A Salute to Pat Casey: MOTAL Loves Volunteers

Pictured Above: Greta Nagel, MOTAL CEO/President,
Pat Casey, and Her Daughter, Julie Welch

Along with almost 800 other enthusiastic people from a wide variety of institutions, representatives for The Museum of Teaching and Learning gathered at an in-person luncheon recently to honor the Spirit of Volunteerism and, in particular, to applaud Pat Casey for her many years of dedicated and effective work as a volunteer for MOTAL.

Since 2007, Pat has served in a variety of roles, using her skills and talents to have a positive impact upon students and other museum visitors. It is no surprise that well before she and MOTAL knew about each other, she had been a helpful and beloved teacher and counselor.

Above Photo: MOTAL Advisory Committee -  March 16, 2010

One of Pat’s early museum roles was to serve on an early advisory committee. Before MOTAL was incorporated as an independent nonprofit, it was a creative and scholarly project under the umbrella of the California State University, Long Beach Foundation. The project created two exhibits at CSULB, directed by Greta Nagel with the help and advice of Pat as part of a group of individuals who had various ties to education, museums, and business.

Pat with children at the Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana

When MOTAL earned its own 501(c)(3) status, the research and design for a new exhibition about the important historic court case, Mendez et al. v Westminster School District et al., was in the works. When it was ready to roll out, Pat called upon her prior docent experience to learn deeply about California’s groundbreaking school desegregation, figure out how to guide students through interactive activities and conversations related to the exhibition, and then actually work with visiting groups. She spent many months at the historic Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana. Pat joined the exhibition at other locations, particularly in the city of Buena Park, and most recently in Orange at Santiago Canyon College during the fall of 2022. For months, she drove from her home in Buena Park each week to prepare and coach eight college-student docents and make sure the field trip arrangements were going well. (And fix things when plans went astray, managing busloads of students; rotating groups to keep docent group sizes under 10 when at all possible.) Pat was often the face of MOTAL with visiting school district personnel and with college staff and administrators, especially Vice President Arleen Satele and Interim Vice President, Aaron Voelcker.

Above Pat is Pictured with Vice President Arleen Satele,
and Student Docents from Santiago Canyon College

Pat Casey,
BIO

Pat graduated college with a major in Education and minors in Mathematics and Philosophy. She later earned Master's Degrees in Theology as well as Guidance and Counseling and completed work for credentials in primary and secondary education as well as counseling and administration.


In her career Pat taught in elementary schools grades four through eight and high school mathematics and religion for fifteen years. She then spent twenty years working as a counselor at the middle school level where she offered individual and group counseling, created the master schedule, and worked closely with special needs students and their parents. Following retirement she volunteered at Rancho Los Cerritos as a docent for interactive tours with fourth grade students at the Bixby Ranch. This latter experience was invaluable for her work on the Mendez et. al. versus Westminster et. al. exhibit and student tours.


As Pat reflects, “It has been my delight to work with MOTAL to better understand how we learn and to explore the ways and means by which we become life-long learners.”


Submitted by
Greta Nagel, MOTAL CEO/President
Pat Casey, MOTAL Volunteer, and Board Member