Staff

Emily Vowiell, Executive Director - Email Emily

  Julie Barker, Office Manager/Bookkeeper- Email Julie

 Eleanor Craig, Discovery Trails Program - Email Eleanor

Eleanor Craig is a life-long learner and educator whose passion for the Oregon Trail and the 19th Century began in 1972 and has included two Trail treks guiding high school students the full 2000 mile length of the Oregon Trail. Eleanor's interest, experience, and expertise in experience-based learning and teaching spans thirty-five years. Her early professional training in mathematics education at Webster and Harvard Universities occurred in the 1960s when use of hands-on materials and experience-based problem solving were an essential part of the "New Math." Eleanor was the founding Director of the Webster University Master of Arts in Teaching Program in Interdisciplinary Studies, a program for in-service elementary and junior high teachers which focused on thematic studies uniting the core disciplines, including the arts. The program introduced Kansas City public school teachers to the methods of integrated studies used in the British open classroom and to Montessori methods of curriculum development.
With the support of a Danforth Foundation Fellowship, Eleanor completed doctoral studies at Boston University in Adult Education, conducting participant observation research on the process of adult learning and change in daily-life settings. For six years, Eleanor worked with a group of Kentucky farmers, using her skills in non-formal teaching and learning to help working farmers master the art of community organizing and political lobbying. Returning to Kansas City in 1995, Eleanor joined the staff of Accessible Arts as Executive Assistant, a position that gives full play to her organizational and writing skills. A chance remark to the Superintendent of the Kansas School for the Blind, where Accessible Arts has its offices, re-ignited Eleanor's Oregon Trail interests...And the rest is a wonderful adventure in history!