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Outstanding Young Alumni 2007

The Outstanding Young Alumni Award is presented to up to two alumni of Stetson University who are 35 years of age or younger. The award recognizes contributions to society, to a profession, or to Stetson University. Recipients must demonstrate significant accomplishment or promise in their fields; leadership; or civic, cultural, or charitable involvement.

Sara E. Cotner '99

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An American Studies major at Stetson, Sara Cotner received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1999, with minors in English and Women and Gender Studies. At Stetson, she worked on The Reporter, serving as managing editor in 1998, and organized Common Ground, a student club working for understanding of diverse sexualities. A member of the Honors Program Executive Council, Cotner edited the Honors newsletter. She was a project supervisor for the Stetson Institute for Social Research, conducted a Stetson Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) study of sexuality education in elementary schools and co-taught American Studies and Economics courses. In 1999, she won the June Brooks Award for Activism, the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award and received honorable mention in the Florida College Student of the Year search.

Now director of teacher evaluation at Teach for America, Cotner works to help more than 4,400 teachers in rural and inner city communities. She also is a sixth grade reading teacher at YES Prep, a charter school for under-served students in Houston. She has recruited and trained more than 400 volunteers to work as reading tutors in public schools in Tampa for AmeriCorps, and taught third grade in rural Louisiana for Teach for America and sixth-grade English at KIPP Academy.

Cotner founded her own consulting firm, Catalyst Consulting, in 2005, during a self-funded sabbatical, to help schools strengthen their literacy programs. Having helped start a school and tutoring program in Houston for children living in the Astrodome after Hurricane Katrina, she then joined the national staff of Teach for America.

In 2002, she was named a Teach for America Sue Lehman national finalist and the Wal-Mart Louisiana State Teacher of the Year. She also won a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to participate in a month-long seminar for educators.