Dr. Patricia Puccinelli is the lead instructor and Administrative Liaison for OCJLP.  She came to the program in 2010 as the teacher for Life Skills.  She became the regular teacher of Reading and Language Arts, Social Studies, Civics, History, Careers, Employability, and Financial Literacy a year later when the previous teacher retired. 

Dr. Puccinelli earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in English at Saint Louis University in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1990, with an emphasis in Writing, American Literature, and the short story.  She also currently teachers a variety of English courses in the English Department at MATC and has started her tenth year with them.  She also teaches for the private independent group: Literary Journey; these courses focus on the intensive examination of classic literature including James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Henry James, and Gustave Flaubert, and Leo Tolstoy. Dr. Puccinelli has been teaching  this group for twelve years.  Additionally, Dr. Puccinelli writes many of the grant applications through which the program is funded. 

Dr. Puccinelli is the mother of four very accomplished adult children and the grandmother to two little girls.  Her hobbies include vegetable and perennial gardening, home renovation, and raising and showing French Bulldogs.

Read a Q&A with Dr. Puccinelli

The work at OCJLP is compelling because the teachers regularly see students inspired by their accomplishments.  Some say they never believed they were capable of passing the state GED tests, but because each student receives the one-on-one instruction he or she needs, they progress at their own rates. 

– Dr. Puccinelli