By Katie Camario

Music Teacher Recognized for Innovation

January 31, 2023 | As you approach the music classroom of Corpus Christi Catholic School, you can already start to hear the strumming of the ukuleles and the sound of singing. 

“It's a joy walking into that room,” said school Principal Kelly Kearney. “I just I love it, it's joyful.”

That's where you will find Matthew Jones teaching students in sixth through eighth grade how to play the ukulele. 

“Everybody's first experience with music is singing something. When you give someone a ukulele that is just in their hands, it trains their hands similar to the way a flute does, but nothing is preventing you from singing and you get that experience as well,” he said.  

Jones, calls his music program, Uke Can Play. It’s a well-developed music curriculum for teaching students to play the ukulele with simple instruction.

“I thought, maybe there's a way to approach music from the angle of somebody who is listening and creating music. And then later, if you want to learn the rules, once you have a foundation and an ability to express yourself musically, then the rules are going to follow,” he said.

Jones was recently recognized as an exceptional educator who is creating a lasting educational impact through grassroots innovation by the FACTS Teacher Innovation Award sponsored by FACTS Education Solutions.

He was one of the hundreds of teachers across the country nominated for the award which shines a light on creative teachers making a difference through bold initiatives.

“The innovation is the teaching to a large group of students all at once,” said Jones. “I think that I've cracked the code a little bit on how to bring this to the large group setting.”

During music instruction, the class can learn to play an entire song as a whole, with each student playing at their own individual level.

 “I really like music. The ukulele is small, and I find it easier than a guitar. It's very fun,” said Dayana, a seventh grader at the school.

Catholic education has a long legacy of being well-rounded and helping children develop in a variety of different ways, including music education.

“Many of our students, especially here in our school, are not able to afford outside lessons which are very expensive for families. So, giving them the opportunity here is extremely important to me as a principal. I think when you look at a music teacher who's so passionate about music, it's important to him too,” said Kearney.
 

Dr. Peter Chang, MD is an internal medicine specialist in Tampa FL. and has been affiliated with Tampa General Hospital for many years. Dr. Chang currently serves as Vice President of Care Transitions. In collaboration with the organization, he is focused on designing the care frameworks and architecture for advanced healthcare coordination. These frameworks will provide personalized care navigation through the  longitudinal patient experience. The foundation for this ongoing transformation will focus on technology, safety, access, experience, education, provider and team member engagement. The primary goal is to provide the best care possible for all patients, and to do so in a timely manner. Length of stay reduction powered by technology enabled world class healthcare.
 
Dr. Chang and his team have been recognized and honored as one of the world's top 10 smart hospitals!

Dr Chang also serves as Chief Medical Informatics officer and is currently an Assistant Professor at USF, where he also graduated college.

We are extremely proud of Peter Chang MD and of all his accomplishments. We look forward to many great things he will contribute in the future.

Congratulations Dr Peter Chang!
 

The newly ordained Reverend Connor Penn has been assigned as Parochial  Vicar of St. Catherine of Sienna.  Fr. Connor completed his theology studies at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida, after having earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami. A proud alumnus of Corpus Christi Catholic School, Fr. Connor attended the school for ten years and cherishes the friendships, memories, and Christian values that have remained with him since graduation. He continued his education at Jesuit High School and later Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, before entering the seminary in 2012. Fr. Connor served as Deacon here at CCCC on many occasions and blessed us with his presence often. He received Holy Orders in May of 2020 and celebrated his first Mass in that same church in which he gathered with the rest of the Corpus Christi Catholic School community for so many Wednesdays while growing up. 

John Michael Kovac (born 1970) is an American physicist and astronomer. His cosmology research, conducted at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, focuses on observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) to reveal signatures of the physics that drove the birth of the universe, the creation of its structure, and its present-day expansion. Currently, Kovac is Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Harvard University.

Education and early life

Career

John was the principal investigator of the BICEP2 telescope, which was part of the BICEP and Keck Array series of experiments.  Measurements announced on 17 March 2014 from the BICEP2 telescope appeared to support the idea of cosmic inflation, by reporting the first evidence for a primordial B-Mode pattern in the polarization of the CMB.  Further analysis revealed this result to be spurious, and that the signal had been contaminated by interstellar dust in the Milky Way.

Awards
In 2013 John received the National Science Foundation Career Award. In 2011 he was selected as a Sloan Research Fellow. He was awarded the 2002–2003 Sugarman Award by the Enrico Fermi Institute.