Tu Lynn Sommerfeld

Research Interests

• Nature-Based Learning
• Family Partnerships in Education
• Student Teaching

Local Community Memberships/Involvement

• Crookston Early Childhood Initiative
• Celebrate the Young Child

Responsibilities

• Oversees the day to day operations of the Early Childhood Development Center.
• Responsible for ensuring developmentally appropriate practice is present at all times in all of the classrooms.
• Oversees the design, implementation, and evaluation of curriculum. Establishes and implements plans and practices to address children's special developmental needs.
• Responsible for managing parent connection and relationship. Addresses and assists with any parent questions or concerns.
• Responsible for adherence and ensuring that the program is in compliance with national, state, and university rules and regulations.
• Supervise staff and student workers.
• Operational Role.
  Modifies practices and procedures to improve efficiency and quality; searches for better ways to effectively achieve end results by, for example, scheduling work steps, arranging/re-arranging the way work is generally performed, and adding or deleting elements of processes as necessary.
• Scope of Measurable Impact.
  Actions tend to affect a department or critical project outcomes; performance results tend to relate to efficiency, degree of waste/cost overruns, quality/continuous improvement, timeliness and resource allocation/effectiveness.
• Independence and Decision-Making.
  Mostly works independently according to standard operating procedures (may develop some processes/procedures); generally responsible for keeping processes moving in a productive direction, and will look for supervisory approvals when changes to process steps are considered and additional resources for task completion required.
• Complexity and Problem Solving.
  Problems are increasingly difficult to identify and are sufficiently difficult that they cannot be solved using existing practices and procedures; may have to respond/adapt to changing conditions or circumstances, necessitating enterprise and new approaches. 

Educational Background

• B.S. in Early Childhood Education with an emphasis in Primary Education
• M.A. in Early Childhood Education from Concordia University-St. Paul, MN