COLUMBIA, MD, August 22, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to name Diane Louise Merriam a Lifetime Achiever. An accomplished listee, Ms. Merriam celebrates many years' experience in her professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes she has accrued in her field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Diane Merriam is a noted Maryland Educator who grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. As part of her early education, she studied both piano and dance at Peabody Preparatory, taking part in various musical performances and festivals. At age twelve she became a piano student of Dorothea Ortmann and also studied music theory with Dorothea's father, Otto Ortmann, former Director of the Peabody Conservatory. At that time she became a junior performing member of The Baltimore Music Club. During her years at Towson University (1962 - 1966) she participated on stage in musical theater with the Glen Players. Her piano music was always a serious hobby that she shared with her father, a Baltimore dentist.
As an educator, Diane has taught levels from kindergarten to community college, originally as an elementary teacher, and later as an English as a Second Language (ESOL) teacher. She is certified at the Advanced Professional Level and has achieved Master Teacher status in the State of Maryland. She holds a B.A. degree in history from Towson University (1966), an M.A. in education from Teachers College, Columbia University (1970), and an M.A. in English as a Second Language/Cross-cultural Studies (1998) from the University of Maryland at Baltimore County.
After graduation from Towson she began teaching elementary school in Baltimore County Public Schools. Needing a change after fifteen years, she began doing odd jobs seeking a new direction. These jobs included working as a Home and Hospital teacher in Howard County, Maryland; doing English Language tutoring for the Foreign Immigrants Referral Network in Columbia, Maryland; and teaching ESOL for the Montgomery County Adult Education Program, also in Maryland. She continued private piano lessons on the side. While at UMBC she became a graduate assistant at Northwestern High School in Prince George's County, working with language minority students to enable them to gain entrance to college.
After obtaining her degree in ESOL, Ms. Merriam became the work-study grantee to the Kanagawa International Association in Yokohama, Japan through the Maryland Sister States Program. Her main job was teaching adult students at various levels of proficiency to improve their spoken English. The other part was to learn about Japanese culture and to do a research project on one particular aspect of Japanese culture. This was one of her favorite jobs, from 1998 - 2000. Her students helped her with her research on sake production in Kanagawa Prefecture. Upon her return to Maryland, she presented the results of her action research on the learning styles of Japanese students at the national TESOL Convention in 2001.
Back in the United States, Ms. Merriam worked in conjunction with the Department of Labor at the George Meany National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland to teach English to Colombian Trade Unionists who were brought to the US to give them a respite from the violence labor unionists were then experiencing in their own country. Upon completion of that project, she became an adjunct professor at Baltimore City Community College and Prince George's Community College (PGCC) in suburban Washington, and then attained the status of full time Associate Professor at PGCC. For the last five years of her full time career, she taught ESOL to middle school newcomers at Martin Luther King School also in Prince George's County, serving two years as department chair.
Now retired, Ms. Merriam still sometimes substitutes, but most of her time is spent in some important volunteer organizations. She works with the Washington International Piano Arts Council (WIPAC) promoting outstanding non-professional pianists and has served as the Vice President for the last two years (2015-2017). She also maintains her involvement with the Maryland Sister States Program in the Secretary of State's Office in Annapolis, Maryland. She is on the Kanagawa/Maryland Sister States Committee. In 2015, she promoted the Kanagawa Festival of Music, a sharing of performances between American and Japanese pianists aided by her former students. Ms. Merriam performed in the festival to show her deep love and appreciation for her former students, now her friends. Ms. Merriam has often brought her love of music to the United Methodist Church, singing in the church choir, or playing piano for the Cherub Choir.
Ms. Merriam hopes to do some research and writing on topics in local Maryland history, particularly on the role of German soldiers in the Civil War. Her great grandfather was a bugle boy for the Union Army. Ms. Merriam enjoys travel, language study, swimming, and of course classical music. She has traveled to fifteen different countries in the world.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to her profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Diane Louise Merriam has been featured on the Marquis Who's Who Lifetime Achievers website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
About Marquis Who's Who :
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America , Marquis Who's Who has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who's Who website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.
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