Renee Funke is a Teacher Education professor at SUNY Jamestown Community College. She has taught at JCC since August 2009 and before that was a coordinator for Erie 1 BOCES and a teacher at Pine Valley Central School and at Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES.
In addition to Teacher Education courses, Funke also leads classes in English, psychology, leadership, and physical education at JCC. She is also JCC’s chair of Education programs and is a co-advisor for the college’s Phi Theta Kappa Alpha Kappa Beta chapter and Teacher Education Club.
Funke earned a SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2024.
Funke owns a Ph.D. in Special Education from Northcentral University and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Education from SUNY Fredonia.
What is your background in education and teaching?
Funke: I am a certified teacher. I have an undergraduate in elementary education, but I'm certified pre-K through 6, 7 through 12 English. I'm certified as a reading specialist, which is what my master's degree was in. My doctorate is in special education.
I did everything I needed to apply for special ed certification. So that's kind of my background. My teaching experience was mostly at the middle and high school level.
I did teach alternative ed. I taught in detention centers for incarcerated youth. I have a variety of teaching experience, as well as being a professional developer for in-service teachers at the elementary level mostly.
What attracted you to teaching at JCC?
Funke: I teach at JCC because I like working with the population of students who come here. I enjoy working in the first two years of their program, if they're transferring or helping them get out into the workforce, if that is what their plan is.
I like that we have small classes here. And I think that students don't always realize that.
I know when I was hired here, I remember asking how many students are in a class. Most classes are under 40 and most are even further under that. I really do like those small class sizes. I really get to know my students.
What is your favorite class to teach?
Funke: I love a variety. And that's why I actually teach in a variety of subject areas. I love the classes that are working with future teachers because hopefully I'm helping mold them and help them change the future.
I enjoy anything that has to do with learning and how people learn, which is kind of why I like the psychology classes that I teach.
But there's one thing I like about every course I teach. So, it's just interesting and exciting.
What has been a favorite research or general project you’ve worked on?
I really enjoyed when I did my dissertation. I looked at reading interventions at the middle school level for students with reading disabilities.
However, in our classes, one of my favorite projects is our COIL projects. They're collaborative online international learning experiences. We have students working with other students in Brazil for one class and for another class they work with teacher ed students in China. Those are really exciting and interesting, and students usually get a lot out of them.
Why should a student consider attending JCC?
Funke: I think that we have many more opportunities than students sometimes realize. Even with adult learners, I know sometimes as an adult who has been away from school for a while, maybe you might not be sure about coming back.
But we have a lot of opportunities and different types of coursework in our department. We offer traditional in-person classes, but we also offer hybrids. You can take classes through Zoom.
You can take evening classes. You can take asynchronous online. I think we have a lot of flexibility and options for students to best meet whatever their needs or their situation is.
What does a quality education mean to you?
Funke: A quality education to me is an education that's open to anybody and offers a variety of opportunities that we help guide people to the pathway they're interested in. And sometimes maybe a pathway that they don't realize is available to them.
It's not just putting everybody out with the same experiences and the same coursework, but it's maybe tailoring things a little bit more to each individual. It's differentiated for their needs.
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JCC offers A.S. degrees in Adolescence Education, Childhood Education, and Early Childhood Education, an A.A.S. degree in Early Childhood, and a certificate in Early Childhood Development as part of its Education programs.
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