News & Events

The San Gabriel Valley Reading Council's Second Annual Celebrate Literacy Brunch and Awards provided a delightful and professionally rewarding opportunity for a gathering of friends of Mount St. Mary's College:

• Gloria Ramos Gonzalez, President of the San Gabriel Valley Reading Council (Mount alum '96);
• Dr. Shelly Tochluk, Chair of the Education Department;
• Lorenza Arengo-Yarnes, adjunct professor of reading and literacy;
• Maria Valle-Diaz, Mount alum '97; and
• Kieran Vaughan, CSJ, Coordinator, Liberal Studies Major

These MSMC Ed Dept. faculty and alums arrived at the Historic Green Hotel in Pasadena on Saturday morning to meet a variety of authors, share a delicious brunch, and be inspired by keynote speaker, Dr. Tina Bryson.

Dr. Bryson's engaging presentation focused on the topic of her first book, The Whole-Brain Child, currently on the Los Angeles Times Best Seller List. She speaks to parents, educators, and clinicians all across the country and has written for numerous venues, most recently the PBS Series, This Emotional Life. Her use of children's stories makes an already-fascinating subject indelibly printed on listeners' brains (both right and left parts).

Gloria led the group and she was commended for having facilitated the re-establishment of the San Gabriel Valley Reading Council as an active group within the California Reading Association, a professional organization promoting literacy development. In Gloria's junior year at the Mount, she received the prestigious Rockefeller Brothers Fellowship and chose Harvard as the place to obtain her masters degree in Language and Literacy.

Lorenza serves as the Council-Vice President. In addition to teaching in the MSMC Elementary Teacher Preparation Program, she teaches fifth grade at Leo Politi Elementary School in Los Angeles.

Shelly Tochluk was present as one of the featured authors, with her book, Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk about Race and How to Do It.

While at the Mount, Maria completed a major in Liberal Studies with a double minor in English and Spanish. She is currently teaching at Leo Politi Elementary School, not far from the Doheny Campus.

Tina serves as a psychotherapist with Pediatric and Adolescent Psychology Associates in Arcadia, California. Her coincidental connection with MSMC (unknown by some until Saturday) is through her husband, Scott Bryson, Ph.D. a Professor of English at the Mount.