Our Mission
The Stern Center for Language and Learning is a nonprofit literacy center dedicated to helping children and adults reach their full potential. Through high-quality direct service, professional learning, and research, we are committed to enriching the lives of learners because all great minds don't think alike.
President's Four STAR Vision for the Future of the Stern Center
Since 1983, the Stern Center has been on a remarkable journey. We have transformed how people think about learning and integrated literacy education into the heart of human services. Our mission to help all learners achieve success through a three-fold approach of direct service, professional learning, and research has been inspired by the dedicated work of devoted staff and board members as well as a responsive, grateful community.
The Stern Center Board of Directors invited me to prepare a vision of the Stern Center for the next two decades and beyond. As founder of the Stern Center, I am pleased to respond with enormous pride and appreciation for what this institution has become. I am ever humbled by the Stern Center's evolution from a program serving fewer than 100 students in 1983 to a nationally recognized community resource now providing programs for 1,000 students, 1,500 educators, and countless numbers of parents each year.
Blanche Podhajski, Ph.D., President
Stern Center for Language & Learning
Service
Serve Students from the Cradle to College and Career
- Evaluations
- Instruction
- Professional Learning Programs
Identifying and educating students of all ages who learn differently is at the core of the Stern Center's mission. We now need to extend the scope of the mission from cradle to college to career—a continuum of experiences from which state of the art training, publications, and products emerge.
- Expand the Enrichment Center for Social Communication, Language, and Early literacy
- Extend the Vermont Lab School Collaborative for middle and high school students and educators
- Increase collaborations for adult literacy, e.g., colleges, universities, medical schools, law schools, adult literacy organizations, and rehabilitation programs
- Establish alumni and educator networks
Talent
Nurture and Preserve Expertise
- Personnel Recruitment and Retention
- Internships
The Stern Center must constitute a "professional think tank" for learning. Organizations like the Stern Center are only as good as the people in them. They must be the right people. We must recruit Stern Center staff not only for their technical skills, but also for their teamwork, interpersonal strengths, and commitment to organizational advancement. We must also compensate them at a competitive rate to obtain and retain the best and the brightest.
Access
Enable Affordable Services across the Economic Spectrum
- Cynthia K. Hoehl Institute for Excellence Endowment
- Named Scholarships
- Endowments
The Stern Center needs to be available to all learners regardless of age, learning differences, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The crux of our longevity as a premier learning institution will rest upon excellence in service delivered by skilled individuals to meet different kinds of learning needs.
- Assure quality and diversity across learning differences and disabilities
- Increase capital and endowment fund raising
Resource
An Organization for the State, a Model for the World
- Research
- Information Technology
- Facilities
The Stern Center excels at its three-fold mission of direct service, professional learning, and research. We must strengthen this commitment to learning success for all by being the best community resource and professional think tank for Vermont and a learning resource destination for professionals from around the world.
- Publications
- Products
- Assistantships
At the Stern Center, we envision a world where, through scientific understanding of learning differences and corresponding teaching strategies, learners of all ages and backgrounds will experience personal accomplishment and self-esteem—a world where education as a whole will reach even higher levels of success.