professor in the ECD program, is proud to be a part of it, but she is devastated by recent moves by the City Colleges of Chicago to consolidate all ECD programs at Harry Truman College.
"I am heartbroken for our program and our students. I feel like the loss of this program is devastating and it is a monumental mistake," she said.
"I think that the sort of domino effect that we will see because of the consolidation of this program is the amount of partnerships that we have and the amount of children we can send out to different parts of the city will have a turn for the worse," Asimow said. "I think it will be terrible."
The ECD programs will move to Truman College with its teachers, including Asimow. "I do not want to leave this place and I don't want to give up this program that I've spent my entire adult career, the place I've worked so hard at."
Asimow said she worked hard getting partnerships with child development centers where she could send her students.
"My students are places in other child development centers because we do not have one based in our school like some of the other city colleges. I go out and visit students all over the place. I sometimes travel to students in Hyde Park to Indiana and all the way up to Norwood Park to do child care visits. We couldn't be accredited if our students weren't getting the training and education they needed," she said.
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