Our LEAP Indiana 2022 Award Winners

LEAP Indiana Awards

 

LEAP Indiana Announces 2022 Faculty Awards


[Indianapolis, IN, - July 30, 2022] LEAP Indiana is pleased to announce its picks for this year's LEAP Indiana Faculty Awards. Instructors were selected from institutions across the state for winners in the Annual Teaching and Paragon Awards.  In addition, institutional members nominated Indiana faculty and staff for the COVID Character Honors program highlighting stories of individuals who went above and beyond in assisting students during the pandemic.


The LEAP Indiana Annual Teaching Award was given to



Michel Trahyn Gonzalez, IUPUI, Ivy Tech Community College and Christel House Indianapolis Watanabe High School.
Michel Trahyn Gonzalez is a native Spanish speaker from Mexico City, Mexico. He started his teaching career at the Universidad de Valle de Mexico and teaching computer and administration courses as the Head of the Computer and Telecommunications Department. Since arriving to the US, he worked at the Consulate of Mexico in their documentation department and Butler University in Student Affairs before becoming an Associate Professor of Spanish at IUPUI in 2008. Michel has taught Spanish at Butler University, University of Indianapolis, Marian University, Franklin College, and Ivy Tech Community College while completing his Master of Arts in Teaching Spanish at IUPUI in 2011 and a Master of Education in Innovation and Educational Technology at Universidad de Valle de Mexico in 2020. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Spanish Linguistics at the Universidad Marista in Guadalajara, Mexico, has just accepted a full-time teaching position for the 2022-23 school year at Christel House Watanabe High School teaching Spanish, and continues to teach part time at Ivy Tech Community College and IUPUI. Michel also develops courses for Ivy Tech’s IvyOnline division. 



LEAP Indiana Paragon Award - This award honors the sustained professional achievement of an individual who exemplifies LEAP Indiana's mission and vision as a teacher or teaching and learning advocate. 

 

LEAP Indiana COVID Character Honors program. In this second and final call for nominees, chapter members submitted stories about colleagues who assisted one or more students through the difficult times of the pandemic. These 250-word descriptions outlined what each faculty or staff member did to help students and why it was extraordinary. Those receiving this special honor include:

 

Ange Cooksey, IU East

Benjamin Strack, Ball State

Carrie Longley, IU East

Cesar Cruz, Ball State

Christopher Baas, Ball State

Edwina Helton, IU East

         J.P. Hall, Ball State

Jeremy Merrill, Ball State

Julien Simon, IU East

Kristoffer Rees, IU East

Oi Lin Cheung, IU East

Stephanie Whitehead, IU East

Sue McFadden, IU East

Susan Tomizawa, Ball State

Timothy Scales, IU

LEAP Indiana will post the COVID Character Honor stories on a special page of the LEAP Indiana website.  The LEAP Indiana Executive Committee wishes to thank the LEAP Indiana Strategy and Innovation Subcommittee, Dr. Scott Lee (IU East), Chair, for helping to review and nominate finalists for these annual awards.

 

If you would like more information about the LEAP Indiana Faculty Awards, please contact Dr. Frank Poncé via email at frank.ponce@indwes.edu.


LEAP Indiana seeks to create and support connections among diverse faculty from across Indiana colleges and universities who are passionate about teaching and exploring innovative pedagogies aligned with the AAC&U's LEAP (Liberal Education and America's Promise) States Initiative. 

Previous Award Winners

The LEAP Indiana Annual Teaching Award was given to Tara Kingsley, Associate Professor of Education at Indiana University-Kokomo. This award recognizes instructors that use transformative, inclusive, and engaged classroom techniques that result or culminate in effective teaching. Dr. Kingsley is a leader in online course design on the Indiana University-Kokomo campus, the Indiana University system, and across the state.  

 

In March 2021, Dr. Kingsley co-developed a K-12 professional development workshop in "IU Expand" to support inclusive, engaging, and innovative practices for virtual teaching. She set up her Quality Matters certified W540 class using Universal Design for Learning criteria. Quality Matters is a research-based national benchmark for improving student experiences in the online environment. Dr. Kingsley also embedded applicable technological tools in the course, using gamification as transformative and innovative instruction, including 1) Badging for Mastery and 2) Gamification for Learning.  

 

Dr. Kingsley's innovative curriculum required students to reflect on their role as facilitators and designers of materials and environments to engage in intentional, inclusive, and just teaching with technology. The course was set up to reflect real-world topics and the explicit teaching and modeling of digital citizenship. The pandemic provided a perfect real-world opportunity for students to reflect on the impact of the world health crisis brought on by COVID and the opportunities for civic engagement. The course, along with the developed gamification module, was sought out by IU Online to add to IU Expand's "test drive" courses. At the end of the semester, students noted the positive impact of Dr. Kinsley's course design, her focus on mastery learning, and the effect her active learning strategies had on their learning. As current and future educators, the students will emulate Dr. Kingsley's course design on their instructional practices.

Dr. Peggy Fisher, a recently retired Associate Professor at Ball State University's Department of Communication Studies, is the inaugural LEAP Indiana Award of Excellence recipient. This award honors the sustained professional achievement of an individual who exemplifies LEAP Indiana's mission and vision as a teacher or teaching and learning advocate. As an immersive learning instructor, Dr. Fisher engaged her students in more than 18 experiential projects that enabled them to work with non-profit and business leaders to solve community challenges in Muncie and the surrounding counties.

 

 Over a 15-year period, some of Dr. Fisher's project partners included Beneficence Family Scholars, Open Door Health Services, the Muncie Civic Theatre, and The Boys & Girls Club of Muncie. These student-driven collaborations helped students address generational poverty challenges, create or expand barrier-free programs for underserved populations, and develop materials advocating for more equitable access to education and affordable housing. Those experiences left an indelible impression on her students, making them more empathetic and likely to become active community members in the future. In teaching evaluations, they reported that Dr. Fisher's classes helped them develop essential skills such as teamwork, delegation, developing trust, and collaborating with others. 

LEAP Indiana COVID Character Honors program

In addition to the LEAP Indiana award, Dr. Fisher recently received one of Ball State’s 2021 Immersive Learning Faculty Awards. At the time of her May 2021 retirement, the Peggy Fisher Engaged Learning Scholarship was also created in her honor for the enormous and positive impact she has had on her students, Ball State University, and the community.   

 

In addition to the two teaching awards, LEAP Indiana offered a unique opportunity to submit stories to the LEAP Indiana COVID Character Honors program. In this one-time-only, special call, chapter members submitted stories about colleagues who assisted one or more students through the difficult times of the pandemic. These 250-word descriptions outlined what each faculty or staff member did to help students and why it was extraordinary. Those receiving this special honor include:

 

Patricia A. Agbetsiafa - Indiana University South Bend 

Deborah Bachmann - Purdue University Northwest 

Sydney Beauchamp - Indiana University South Bend 

Catherine Borshuk - Indiana University South Bend 

Sharon Busenbark - Indiana University South Bend 

Steve Bush - Ivy Tech Community College 

Angela M. Coppola - Indiana University Kokomo 

Joshua Gruver - Ball State University 

Joe Haase - Indiana University South Bend 

Daniel Janicki - Indiana University South Bend 

Courtney Jarrett - Ball State University 

Darolyn "Lyn" Jones - Ball State University 

Heather Suzanne Jones - Indiana University South Bend 

Neovi Karakatsanis - Indiana University South Bend 

Gary Kern - Indiana University South Bend 

Kelli Kreider - Ivy Tech Community College 

Joel B. Langston - Indiana University South Bend 

Chanika Mitchell - Indiana University South Bend 

Barbara Mociulski - Indiana University South Bend 

Amy Pawlosky - Indiana University South Bend 

Tamea Rector - Indiana University South Bend 

Tim Scales - Indiana University East 

Carolyn Schult - Indiana University South Bend 

Jorn Seemann - Ball State University 

Ronda Smith - Ball State University 

Sheila Smyth - Indiana University South Bend 

John Thompson - Indiana University South Bend 

William Tourtillotte - Indiana University South Bend 

Jay VanderVeen - Indiana University South Bend 

Joshua Wells - Indiana University South Bend 

 

LEAP Indiana will post the COVID Character Honor stories on a special page of the LEAP Indiana website. In addition, all of the honorees will be invited to join an awards dinner.  

The executive board wishes to thank the LEAP Indiana Strategy and Innovation Subcommittee for helping to review these inaugural awards. 

 

If you would like more information about the LEAP Indiana Faculty Awards, please call Dr. Lisa Angermeier at 317-698-1702 or email her at langerme@iupui.edu.