Christopher Ogom (’20) is working as the Outreach Coordinator for the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning at George Mason University.
The Stearns Center is a one-stop destination for all George Mason faculty and graduate students seeking to explore and test new ideas for teaching methods and techniques, including online course delivery and integrated instructional design.
A former Rotary Foundation Global Grant Scholar from Marsabit, Kenya, Ogom is, among other duties, tasked with coordinating communication for two upcoming events: the annual Innovation for Teaching and Learning (ITL) conference and planning for the Teaching Excellence Award (TEA).
“I inform faculty of their options, schedules, and status in relation to workshops, orientations, and reach out to event sponsors,” Ogom said. “I will be conducting interviews for course instructors to identify the extent to which the instructors who have completed Stearns Center workshops that presented new strategies apply that learning to their course design and implementation. I also handle social media platforms for the center.”
Ogom said that he wants to use this position to enhance his organizational skills. He sees the role as an opportunity to put into practice his skills in planning, managing, and coordinating events. He said that his new job has already contributed to his understanding of how events are organized in higher education. Ogom will also be able to lean on lessons learned at the Clinton School.
“The program planning, communication, and interpersonal skills I gained during my Master of Public Service course work in project planning and management, field research, practicum, and communication at Clinton School are vital in enabling me to do my job efficiently,” Ogom said.
For his final Capstone project, Ogom collaborated with the Chicks for Children Foundation in Kenya to develop a needs assessment report on challenges facing youth in the Kargi and Korr communities of Marsabit County. The focus of Ogom’s study were educational concerns, unemployment, and drugs and substance abuse.
As part of his International Public Service Project, Ogom returned to his home country in the summer of 2020 to work with the Marsabit County Government and FAO Kenya, a specialized agency of the United Nations, to create awareness for community land registration processes.
During his first year at the Clinton School, Ogom worked on a Practicum team that assisted the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality in researching opportunities to repurpose two large mobile trailers previously used in energy-efficiency education.
“Education is one of my public areas of interest and working in higher education in a first-world country is an opportunity I want to explore to enable me to get a better understanding of how the education system is being managed and run,” Ogom said of his position at George Mason. “This will give me an opportunity to borrow ideas that I can share back when I return back to my country, Kenya, on ways in which the education sector can be improved.”
In addition to his MPS from the Clinton School, Ogom is a graduate of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa with a degree in commerce and finance. He worked as a procurement, logistics, and administration consultant at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries, and volunteered at Kargi Catholic Dispensary as a health educator.
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