Valerie Jensen
The University of Albany Alumni Association has chosen Valerie Jensen of Ridgefield (University of Albany, ’96) to receive its 2016 Excellence in Community Service Award, for her work with adults with disabilities.
After graduating from Albany, Jensen received her master’s degree in education from Binghamton University. She discovered a passion for combining creativity and teaching while teaching second grade in Somers, N.Y. After moving to Ridgefield in 2002, she began writing and directing musicals and films with SPHERE, and discovered her love for directing theater and working with people with disabilities, which led to the founding of the Prospector Theater. Since opening in November 2014, more than 160 Prospects have benefited from employment, and more than 150,000 people have purchased tickets.
While struggling to read Shakespeare at the University of Albany, she found that the use of adaptive technology is necessary in teaching and learning. By watching recordings of plays and following along with the text, she was able to understand the plays. From drawing cartoons in the margins of the plays, she created visual notations that she needed to follow the stories. In 2012 she published a Romeo and Juliet coloring book that was a storyboard for an award-winning short film screen adaptation of SPHERES’s Romeo and Juliet. She credits her time at Albany as having awakened her thinking and creative approach to problem solving, essential in her roles in teaching and the business at the Prospector Theater.
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