Provost honors teaching excellence, academic advising, community engagement

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

The Provost’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching, Excellence in Undergraduate Academic Advising and the Faculty Award for Community Engagement recognize departments and individuals for their commitment to students and the citizens of the University’s service region.

“The University has had a long-standing commitment to teaching excellence. As UNC Charlotte grows and diversifies, the way we educate and engage students also changes,” said Provost Joan Lorden. The Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching recognizes the collective responsibility of faculty to maintain high-quality teaching.

For 2017, the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences is the recipient of the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. The honor comes with a $5,000 award from the UNC Board of Governors and the Provost’s Office, as well as a plaque for departmental display.

The English Department was lauded for its ability to increase its number of majors and for revamping its curriculum to provide students with more exposure to diverse combinations of sub-disciplinary areas, which include literature, language and writing, combined with cutting-edge work in diversity studies, eco-studies and digital humanities.

The department also has increased its online and hybrid course offerings at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in order to make its curriculum more accessible to students. This demonstrates that the department is making efforts to broaden its course delivery methods to cater to the demands of the 21st century student.

The College of Arts + Architecture advising team received the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising. This honor includes a $2,500 award.

Early on in its organization, COA+A recognized the need to address student success across all of its units, each with diverse program cultures and needs. This recognition led to the creation of an improved advising structure critical to the college’s future success. The college was proactive in developing a professional advising team and hired a director of advising and assessment.

In 2016, the assistant dean for advising and assessment established key methods to balance external and internal data points to measure progress: general surveys, college-based advising survey, participation in the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project and semi-annual half-day advising team retreats. One measure of the success of this integration of information and consistency of service to students is strong student progression and graduation rates.

“As our student population has grown and increased in its diversity, advising has taken on a larger and more important role for our students. Consistent, proactive advising from caring advisors contributes importantly to our steady improvements in student retention and graduation,” noted Lorden.

The Provost’s Faculty Award for Community Engagement honors a tenured faculty member whose teaching, research and service epitomize the University’s commitment to civic involvement. Associate Professor Thomas Schmedake, a faculty member in the Chemistry Department, is this year’s honoree.

Schmedake was cited for leading workshops to help K-12 science teachers develop effective ways of demonstrating chemical concepts and engaging students in hands-on activities to help them better understand chemistry. Also, he engages K-12 science students through exciting demonstrations and by mentoring high school students in his research laboratory. As the UNC Charlotte coordinator for Project Seed, Schmedake oversees a program that provides paid internships for economically disadvantaged students to pursue laboratory research with college professors.

A member of the planning committee for the first UNC Charlotte Science and Technology Expo, Schmedake contributes his time and talent to promote, organize and execute this annual event that brings thousands of people onto campus. He also works with Discovery Place on community engagement educational activities, such as NanoDiscovery Day.

The Provost’s Faculty Award for Community Engagement comes with a $2,500 prize for the recipient to use to expand his or her work. Starting fall 2018, this award will be the Bonnie E. Cone Distinguished Professorship in Community Engagement. Nominations are being accepted through 5 p.m., Friday, Oct. 20.