天美传媒

by Erin Donohue

For Janine Sena-Saputo, M.A. ’03, teaching runs in the family. But she began her career in marketing and communications for Target Corporation and Liz Claiborne Inc. after earning a degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, she decided to switch gears鈥攖o leave Manhattan and change careers.

鈥淚 realized that it鈥檚 not about handbags, it鈥檚 about doing something good in this life,鈥� the Merrick, New York, native said. 鈥淚 gave my two weeks鈥� notice and started classes at 天美传媒.”

While attending classes on Adelphi鈥檚 Garden City campus, Ms. Sena-Saputo became a substitute teacher in the . Thanks to Adelphi鈥檚 flexible class schedule, she took classes on Sundays and two evenings a week to earn a master鈥檚 degree in the .

鈥淚 wanted to get through school quickly and Adelphi鈥檚 graduate program lasted a year and a half with summer school and the student teaching,鈥� she said. After graduating, she became a fifth-grade teacher at in Greenlawn, New York.

Ms. Sena-Saputo credits her time at Adelphi for her success in the classroom鈥攚hich led her principal to nominate her for Long Island Teacher of the Year in 2011. After receiving that award, she was named New York State Social Studies Teacher of the Year for the 2012鈥�2013 academic year.

鈥淭o be a really great teacher, you have to be kind, organized, flexible, caring, loving and inquisitive,鈥� she said. 鈥淪omebody who is a lifetime learner and doesn鈥檛 get set in their ways. Somebody who has the ability to change because day-to-day life in the classroom is never the same.鈥�

For Ms. Sena-Saputo, inspiration has come from the first teacher she ever met鈥攈er dad.

鈥淢y father was a history teacher,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e would spend lots of time touring Long Island and New York City when I was younger, and he would give tidbits of information that I thought were silly but am now just inspired by.鈥�

Ms. Sena-Saputo has honed an ability to teach a lesson in a way that makes a lasting impression on students. A case in point is how she teaches her fifth-graders about taxation during the : using 10 M&Ms as currency and taxing the children in class who are wearing jeans.

Many of Ms. Sena-Saputo鈥檚 former students still keep in touch with her. 鈥淚 think what I鈥檓 most proud of is leaving some sort of imprint on their lives,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 have a group that visits or writes to me via email. They talk to me about how inspiring some of my lessons were.鈥�