Special Education Major Anthony Daniels Elected New Student Chair

Anthony Daniels isn’t prone to jitters when faced with new challenges. Less than a day after being elected the new NEA Student Program Chairperson, Daniels moved easily from interviews and garnering congratulations from NEA President Reg Weaver to getting back to work with his fellow attendees of the 2006 Student Leadership Conference in Orlando.

“I am just very passionate about what’s ahead,” Daniels said, before sounding a theme from his campaign: “All that I’ve done before now was just the chores. The work begins on August 1.”

Currently the president of the Student Alabama Education Association, the 23-year-old master’s student majoring in special education earned his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Alabama A&M University. He is the first African-American man to become NEA’s student chairperson. He will take over for outgoing chairperson Mandy Plucker.

“He’s a young man who has a lot to offer our profession,” Weaver said Wednesday after embracing Daniels and offering him words of encouragement. “I think he’ll do an excellent job.”

During the next two years, Daniels will represent 60,000 members from 900 colleges and universities nationwide. It is a full-time job that will find him moving among the states to champion the student program goals of community partnerships, pre-professional opportunities, peer mentoring, and recruiting for a diverse membership.

Daniels said he will engage in frequent and direct communications with state and local student leaders and advocate for improved special education training for young teachers facing increased special needs populations and daunting NCLB mandates. He will also lobby for stipends and affordable housing for student teachers—financial pressure being just one area that he knows weighs on his colleagues. In an interview last year with "Tomorrow’s Teachers,"  Daniels spoke about his often-overwhelming experience as a student teacher. “When I was teaching fifth grade, I was so tired I would plan on the weekend so I could try and get a nap after school. I even slept 12 hours straight one night, I was so tired.”

There’s no time for Daniels to rest now, though. After leaving Orlando this week, he is bound for UCLA, where he will work for a month as NEA’s student representative at the National Equity Center ’s Summer Civil Rights and Social Justice Training Institute.

“In two years, I want people to say that I have been an excellent public servant,” Daniels said. Then he was off, working his way through the ballroom to shake hands and talk with fellow students from across the country—his new constituents.

--Cynthia Kopkowski

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