TCNJ

33 FALL 2022 Wood, suggested Caccavale. At the time, Caccavale was a recent TCNJ grad Wood knew of because they had student taught, 10 years apart, with the same cooperating teacher. "I said to Frank that these opportu- nities to create something brand new and fresh are very rare in our busi- ness," says Seipp, who convinced Caccavale to leave his job teaching woodworking and robotics in Bernards Township to launch the Roxbury program. Caccavale is an Eagle Scout, resourceful and swift — he was just 26 years old when he became executive director of the New Jersey Technology and Engineering Educators Association — and by his second year after taking the job at Roxbury, he had an idea that was notably fresh, and rare. He had volunteered with Morris Habitat, and he wanted to find a way to enlist his students. "I kept talking to Habitat, asking, 'How do we do more?' So the idea came up, and they asked, 'Can you build a house?'" says Caccavale. Well, why not? He started soliciting support, supplies, and skills from the community — more than $100,000 worth of donated materials and time by the end, he estimated. An architect to design a house that could be built in one place and moved to another? No charge. An excavator to dig the foun- dation on the overgrown lot that the town supplied? Free. A plumber to show students how to install water lines? Gratis. "Frank took the ball, ran with it, and we basically tried to keep up with him," says Blair Schleicher Wilson, CEO of Morris Habitat. Caccavale is the kind of teacher that TCNJ tries to cultivate in the School of Engineering 's Integrative STEM Education program. "Our major allows students to become creative and think big about anything that they're working on," says Manuel Figueroa, department chair, and advisor to Caccavale's senior design project at TCNJ. "What we try to get our teachers to understand is that every- thing in our world is designed by humans, and those technological skills are for us to help in our communities, in our homes, and in our towns, and that's where our teachers are going to have an impact." Caccavale, his students, and their house have been widely featured, from the local newspapers to Fox & Friends on national television. The impact was broad and quick. Caccavale, his students, and their house have been widely featured, from the local newspapers to Fox & Friends on national television. "They really enjoyed swinging hammers. Insulating and drywall were definitely not their favorites," Caccavale says. "To think there were days when kids would come to school, take calculus, and then would set roof trusses, which is a very high-level industry thing to do, and then they'd go back and have gym and lunch and social studies. That was a normal day for a 17-year-old. That was just what their October looked like at school." The class is an honors elective, and fewer than half of the 36 students who took it planned to work in one of the trades they learned. "Every student Frank has isn't going to become an electrician or a carpenter, but they all know how to change an outlet," Seipp says. "The number one question kids ask is 'Why do I have to know this?' Kids didn't ask that question in this class because it was self-evident." The students, and many of the other volunteers who worked on the house, wrote messages on the parts of the house that were hidden when it was buttoned up. Before shingling a roof that he hoped would stay sealed, one student wrote, "I hope you never read this." Caccavale compiled a collection of photos of all the messages that he gave to the family who moved in on August 24. Forty applicant families qualified for the random drawing for the house that was held on May 18, the day before the house was moved from the school. The winner was a family from Orange: Samuel and Senait Tesfaye and their three children, who will attend the Roxbury schools — fourth grade, first grade, and preschool. "I could teach their kids when they get to 11th grade," Caccavale admits. Samuel and Senait joined the students at Edith Road to watch the Chuck Seipp '01 and Frank Caccavale '14

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