Janice Koppenhaver
As a teenager, I volunteered to answer phones at a crisis counseling center and learned that most people just need time to talk and sort out issues in their lives. At UNC-Greensboro, this interest led me toward community health education, having grown up working along side my mom organizing health fairs and other community events.
My professional career has been spent in health care agencies, local government, and colleges as an educator. My love for health education took to Granville-Vance District Health Department teaching family planning and prenatal classes in clinics, family life education classes in middle schools and high schools as well as teaching classes for a local community college and UNC-G. I also worked in two staff development positions at Murdoch Center in Butner, NC, and the Town of Chapel Hill. In 1998, my family moved to Minnesota where I worked as the pre-health advisor in the Career Center at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. While in Minnesota, I received my master’s degree in public administration from Minnesota State University, Mankato.
We returned to beautiful North Carolina in July, 2004 to be closer to our families when my husband, David, took a position as a professor in the Reich College of Education. Our three sons are in Hardin Park Elementary, Watauga High School and Catawba College. Our two younger sons play soccer and basketball, so we spend a lot of time at games and practices. Our oldest son is a technical theater major so we intersperse soccer and basketball games with theater performances. I guess that makes me a basketball, soccer, theater mom. In my “spare” time, I volunteer with Watauga County Habitat for Humanity and with the Social Action Committee at my church which works to meet the needs of the local homeless shelter, food bank, Habitat, crisis network, as well as mission trips and international projects in Tanzania.
In January, 2006, I was hired as the assistant director for Teaching Fellows after working for Watauga County Habitat on a project for about six months. Teaching Fellows are the best! I look forward to seeing our students as the future teachers who will change children’s lives and whole school systems! We love the mountains and Appalachian!
