Congratulations to Faculty Development COW Award winners!

UAA’s Faculty Development and Instructional Support unit (a merger of CAFE, CCEL and AI&e) is pleased to announce the recipients of our 2021-2022 Faculty Development Awards. The success of UAA’s faculty development initiatives and programs is a direct result of the willingness of faculty and staff who share their time and expertise with their colleagues. Two national studies of unusually effective universities have indicated that investment in faculty development is one of the top ways in which a university can increase its retention rates and student success. This year and last put such unusual demands on all of us to step up and go beyond our usual roles and responsibilities in order to serve our students, so UAA is particularly appreciative of the dedication and contributions of our colleagues this year — thank you!

What's with the cow?

As many will recall, the "CAFE Oh Wow!" or COW Awards are an amusingly named set of annual honors that recognize serious contributions to faculty development efforts in a range of contexts and capacities. Although we've included a COW from each of the areas represented in the Faculty Development Council (CAFE, AI&e, CCEL) in the past, for this year's presentation we shifted the name from "CAFE" to "Colleague Oh Wow!" No matter what we call them, these awards recognize outsized contributions.

Please join us in offering heartfelt congratulations and thanks to the following colleagues for their outstanding efforts.

Jen McClung

Writing professor Jen McClung received her award for ably leading multiple cycles of the Contemplative Practices in Higher Education faculty and staff community of practice for the last few years. This group, based on the book Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning, focuses on learning, practicing and applying a wide range of contemplative practices that can improve teaching and learning at UAA. In addition to supporting her colleagues with this series, Jen is devoted to the use of contemplative practices in her classroom, ensuring that students can bring themselves to learning as whole beings. Thank you, Jen!

Vanessa Meade

We honored Vanessa Meade with a COW Award for generously leading many 8-week courses for faculty and students on mindfulness. During one of the most tumultuous times in UAA’s (and, indeed, the nation’s) history, these courses have served as sources of comfort, community and connection for many members of the university community. Some have focused on cultivating skills that allow us to stay centered, compassionate, calm and non-reactive in the face of stressful situations, while others taught ways to use mindfulness practices to advance the goals of anti-racism work at UAA and beyond. Thank you, Vanessa!

Katie Walker

Katie Walker, instructional designer (ID) with Clinical Health Sciences in the College of Health, was recognized for a wide range of contributions, from helping orient new IDs, spearheading projects on accessibility and tool evaluation, coordinating UAA’s program and statewide collaboration for Quality Matters, creating and updating critical information sources like the IT Core Tools webpage, testing functionality for Blackboard updates and other institution-wide tools, and developing resources for faculty to use across UAA. Thanks to Katie for her many, many contributions to faculty development at UAA! 

Jill Flanders-Crosby

Dance Professor Jill Flanders-Crosby earned her COW award for her innovative work with students in creating multi-media e-portfolios that captured the energy of three-dimensional dance, during a time when meeting for physical dancing was impossible. UAA’s e-portfolio software partner, Digication, said that in the thousands of schools they have worked with, no dance instructor has ever attempted this. Her visionary work in this space was recently captured in a Digication Scholar podcast promoted throughout the national e-portfolio community. Congratulations, Jill!

April Archive