By Steven Krolak
(NEW ALBANY, Ind.)–Seven IU Southeast faculty members have received IU Trustees Teaching Awards for the 2021 calendar year.
The IU Trustees Teaching Awards were first awarded in 2000-2001 to recognize and enhance excellent teaching, especially at the undergraduate level. The awards are open to tenured and tenure-track faculty, as well as full-time lecturers and clinical faculty primarily involved in teaching.
Faculty who receive the awards have distinguished themselves as educators in the broadest sense during the calendar year, providing excellent and innovative classroom experiences while also offering students opportunities for further immersion and maintaining their own presence in their fields, such as through peer-reviewed publications and presentations at scholarly conferences, in order to inform and enliven their instruction with the most current ideas and practices.
The 2021 IU Trustees Teaching Award recipients at IU Southeast are:
Rebecca Carlton, Teaching Professor, School of Arts and Letters
Alyssa Lambert, Associate Professor of Human Resource Management, School of Business
Todd Manson, Associate Professor of Psychology, School of Social Sciences
Jennifer Ortiz, Assistant Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice, School of Social Sciences
Sridhar Ramachandran, Professor of Informatics, School of Natural Sciences
Robert Rennie, Assistant Professor of History, School of Social Sciences
Rhonda Wrzenski, Associate Professor of Political Science, School of Social Sciences
Each year recipients are recommended to the Chancellor and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs by the Improvement of Learning Committee (IOLC) based on dossiers submitted by faculty. These dossiers give faculty the opportunity to express their teaching philosophy and goals, provide evidence of the impact of their approach on student learning outcomes, detail their contribution as leaders for the enhancement of teaching and learning, and show how they have facilitated learning outside the classroom.
Evaluations are based on teaching goals/learning outcomes, evidence of student learning and teaching effectiveness, professional development, and how effectively the instructor has been as a catalyst for the enhancement of teaching and learning. Peer and student evaluations may also play a role in determining the award. The final determination is made by the Chancellor.
“The Trustee Teaching Awards are an important recognition for a select set of instructors who have demonstrated clear evidence of teaching excellence on the IU Southeast campus,” said Dr. Donna Dahlgren, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs. “In addition, the winning instructors have clearly shown how their students learned and benefitted from their instruction and guidance.”