(Butler, PA) The kindergartner extending her tennis shoe toward Hannah Lindsay changed the 17-year-old Moniteau High School cheerleader’s life.
“She was shyly wanting me to tie her laces,” Lindsay said.
Lindsay demonstrated the steps to the brown-haired girl as they sat on the floor of the district’s Dassa McKinney Elementary School gymnasium, saying, “Go over this way. Make two bunny ears.”
The kindergartner repeated Lindsay’s motions.
“She looked up at me,” Lindsay said, “almost surprised. I saw her big smile. It was so heartwarming to know something so simple could make somebody so happy. It was monumental for her to learn.”
It was also monumental for Lindsay, who herself learned on that January afternoon in 2022 that she wanted to pursue a career teaching young children.
“Your a-ha moment,” said Annie Lindsay, an associate professor in Butler County Community College’s education and behavioral sciences division, and of no relation to the 19-year-old who expects to graduate with an associate degree in early childhood education (Pre K-4) from BC3 in May.
“You get into teaching,” Annie Lindsay said, “because it’s the intangible moments when you know you make a difference.”
A $200,000 pledge to the BC3 Education Foundation will create tangible moments and make a difference for students in what is one of the college’s top five transfer programs.
The financial commitment from the Paserba family, Butler, will establish the Dr. Robert L. Paserba Education Teaching and Learning Lab that will introduce on BC3’s main campus in Butler Township a dynamic environment where early childhood education (Pre K-4) students can gain hands-on experience by creating settings in its simulated classroom and evaluating intended lesson-plan outcomes.

“An advocate for early childhood education”
“This interactive lab will further set apart and distinguish our already top-notch early education program,” said Megan Coval, executive director of the BC3 Education Foundation and external relations.
BC3 representatives toured facilities at regional four-year colleges and universities and found students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in early childhood education trained with preschoolers in on-campus environments that – much like BC3’s Amy Wise Children’s Creative Learning Center – “were already planned,” said Dr. Nichol Zaginaylo, dean of BC3’s education and behavioral sciences division.
“But in our teaching and learning lab,” Zaginaylo said, “students will get to practice creating the setting and the environment without the CCLC children in there at first.”
“I have always been an advocate for early childhood education. That’s clearly where habits are formed, where children learn who they are and maybe what aspirations they have for the future.”
Dr. Robert L. Paserba, longtime educator
Paserba, of Butler, earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from what was then Slippery Rock State College, and a master’s degree and a doctorate degree in education-related fields from the University of Pittsburgh.
He served 18 years in the Butler Area School District, where he spent a decade as superintendent after teaching at the former Institute Hill and McQuistion Elementary schools.
“I have always been an advocate for early childhood education,” he said. “That’s clearly where habits are formed, where children learn who they are and maybe what aspirations they have for the future. Everyone who interacts with them contributes to their feeling of self-respect, and their overall feeling that ‘I really can do what I want to do, given my abilities and the things that make me.’”
Paserba later became superintendent of the more than 100 Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh elementary and secondary schools. He is currently educational director and strategic planner for the Extra Mile Education Foundation, Pittsburgh, which provides learning opportunities to economically disadvantaged Allegheny County children in educational settings not often available to them.

“I would like to see this lab have BC3 recognized as the first stepping stone in the educational process to become one heck of a teacher. Just like we are with nursing."
Gail Paserba, BC3 trustee, sister-in-law of Dr. Robert L. Paserba
A teaching and learning lab in Paserba’s name will honor his having educated thousands of elementary school through college students over 60 years, said his sister-in-law and family spokesperson, Gail Paserba.
“I would like to see this lab have BC3 recognized as the first stepping stone in the educational process to become one heck of a teacher,” said Gail Paserba, who earned a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and has been a BC3 trustee since 2014. “Just like we are with nursing.”
The creation of an immersive learning environment like those of simulated intensive care-unit and patient rooms within the Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building on BC3’s main campus “is an indicator of the quality that we bring to our students,” said Dr. Nick Neupauer, BC3’s president. “Much like nursing, education is a high-demand field.”
Elementary school teacher is a high-priority occupation in a Tri-County Workforce Development Area that includes Butler County, according to the state Department of Labor & Industry’s Center for Workforce Information & Analysis.

“There will be a lot of flexibility”
BC3 will renovate and merge adjacent classrooms and a resource library to create by fall 2025 the 1,735-square-foot Dr. Robert L. Paserba Education Teaching and Learning Lab in the college’s humanities and education building, said Brian Opitz, BC3’s executive director of operations.
The lab’s centerpiece will model an elementary school classroom and allow for “different teaching scenarios,” Opitz said. “There will be a lot of flexibility.”
It will include an interactive whiteboard, adjustable tables and chairs, and distinct subject-matter stations where students can experiment with lesson plans and learn about the importance of desk groupings and material layouts, Annie Lindsay said.
“This lab is an innovative idea,” she said. “Many times students implement a lesson in an environment that has been predetermined. In this lab setting, our students are not only going to make the lesson, but they will also determine the environment, which has an impact on whether their lesson will be successful.”
“(The Dr. Robert L. Paserba Education Teaching and Learning Lab) will help students see the content they are being taught and have the ability to apply it in the real word.”
Hannah Lindsay, BC3 early childhood education (Pre K-4) student

Hannah Lindsay, of Butler, has designed her own classroom only on paper, she said, “and tried to think about different ways of organization. To actually have a space where students can physically do that and see what would work in the future, and what would not work – something so seemingly simple as how to arrange desks – will be so important to learn and to see in action.
“It will help students see the content they are being taught and have the ability to apply it in the real word.”
Gail Paserba is also chief executive officer of International Quality Consultants, Butler. Robert Paserba has also served as a lecturer and as Teacher Center supervisor at the University of Pittsburgh; as an assistant professor at the University of North Florida and at the University of Maryland; as director of curriculum in the Allegheny Valley School District and as assistant superintendent in the Hampton Township School District.
BC3’s early childhood education (Pre K-4) program enrolls 60 students this spring and was among the top five transfer programs of BC3 students to begin the 2023-2024 academic year, according to Sharla Anke, the college’s assistant dean of institutional research and planning.
The BC3 Education Foundation had eight scholarships available to early childhood education (Pre K-4) students and ranging from $500 to $1,195 in the 2023-2024 academic year, according to Bobbi Jo Cornetti, the foundation’s development coordinator.
Graduates of the 61-credit program can transfer to a four-year institution to complete a bachelor’s degree and earn Pennsylvania teacher certification, or seek employment as a teacher’s assistant or preschool teacher.