Fipps named Teacher of the Year
Detra Fipps, a 2008 English education graduate and sixth-grade Gifted Language Arts teacher, was named Teacher of the Year at R. Dan Nolan Middle School in Bradenton, Fla.
Fipps also serves as the sixth-grade Language Arts department chair and is a member of the Language Arts curriculum design team for the School District of Manatee County.
“I was quite surprised to learn that I had won Teacher of the Year with it being only my second year at my new school,” she said.
Fipps credits Southern Wesleyan faculty in the School of Education and the Division of Humanities for offering challenging classes that helped her excel as an educator.
“The curriculum provided by SWU instilled within in me a firm foundation of knowledge and ethics,” she said. “I was also greatly encouraged by the positive Christian environment offered at SWU. The faculty inspired me to pursue a stronger faith which I have carried with me since graduation.”
She is married to David Fipps, a 2011 pre-medicine/pre-dentistry graduate, who is in his second year of medical school at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine.