Nicola Work, OWLA President-Elect
Associate Professor of French, University of Dayton
It’s almost summer (yay!) and another great OWLA year is winding down! After the official approval of our election results and a successful OWLA conference at Ohio Dominican University, it’s time to announce our Board Election results. I really want to thank all of our members for participating in the elections. But now, without further ado… here are the election results!
Jane Sevacko was elected as President-Elect and will be on the presidential track for a 3-year term. Jane is a passionate educator with more than a decade of experience teaching American Sign Language through Interactive Video Distance Learning with the East Central Ohio Educational Service Center. She has also spent 13 years teaching at Kent State University and now brings her skills to Fairfax County’s online school in Virginia. Jane is dedicated, driven, and shaping the future one sign at a time.
Gail Burkhardt Seay was elected as Executive Vice President and will be on the presidential track for a 4-year term. Gail has taught Spanish for 11 years. She attended her first OWLA conference in 2014 while working on her M.Ed., and she has looked forward to the yearly conference ever since. Gail currently teaches levels 1, 2, 4, and 5 at Marysville Early College High School. Gail loves teaching because every day is different and interesting. She enjoys working with teenagers and seeing their lightbulb moments when they begin to acquire and produce language. She has helped to organize several teacher workshops through the informal organization Central Ohio Teaching through Comprehensible Input (CO-TCI). Gail lives in Marysville with her husband and five-year-old daughter.
Alexis Blum was reelected as Professional Development Chair for a 3-year term. Alexis has taught Spanish in a variety of manners for the last 10 years. She spent the last seven years teaching Spanish I-IV at Minster High School, serving the district as the sole world language teacher. Currently, she teaches Spanish I, III, and IV at Wapakoneta High School. Alexis has served on various OWLA committees, including the Secondary Language Learning Committee and currently the OWLA Tech Integration Committee. She has also presented at the OWLA conference and is a regular attendee. Alexis has been an active member of OWLA since 2014. Alexis is passionate about finding relevant professional development and committed to growing as an educator. She regularly attends workshops, trainings, and collaboration activities with colleagues.
Kaleigh Baker was reelected as Electronic Publications Chair for a 3-year term. Kaleigh is a Spanish teacher at Covington High School, teaching Spanish I, II, and advanced CCP Spanish III & IV. She has been teaching Spanish for 14 years and has served in various roles within her schools such as department head, curriculum specialist, and ed-tech coordinator. She holds bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and Marketing from The Ohio State University, where her studies included an enriching experience living and studying with a host family in Salamanca, Spain. Kaleigh also earned her master’s degree in Education from the University of Dayton and completed additional master’s-level coursework at Wright State University for her CCP accreditation. A prominent leader in world language education, Kaleigh has been an active member of the OWLA Board since 2019, serving as Tech Integration Chair, President (2023-2024), and Epubs Chair. She is a regular presenter at the OWLA and Central States Conferences.
Nicole Hanlon was reelected as Scholarship Chair for a 3-year term. Nicole is in her 12th year teaching French at Buckeye Valley High School in Delaware, Ohio. She currently teaches Exploratory through French V and advises both the French and Crochet Clubs. She is also the Scholarship and Raffle Chair for OWLA and the treasurer for AATF-Ohio. She also occasionally lectures in the World Language Education program at the Ohio State University and in French at Columbus State Community College.
Jonathan Harris was reelected as At-Large Board Member for a 3-year term. Jonathan is the current Ohio World Language Association Chair of the Early Language Committee. He graduated from Bluffton College (now Bluffton University) with undergraduate degrees in Spanish and Business Administration. He went on to receive a master’s degree in TESOL and Bilingual Education from the University of Findlay. Jonathan has over 20 years of world language teaching experience and he currently teaches Spanish at Saint Gabriel Consolidated School in Cincinnati, Ohio. Jonathan teaches grades K-8 and started the Spanish program there in 2006. Jonathan is a very active member of the profession. He also currently serves on OWLA’S Advocacy Committee, Beginning Teacher Committee and Multilingual Learners Committee. Jonathan served for four years as the Executive Recorder and Editor of The Cardinal and served on OWLA’S Cardinal editing team prior to becoming editor.
Megan Helgeson was reelected as At-Large Board Member for a 2-year term. Megan has been teaching for 14 years in various settings: elementary school, middle school, high school, and at the college level in both small-town and urban settings. She uses a mix of comprehensible input (CI) and organic world language (OWL) methods with a focus on immersion and authentic resources, but she loves going to conferences and learning about new teaching methods and strategies.
Dia Mixon was elected as At-Large Board Member for a 1-year term. Dia has spent two decades helping students become confident intercultural communicators. With a passion for Spanish and Latin American histories and cultures, she curates lessons and builds curriculum that expose students to a wide range of themes and topics. Dia’s experience in many classrooms, from Pre-K to post-secondary, has provided her extensive practice with effective instructional strategies. She enjoys sharing her favorite teaching tools and classroom activities as a presenter at state and regional world language conferences. She currently teaches high school Spanish in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio. When she isn’t teaching, she is writing award-winning children’s books for her publishing imprint, El Mundo Mixon Books.
To our new board members, welcome to the Board. And to our returning board members, welcome back! We are so excited to have you and I look forward to working with you next year.
The Cardinal 