Jan Paschal to Present Greenfield Lecture on Initiatives Benefitting Children
JONESBORO – Jan Paschal, director of the educational foundation Every Child Is Ours, will present the fall 2023 Corinne Sternheimer Greenfield Lecture at Arkansas State University.
Titled “Every Child Is Ours: A Mission to Serve the Arkansas Delta and Beyond,” her presentation will begin at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26, in the Drama Theatre of Fowler Center, 201 Olympic Dr. Admission to the lecture is free, and the public is invited to attend.
First presented in 2004, the annual Greenfield Lecture is funded by an endowment established by the late Drs. Rosalee and Raymond Weiss to honor her mother, Corinne Sternheimer Greenfield, who was born in Jonesboro in 1896.
The Sternheimer family was among the first to support the state agricultural school, established by legislative act in 1909, that has evolved into Arkansas State University. The Greenfield Lecture is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Communication, which coordinates the event.
A graduate of Tuckerman High School, Paschal earned an associate’s degree from Arkansas Tech University and a bachelor’s degree from Henderson State University in family and consumer science.
While teaching home economics at Winnisquam High School in New Hampshire, she was selected by President Bill Clinton to serve as the Secretary of Education’s regional representative for New England.
Paschal established the Every Child Is Ours (ECIO) foundation in 1997 to complement President Clinton’s “America Reads” initiative. She built partnerships between schools across New England and improved educational opportunities for students in schools as far away as Pine Ridge, South Dakota, Kanana, South Africa, and Acuña, Mexico.
After retirement she returned home to Tuckerman and continued her work with ECIO, which positively impacts student success, not only in the Jackson County School System but across the Arkansas Delta. In addition, the ECIO food pantry addresses food insecurity in Jackson County. For the past 20 years, Paschal has continued to inspire students in ECIO partner schools.
Students and faculty at Arkansas State University began participating in ECIO activities in 2014 and have continued to include events supported by the A-State P-20 Educational Innovation Center. More recently, the P-20 Center in partnership with ECIO hosted a Cinco de Mayo event on the A-State campus, where a student dance group from Acuña performed for local school students and A-State students in Fowler Center's Riceland Hall.
For additional details, one may contact Dr. Gina Hogue, associate dean, Liberal Arts and Communication, at ghogue@AState.edu or (870) 972-3973.
