An Interview with Nancy Trivette

On Tuesday, April 2, I had the pleasure to interview Nancy Trivette, ACTE Region I Vice President.
Nancy has a very extensive background spanning some 30 years in career and technical education and state and national leadership, and is a very strong advocate for career and technical education.

Nancy is employed by the state of New Jersey as the agriculture education leader and the FFA adviser. She joined ACTE in 1991 and has held many leadership positions within the organization.

She has worked very hard with agriculture educators to promote CASE, Curriculum for Agriculture Science Education, which is an integrative curriculum modeled on Project Lead the Way. Her vision for CTE is to fully integrate the Common Core Standards of literacy, science, mathematics and engineering with the standards of CTE programs into a seamless area of study. She knows that the road is still long, but feels that the audience is much more receptive. She also feels that the key for CASE or any other curriculum based on national standards is enhanced professional development for the instructors. We need to invest in our teachers so they in return the investment for our students.

Nancy spoke of several concerns for CTE, a shortage of ag instructors and the old-school perception of ag education and CTE. Also, she is concerned with the aging of equipment in the labs and schools and the lack of funding for New Jersey and other states in the United States.

She has many goals for herself and for CTE. She wants to continue to serve the state schools and instructors to her highest ability. She hopes to continue with funding and grants to assist the states programs in adopting the CASE curriculum. She wants to see an increase in dual enrollment and enhance articulation agreements between the secondary and postsecondary school programs, and ultimately to have Rutgers University be a college that grants credit to high school students. All in all, she sees the future to be very bright for CTE.

Carol Pelletier is an ACTE Fellow from Region I.