People

Founding Directors (2007) and Current Board of Directors

Together the founding and current directors have accumulated many decades of experience as artists, writers, musicians, craftspeople, researchers, educators, and administrators. They have worked in university settings, for public institutions, in the broadcast industry, for private educational institutions, and in public schools throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, Africa, and Australia.

Rena Upitis (President)

Dr. Rena Upitis (Ed.D., Harvard) is Professor of Education at Queen’s University and recently completed a six-year term as National Research Co-director of Learning Through the Arts, a multi-year project that brings artists to the classrooms of over 160,000 students. She is a former Dean of Education at Queen’s University (1995-2000). Rena’s research and curriculum projects have explored teacher, artist, and student transformation through the arts. Rena is a timber-frame carpenter, and has a small design practice specializing in ecologically sensitive designs and materials for residents and retreats. Her current research explores ways that students can develop ecological habits of mind through arts explorations and web-based portfolio tools.

Serena Manson (Vice-President)

Serena Manson (B.Ed., Queen’s University) is a teacher with Mulberry School, a developing Waldorf school in Kingston. She strives to develop curriculum for her students that is of service to each child and to humanity, integrating the arts, environmental education and appreciation, and a kinesthetic approach to learning. Serena is an avid gardener and conservationist. She lives within the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve, where Wintergreen is also located, in a heritage home that has provided her with opportunities to engage in renovation, building, and design.

Helen Turnbull (Secretary)

Helen Turnbull (B.Ed., Queen’s) is a Principal with Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. She brings over a decade of administrative experience to the position. She has been involved with curriculum development for over two decades, including the co-creation, with Rena Upitis, of a high-school cooperative placement program at the Wintergreen site for students in French Immersion. This award-winning program ran for three years in the mid-1990s at Wintergreen before being located at the Ganaraska Forest Centre. Helen lives in a heritage home near Gores Landing, Ontario, and has also been involved in extensive building, renovation, and design projects.

Ann Patteson (Treasurer; term ended September 2010)

Dr. Ann Patteson (Ph.D., Queen’s) is the International/National Director of Research for Learning Through the Arts (LTTA) at The Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto) and is currently developing the new Research Division of The Institute of Creativity, Health and Social Change at The Conservatory. Ann brings twenty-five years of experience as an educator of adults to her work at Wintergreen. In her research, Ann explores the impact of arts-infused education, as well as how the arts may foster understanding of human responsibility to all of earth’s inhabitants and the environment.

Katharine Smithrim

Dr. Katharine Smithrim (Ph.D., Eastman) teaches courses in music and the arts at Queen’s University. Over the last thirty years she has taught music programs privately, and in schools, community colleges and universities. In the 1980s Katharine pioneered music programs for parents with babies and toddlers in Toronto. Along with Bob McGrath of Sesame Street, she has made two commercial recordings: The Baby Record and Songs and Games for Toddlers, the latter a Juno nominee and now a Golden Book Video. Her recent research has focuses on spiritual dimensions in teaching and learning.

Current Directors (2010)

Dr. Ann Patteson, one of our founding directors, completed her term in September 2010. At the AGM in September, we elected a new member to the Board of Directors, Lawence Scanlan.

A writer and editor and a veteran journalist, Lawrence Scanlan’s most recent book, A Year of Living Generously, is about philanthropy and generosity of spirit. It was published by Douglas &McIntyre in the spring of 2010. The eldest of eight siblings, Lawrence Scanlan grew up in a three-bedroom, bunk bed-filled bungalow in a Toronto suburb. His father ran the church hockey and baseball leagues and his sons would all become coaches and his daughters all volunteered in the community. His mother, a geriatric nurse, set an example of understated compassion. When she died several years ago, Lawrence began to ponder her legacy, the mark we humans make in this world and the role of generosity in our daily lives. His most recent book is the outcome of that pondering. Lawrence has been a journalist for almost four decades, working with daily newspapers (editor of The Nelson Daily News in B.C., literary editor of The Whig-Standard in Ontario), magazines (managing editor of Harrowsmith), and in radio with two national CBC programs (producer on Morningside and Writers & Company). He has won numerous prizes for his writing, including three National Magazine Awards. Lawrence is the author or co-author of fifteen books, on subjects ranging from horses to hockey to home. He has a home in Kingston, Ontario, and a cabin in Prince Edward County.

Consultants and Employees

Linda G. Ross is the Strategic Marketing Advisor for Wintergreen. Linda’s unique approach to marketing and communications connects Wintergreen to new ideas, strategies, and people. She is helping Wintergreen build an online community to demonstrate our off-grid perspective on mindful living and creative work. Click here to reach Linda directly.

Dawson Hamilton joined us in January, 2010, as Director of Marketing and Communications. The position was funded in part by the Frontenac Community Futures Development Corporation for the 2010 calendar year. If you’d like to reach Dawson, please email him at dawsonhamilton@gmail.com.

Karen Smereka is the Operations Manager at Wintergreen. She joined the staff in December, 2010 and brings years of relevant experience to the position. In her “non-Wintergreen life”, she is a biologist, teacher, yoga instructor, and outdoor and environmental enthusiast. Karen can be reached at karen.smereka@gmail.com.

“In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have been taught.”

- Baba Dioum