Alumni Profile: Elizabeth Colletti

Throughout her four years at St. Norbert College, Elizabeth kept herself plenty busy with a variety of activities, each of which contributed to her overall growth and maturation.  To enhance her physical growth, she participated on the varsity softball team for all four years.  This also helped to develop her teamwork skills and prepared her to be a future coach.  Elizabeth increased her leadership abilities by working for Residential Life as a Resident Assistant in Burke Hall for her Sophomore and Junior years.  Academically, she furthered her mathematical and thinking skills through positions as Math Club President and Pi Mu Epsilon Vice President.  These roles required Elizabeth to co-chair the annual SNC High School Math Competition and PME Conference.  She also helped out the math department by offering time and knowledge as a math TA and individual tutor.  Her personal development was ultimately tested through an eight-week student teach abroad opportunity in which she lived and taught in an underdeveloped community in St. Lucia, West Indies.  Had it not been for the strong base and extensive support system built at SNC in the three years prior, she would not have been as successful overseas; making it a truly unforgettable and life-changing experience.
 
Propelled into the real world just three days after graduation in May 2008, Elizabeth was hired at De La Salle Institute in Chicago, IL as their Technology Center Manager.  Since the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year, she has switched roles and is now a full-time Math teacher at De La Salle.  A co-institutional school (boys at one campus, girls at another campus), she teaches Algebra I, Algebra II and Trigonometry at the girls’ campus.  The students are part of an innovative Tablet PC program which requires every student to purchase a computer at the beginning of their freshman year.  All note-taking is done on the computer and the majority of their textbooks are loaded as software onto the tablet.  Elizabeth is able to incorporate her knowledge of technology and computer science into her lesson plans.  She has her students use various programs and applications every day to further their understanding of the topics at hand.  She is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Instructional Technology to enhance her abilities to teach with the latest technology.

Elizabeth is on the planning committee for a Women’s Career Day event De La Salle Institute hosts every other spring which brings in professionals from non-traditional jobs to show their students how much potential they have in the future.  As the head junior varsity softball coach for three years, she led strength and conditioning sessions after school and ran open gyms on Sundays where players could work on their hitting and fielding.  Each summer, Elizabeth helps build the master schedule of classes for both campuses at De La Salle.

Elizabeth has always upheld the motto: “Work hard, Play hard” which is why she enjoys having the weekends to catch up with family and friends, go for long runs, paint individual artwork and devour any book she can get her hands on.  Traveling to St. Lucia has infected her with the “travel bug,” so she has also completed trips to Glacier National Park in Montana and a weeklong excursion to Sweden, Denmark and Norway.