Toni Tollerud once spent weeks helping a high school senior build the strength and confidence to do a simple somersault. The experience taught her lessons about teaching that she has never forgotten and 40 years later students are still flipping for her.
“Toni epitomizes what a teacher needs to be. She always makes you give your vey best,” says Sandra Kakacek, a counselor with 20 years experience who came back to school to experience the counseling program Tollerud helped create.
When she arrived at NIU, in 1990, Tollerud was given the challenge of improving that program. Attacking the task with her trademark zeal she reshaped the curriculum and direction of the program for both undergraduate and graduate level students. She also created the Illinois School Counselors Academy to improve the skills of counseling practitioners, and the School Counselor’s Institute which works to help educators who wish to make the transition from the classroom to counseling.
Her efforts have been so successful that she (along with a devoted legion of former students) has been at the forefront of a revolution in the role of school counselors in Illinois, putting the state in the forefront of the developmental guidance movement nationwide.
As exciting as that work is, Tollerud is still at her happiest when she is in front of a classroom.
“Teaching energizes me,” she says. “Students in my classes are there because they want to do a better job as counselors, teachers or administrators and my goal is to help them be more passionate about what they are doing.”