As we begin the spring 2023 semester, ASFA has welcomed two new faculty members to the Math/Science department.
Michael Slanovits, who worked as a long-term substitute for Mrs. Ashley Aderholt at the beginning of the fall 2022 semester, joined the Math/Science faculty full-time in November. He currently teaches Algebra II to the 10th graders, as well as AP Calculus.
Slanovits is not new to education. When he was in high school, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do for a living. He just wanted to keep learning instead.
“I can’t be a student as a career, so being a teacher seemed like a pretty good fit,” he said. He also likes teaching because it offers him a way to help people.
He got a math and an education degree in college. “When I was going into my senior year, I realized I wasn’t ready for [teaching] quite yet,” he said.
So, he took a detour and joined a research program at the University of Illinois Chicago for a couple of years. “I figured that if I wasn’t going to teach, I would at least be doing some form of education.”
He never found what exactly he wanted to research, so in 2012, he moved back to Alabama to get his master’s degree and teaching certificate at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. He worked a series of jobs, including being a tutor for math and ACT prep both online and at Huntsville High School. A few years later, he joined his parents back in Birmingham to do data analysis while working as an online tutor.
He began his second teaching job at Vincent Middle High School. About half the students attended virtually and the classes were small, which helped him ease into it. “I enjoyed it a lot. I got along well with the other teachers and students, so it was really disappointing when they didn’t hire me back for the next year,” he said.
Last year, he moved to Jefferson County and worked to advise other math teachers. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very good fit. “I didn’t have as much experience as the other teachers I was working with, and I didn’t feel like I could advise them effectively,” he said. At the end of the year, he left.
He finally arrived at ASFA teaching as a long-term substitute. He and his wife decided that it would be a good, remote job for when he has his baby. Afterward, he could move on to work for data analysis virtually. However, after working here for a couple months, he was sad to leave.
“I loved working with the students. The other teachers were really supportive and helpful, and everyone here is great,” he said.
He said that he was overwhelmed when there was such a positive response towards him when he left. “Seeing the students dress up like me and all the cards, gifts and notes was very special. It made it hard for me to leave.” Luckily, a new job opened up just in time.
Slanovits is very passionate about math. He likes video games, board games, and puzzles. “I enjoy putting together the pieces, and making sense of things that were not clear before.” “I want to bring that to teaching math as well; treating math like a game that must be unlocked and uncovered.”
Dr. Leann Kinnunen is the most recent faculty addition to ASFA’s Math/Science department, joining the faculty this month.
Dr. Kinnunen took over for Mrs. Rebecca Thrash, who left at the end of the fall semester, to teach AP Biology, AP Psychology, and AP Environmental Science.
With her undergraduate in anthropology and zoology from the University of Michigan and masters and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, Dr. Kinnunen spent the first part of her career as a researcher. Originally pre-med, she decided to go to graduate school instead of medical school because of her passion for research. She spent some of her graduate school years teaching.
Dr. Kinnunen spent three years in Italy teaching at the University of Rome. There, she became fluent in Italian and became the first person in Italy to create a transgenic mouse as part of her research. Dr. Kinnunen has also done research across the United States, including at Columbia University.
She has one child who she chose to stay at home to rear. Now that her son is settled in at Altamont, she decided it was time for the next leg of career.
With her Ph.D. in psychology and human development, Dr. Kinnunen had to decide between teaching or counseling. She began substitute teaching and then got a job here at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.
Complimenting her students here, she said that it’s “fun to teach somebody who understands concepts in a deeper way.”
Aside from her academic career, Dr. Kinnunen was born in Detroit and raised in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP), so is what is known as a yooper. She is also a self-proclaimed animal whisperer. Just the other day, she said, a frog came up and sat on her foot. She has her own dog named Oreo.
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