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GREENSBURG, PA- Dr. Lee Tobin McClain, associate professor of English and director of the writing popular fiction graduate program at ��������Ƶ College, was named Professor of the Year by ��������Ƶ College’s students, faculty and staff. As part of her recognition, McClain will speak at the College’s Honors Convocation on May 11th at 3:30 p.m. in Cecilian Hall. McClain will address the class of 2001. She plans to encourage students to embrace their gifts instead of wishing they had someone else’s gifts. McClain also wants to challenge the seniors to not only use their talents, but to share them with others. A fiction writer whose romance novel, Mountain Home was published by Silhouette Books, Dr. McClain’s short fiction has appeared in The Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Single Scene, and other publications. McClain earned her Ph.D. and her M.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder and completed her B.A. at Ohio State University. She has been a member of the faculty at ��������Ƶ since 1992. During her time at the College, she has served as director of the Master of Arts in writing popular fiction, chair of the English Department and co-chair of the Middle States Steering Committee. She has also served on the graduate council, faculty development committee, the freshman seminar advisory board, and several search committees. Students in the Writing Popular Fiction program participate in to two week-long residencies per year and complete the rest of the coursework online with mentors. The coursework involves writing a novel-length manuscript, which is the thesis for the master's degree, in addition to critiquing group work and writing book reports and self-analyses. Dr. McClain works one on one with a group of students, serving as their mentor, in addition to helping all of her students that request assistance with their writing projects. McClain noted that many of the papers she has written and presented at seminars are based on techniques of teaching that she’s found successful in her classes. She says she enjoys taking what she’s learned and sharing it with others in the academic field. In addition, McClain has also served the community as a weekly volunteer for the Beginning with Books Family Literacy Program, a program where volunteers read books to low-income children. She also served as the faculty advisor for the Ready to Read Community Literacy Program where she took her literature class to a local Head Start Center in Greensburg and had her students read to small groups of children. “It has been my goal to get my students to take literature out of the classroom,” McClain said. “Sitting in a corner and reading and thinking does no good for anyone else. It’s important to go out into the community and share our love of books with others. I have tried to instill this in my students. I’ve found that even shy students come alive when they share their gifts with others. It’s a way of bringing people together.”