Carl J. Wenning, Ed.D. ’07, will be among five alumni inducted into the College of Education’s Hall of Fame on October 3.
Wenning joined Illinois State in 1978 as the director of the Planetarium. During 22 exemplary years of service in that role, approximately 250,000 P-12 students, university students, and community members attended his planetarium programs. From 1994–2008, he transformed the physics teacher education major from a small program with just five students and two physics teaching methods courses into a nationally recognized program now among the largest and most sophisticated in the country.
Wenning retired in 2008 not so he could do less, “but so I can do more” as he expressed himself then. Since retiring, he has continued to teach part-time in the Department of Physics and has held workshops, lectured, and consulted on a variety of physics teaching topics. In recent years he has worked in Mexico, Chile, and Indonesia. In November he will travel to Brazil to deliver talks at three universities, and then move on to Chile for his fourth such visit. He is slated to return to Indonesia for the fourth time next June.
Wenning, along with his daughter, Rebecca Wenning Vieyra ’07, a former Bone Scholar are putting the finishing touches on a 40-chapter physics teaching textbook titled Teaching High School Physics. Vieyra has been teaching high school physics for seven years and was recently named a 2014–2015 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator by the Triangle Coalition. She is a finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching and currently resides in Washington, D.C.
