Three Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College faculty members were recognized with the Sister Mary Joseph Pomeroy Faculty Excellence Awards for their high ideals of teaching, scholarship, service and leadership.
In 1990, the Sister Mary Joseph Pomeroy Faculty Excellence Award was inaugurated, named in honor of the esteemed Woods professor of English who embodied the highest ideals of teaching, scholarship, and service. Each of this year’s awardees embodies the spirit of excellence, espoused by the College in its motto “Virtus cum Scientia” (Virtue with Knowledge United) in a particular aspect of faculty work.
Recipients of this year’s award are Brenda Carlyle, M.S., Associate Professor, Business – for Service; Daesang Kim, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Computer Information Systems – for Scholarship; and Sara Schulz, Instructor, Equine Studies – for Teaching.
Pomeroy Faculty Excellence Award for Service
Brenda Carlyle, a member of the Saint Mary-of-the-Woods faculty since 1983, has demonstrated exemplary service to the College, to her profession, and to the community.
At the Woods, Carlyle has served the College in numerous ways over the years. She has been a member of several College committees and has recently filled in as Interim Department Chair. She helped her department to develop and implement an assessment system and participated in national presentations to illustrate the utilization of Desire 2 Learn (D2L) technology to implement the system. She was interviewed for an article focusing on competencies, rubrics, and assessments written by the staff for the January 2009 issue of Horizon published by D2L.
Carlyle has served on a number of SMWC committees over the years. Her recent committee work includes the Woods External Degree (WED) Advisory group, WED scheduling committee, Program Development Team, and the Master’s of Leadership Development Director Search Committee. She also served Interim Department Chair during the 2009-10 academic year.
Pomeroy Faculty Excellence Award for Scholarship
Daesang Kim has been prolific in creation of scholarly publications, grants, and presentations in his short tenure at the College. His primary research interests and activities involve the development of online and multimedia learning environments and emerging technologies in traditional classrooms. He has used his talent and research interests to help develop online courses for the Master of Leadership Development, Master of Education, and Woods Online programs. While he recognizes that developing online courses are a new challenge for many faculty members, Kim helps them with the development and in so doing, he empowers students to explore online learning with innovative technologies.
Kim co-authored an article, “Effects of Text, Audio, and Graphic Aids in Multimedia Instruction for Vocabulary Learning” that was published in Educational Technology & Society. He also co-authored a book chapter entitled, “Cases on Technology Enhanced Learning Through Collaborative Opportunities”. He has co-authored a funded grant that purchased Hewlett-Packard tablet computers for SMWC. He has participated in presentations at five national and international conferences.
Pomeroy Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching
Sara Schulz, the recipient of the Pomeroy Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching has been teaching at SMWC for several years. In her job, she combines two passions, teaching and horses, and is “driven to create an unusual learning environment for those who have chosen to learn more” about communication between humans and horses.
Her early teaching focused on rote learning and traditional methods. She has since evolved into a “creative teacher who incorporates novel teaching techniques” that involve higher-order thinking skills. She strives to facilitate more than technical competence in her students; she helps them achieve true harmony with the horse. In the course of her research and readings, she found the importance of the communication cycle, both between herself and the student and between the student and the horse.
Schulz emphasizes ongoing improvement of her teaching methods, engaging teaching strategies, currency of materials and academic rigor. She stresses use of hands-on experiential course components to help her students be more engaged with their learning.