Welcome!

My name is Todd Van Auken.  Although I was born in St. Petersburg, Florida, I spent most of my childhood traveling the country and the world with my family.  My father was an Army officer whose various duties and jobs took us to opposite coasts of the U.S. and as far as Heidelberg, Germany.  His last assignment before retirement was Professor of Military Science at the University of Tampa, where for four years he taught and mentored Army ROTC cadets.  He was then and still is now an inspiration to me.

In 1993, after my high school graduation, I moved back to St. Petersburg in order to take the prerequisite coursework needed for admittance into the St. Petersburg Junior College Radiography Program.  A fractured elbow that kept me from following my father’s footsteps in the military actually sparked my interest in x-ray technology.  I graduated from the program and began my career as a radiologic technologist in 1998.  For almost two years I worked at Bayfront Trauma Center, incidentally the hospital of my birth, until receiving a job offer as an Interventional Radiology tech at St. Anthony’s Hospital, also in St. Pete.  After three years, I transferred to Baycare Outpatient Center and learned Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).  During my time there, I received a BA in Business Management from Eckerd College (2005) and an MA in Career and Technical Education from USF (2008).

I continue to work as an MRI tech on a part time basis, but my current job is by far, the most rewarding.  In 2011, after spending four years as an adjunct instructor for the St. Petersburg College Radiography Program, I was hired on as a full time associate professor and Clinical Coordinator.  In addition to teaching various courses, labs, and clinics, I am responsible for correlating my students’ didactic coursework with their clinical education.  It is such a privilege to work in the very program that gave me a worthwhile and rewarding career.  In addition, I am honored to have my former instructor, now the program director, as a mentor.

My ultimate goal is for my students to have success and gain as much out of the career as I have.  I want my students to feel confident about their preparation and I want employers to place my graduates at the top of résumé piles.  These were the reasons I was drawn to the CWE Program.  Topics that interest me are CTE faculty development and how CTE prepares students for the workforce.  I am confident that the program will help me improve as an instructor which in turn will carry over to my students’ achievement.