Home

10%

AWARD WINNING FACULTY AND STAFF 2022

By UNC Asheville

May 12^th, 2022

UNC Asheville celebrated the exceptional accomplishments of its faculty and staff members on Friday, May 6, 2022. Awards were given for service to the University, teaching, creativity and scholarship, as well as special recognition for retiring faculty and staff.

DISTINGUISHED TEACHER OF THE YEAR AWARD

Marietta Cameron, Chair and Professor of Computer Science

Marietta Cameron was recognized for prioritizing diversity-inclusive pedagogy across a range of different courses, from first-year seminars to capstone humanities courses to computer science classes. Cameron’s teaching embodies the liberal arts mission at its finest, as shown by her work collaborating with different disciplines across campus, including history and atmospheric science. A self-described “extrovert who is energized by classes in which students interact with [her] and each other,” Cameron has guided numerous students through undergraduate research projects. She received the 2021 Alumni Distinguished Faculty Award.

The James Hamilton Hero Award

Jay Cuspec, Director of Health and Counseling

The James Hamilton Hero Award is awarded to those who have made positive impacts on the lives of those in our campus community but are not widely recognized for their contributions. This award was created to honor Officer James Hamilton posthumously for being a role model who has provided excellent service, commitment, and dedication to the UNC Asheville campus community.

Jay Cutspec has been the Director of Health and Counseling at UNC Asheville for 14 years. He was instrumental in establishing the COVID protocols for our campus, including screening and testing of students, faculty and staff on a regular basis, as well as establishing quarantine and isolation protocols for our students to help our university remain as healthy and safe as possible throughout the pandemic. Cutspec and his staff have worked tirelessly over the past two years to offer both in-person and virtual appointments with students who have had health and/or mental health concerns related to COVID. Cutspec has also acted as a Mental Health First Aid Instructor for the last two years, training numerous members of the University community in strategies to improve the emotional stability of our student, faculty and staff populations.

Mighty Oak Resilience Award

Shannon Shepherd, Director of Financial Aid

The mighty oak tree is admired the world over for its towering strength and unyielding endurance and as a symbol of enduring power and wisdom. Often living well over 300 years, the oak represents resilience, perseverance, and wisdom. The mighty oak acorn symbolizes unlimited potential and knowledge. It has been said that an oak tree is a living legend that demonstrates the power of determination and the fortitude of purpose. The Mighty Oak Award honors a staff member of the UNC Asheville community who exemplifies all of these qualities and more.

Shannon Shepherd has worked in financial aid at UNC Asheville in a variety of roles since 1995. Her passion for removing financial barriers and providing a roadmap for students to achieve their educational goals drives her day-to-day work and her collaborative leadership on campus and off. Her colleague, Kortni Campbell, is grateful for the expertise, attention to detail and heart she brings to the team and how those strengths contribute to the University's focus on compassion and education through our admission and financial aid work.

Teaching Excellence in the Humanities

Evan Gurney, Associate Professor of English

Evan Gurney creates unexpected and effective assignments that aim to engage students in new and exciting ways. Gurney encourages students to take chances in their learning, from asking students to consider Asheville through the lens of postcards to helping them “deliberat[e] over the ethical dilemmas that emerge during an outbreak of plague” by asking students “to rewrite the great pop-punk song ‘Should I stay or should I go’ in the voice of Martin Luther." One student praises his “ability to create a safe space where [she] felt comfortable in sharing [her] story” without fear of judgment.”

Teaching Excellence in the Natural Sciences

Angel Kaur, Assistant Professor of NEUROSCIENCE

Angel Kaur puts student wellbeing at the center of her pedagogy. She is well-versed in the Study of Teaching and Learning, a knowledge base she uses to design user-friendly syllabi, Moodle shells, and course documents. She was recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant for improving Undergraduate STEM education, and she is also a Center for Teaching and Learning Faculty fellow.

Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences

Jinhua Li, Associate Professor of International Studies

Jinhua Li utilizes a flipped classroom and frequent oral assessment to keep students engaged and on track in their pursuit of learning another language. Li has also created an international internship that provides students with “real life working experience in China.” Dr. Trey Adcock writes that “her commitment to students and to the continued development of high-level, innovative pedagogy lies at the heart of what we value as a department and as a university.”

Excellence in Teaching in a University Program

Anne Slatton, Senior Lecturer, Mass Communication

Anne Slatton prioritizes diversity and inclusion in her classroom. From creating a partnership in which UNC Asheville students helped Claxton Elementary students create their own films to organizing study abroad trips and a wealth of other opportunities for students, Slatton's impactful teaching prompted one former student to write: “her guidance changed the outcome of my life.”

Excellence in Teaching by an Untenured Faculty Member

Megan Underhill, Assistant Professor of Sociology

Megan Underhill uses anti-racist pedagogy to guide all of her teaching endeavors. Through impactful community engagement partnerships with the Asheville City Schools Foundation, Underhill provides opportunities for students to conduct sociological research and to think about “actions community members can take to remedy racial inequity in the Asheville area.” Dr. Marcia Ghidina writes that Underhill is a “transformative teacher.”

Excellence in Teaching by a Part-time Faculty Member

Aaron Snook, Adjunct Lecturer, Drama

Aaron Snook strives to create safe spaces for students, all the while using innovative approaches to keep students engaged. As one example, at the height of the pandemic he used toy theatre, or puppetry, to teach his Directing for the Theatre course. In his efforts to re-center the canon to be more inclusive, Dr. Lise Kloppel writes that Snook “brings a supportive ease and humility to the classroom.”

Faculty Distinguished Service Awards

Nancy Ruppert, Chair and Professor of Education

Nancy Ruppert has served UNC Asheville in the Department of Education since 2002. Her service to the Department, the University, the Community, and the State is remarkable. She has served as the Chair of Education for five years, even stepping in to become the department’s administrative assistant. She serves the University through high-level positions in Faculty Senate, APC, Faculty Assembly, PTR, and the Budget Committee. She serves the community by providing professional development through the United Way and by bringing culturally relevant pedagogy to Buncombe County Early College. Ruppert works at even higher levels statewide, serving on the North Carolina Association of Colleges Teacher Education Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Specialty Interest Group. In 2021 she was elected to serve on the North Carolina Middle Level Education Board of Directors. She served as the President of the Board of Trustees for the Association for Middle Level Education, as a Middle Grades Institute Visiting Scholar, and as a fellow in the North Carolina Education Policy Fellowship Program. She is even a liaison to the European League of Middle Level Education.

Landon Ward, Lecturer, Environmental Studies

Landon Ward has been at UNC Asheville since 2010, serving the Environmental Studies Department where he teaches a wide variety of popular courses. Landon performs a wide variety of service activities for the Department, University, and community, from recruiting students, to curricular revision, to the Faculty Senate. He serves on APC, on the Africana Studies Advisory Council, and on the Chancellor’s Equity Advisory Board. Ward is often known for his tireless efforts to introduce people to snakes and to foster a love of reptiles. He serves on the Asheville City Schools Foundation, works with Green Opportunities, offers significant outreach to schools like Claxton, Haw Creek, Ira B. Jones, and Oakley Elementary, and works with the NC Arboretum and their fantastic EcoExplore Program. He works with communities within Asheville including Hillcrest, Shiloh, and Pisgah View, offering nature and science programming for after school activities. Landon’s collaborative work with colleagues here has led to receiving a GEARUp Professional Development Grant to offer workshops to Buncombe County School Teachers on fostering classroom equity, and also received a Dogwood Trust Health Grant to create and deliver culturally relevant STEM activities to black students in the Asheville community.

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Achievement Awards

Victoria Bradbury, Assistant Professor of New Media

Victoria Bradbury has served the Department of New Media since 2016. In 2020 she published a Routledge London co-edited book titled “Art Hack Practice: Critical Intersections of Art, Innovation, and the Maker Movement.” In 2020 she received an Epic MegaGrant from Epic Games to develop new media Virtual Reality pedagogy. Since arriving at UNC Asheville, Bradbury has developed six major artworks, including the Blue Boar VR project, which she presented with three students at Yale in 2019. She has presented artworks at a dozen exhibitions locally, regionally, and as far away as China. She has even taught hot-glass sculpting at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood Washington. Since 2020 she has worked with Ellen Pearson and Sarah Judson to develop the 828 Digital archives for historical equity project, which is a community-partner effort to digitize documentary materials from historically excluded community members. She has recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for their project titled, "Digital Fluency and Experiential Learning: Promoting Digital Humanities in Undergraduate Research."

Keith Cox, Assistant Professor, Psychology

Keith Cox has been at UNC Asheville since 2015. A clinical psychologist, his scholarship is focused on evidence-based treatment for PTSD, and the interplay between trauma and an individual’s life story. Cox’s scholarly output has been nothing short of prolific, with at least eight scholarly articles since starting at UNC Asheville, in journal such as the Journal of Traumatic Stress and the Journal of Personality as well as two book chapters. These works included three undergraduate co-authors. An in-press publication is titled: “Individual symptom reduction and post-treatment severity: Varying levels of symptom amelioration in response to Prolonged Exposure for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” published in the journal Psychological Services. Cox has also worked to develop literacy in statistics, co-authoring a Routledge book titled “Interpreting Basic Statistics: A Workbook Based on Excerpts from Journal Articles,” the ninth edition of which was published last year. A reviewer calls the book “an invaluable tool for teaching students how to interpret statistics as they encounter them in articles…” He regularly attends and presents at the national Association of Depression and Anxiety of America meetings and has accumulated nearly 1000 citations to his scholarly work. Cox incorporates undergraduates into his scholarship, providing over a dozen students the opportunity to publish in journals or present their research at conferences. One student was first author on an article published in the undergraduate Journal of Psychological Inquiry, and he has mentored 15 undergraduate research symposia presentations.

Ruth and Leon Feldman Professorship Fund Prize

Ted Meigs, GSK Distinguished Professor of Biology

Ted Meigs is recognized for a remarkable career here at UNC Asheville that has encompassed service to the campus and community as well as a significant record of teaching and scholarship. Meigs came to UNC Asheville from Duke University in 2003, and quickly established a reputation for excellence in the classroom and lab. He has won each of the faculty awards, including a distinguished teaching awards as both an untenured faculty and in the Natural Sciences, the Alumni distinguished faculty award, and the Scholarly and Creative Achievement award. He has been awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in competitive grant funding. In 2009 Meigs was recognized as the first Affiliate of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at UNC-Chapel Hill outside of the Chapel Hill faculty. For the last 10 years he has served UNC Asheville as the GlaxoSmithKline Distinguished Professor of Molecular and Chemical Biology. He has no fewer than 34 student coauthors among 15 scientific publications while at UNC Asheville. His research students have gone on to some of the most prestigious MD and PhD programs in the country. Meigs is a prolific servant to UNC Asheville, serving on a litany of committees and task forces, and chairing high-value working groups such as the Institutional Development Committee and the University Planning Council. He reaches beyond campus to engage with prospective students, and frequents local schools to stoke interest in STEM, where he is a popular presenter among students and faculty.

Amy Lanou, Professor of Health and Wellness

Amy Lanou is perhaps best known for her work as the Executive Director of the North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness, having authored and co-authored grants totaling millions of dollars in funding for UNC Asheville health and wellness initiatives that have had a direct impact on the vibrance and resiliency of our campus population. For example, Lanou helped implement the Student Health Ambassador program that hired at least 50 students and 10 faculty to serve as health ambassadors, helping to keep our campus as safe as possible during the height of the covid-19 pandemic and our efforts to return to campus. Lanou is also currently serving as the director of the Masters in Public Health program, a joint initiative between our campus, UNC Health Sciences, and the Mountain Area Health Education Center. She was the leader of the effort to bring this degree program to campus. Lanou has published over 30 scientific papers in her career, including some with student coauthors. She has presented her work at numerous regional, national, and international meetings. Lanou has been previously recognized with all three intramural annual awards, including the Distinguished Service Award, Scholarly and Creative Achievement Award, and an Excellence in Teaching Award in the Social Sciences; she was also named a Sara and Joseph Breman Professor for Social Relations. She both helped found the Department of Health and Wellness in 2005 and was chair for six years. She has been involved in the Food for Thought cluster, the Harvest Bounty Shared Meal, the development of nutrition guidelines for UNC Asheville, and the Festival of Dionysus in the Mountain South. She has served the campus on the Faculty Senate, CTF, PTR, and has served on every Queer Studies Conference organizing committee.

Community Connector Awards

The Community Connector recognition is awarded annually to faculty and staff members who are meaningfully and sustainably engaged in the community in ways that strengthen partnerships between UNC Asheville and community partners.

This important work responds to a community-identified priority, opportunity, or need and may take the form of relationship building, civic involvement, research, service learning, community-based learning and/or public service.

Kim Kessaris, Education Department Outreach & Tutoring

Kim Kessaris has dedicated 23 years to a partnership with Asheville City Schools and the AVID program (Advancement Via Individual Determination), one of UNC Asheville’s longest, most sustained, and impactful community partnerships. Her work has been transformational to the lives of countless Asheville City Schools students and their families, and has had tremendous impact on UNC Asheville student tutors and mentors, many of whom are now teachers, counselors, and administrators.

Kessaris has dedicated 23 years to a partnership with Asheville City Schools and the AVID program (Advancement Via Individual Determination) and has been described as: “committed to equity, passionate about student growth and development, and a tireless champion for students.”

Jordan Perry, Healthy Campus Liaison & Adjunct Faculty

Jordan Perry has been engaged in a variety of community initiatives including the Food Equity Initiative to address food insecurity and a CSA Partnership with Ivy Creek Farms to increase access to healthy, plant-based foods while supporting a local farm.

Most recently, Perry engaged across six colleges and universities in the region and with MAHEC through the Student Health Ambassadors program and last month hosted over 60 high school students for a Public Health Leaders of Tomorrow Summit.

Alison Ormsby, Lecturer, Environmental Studies, Interim Co-Director of Sustainability

Alison Ormsby's work advances environmental science through an inclusive and social justice-oriented lens and prepares students to become productive members of the Asheville community and beyond. In her time at UNC Asheville, she has served on Asheville’s Sustainability Advisory Committee on Energy and the Environment, the Ideas to Action/Thrive Asheville “Reimagining Tourism” initiative leadership group, and GreenWorks’ Tree Protection Task Force and Plastic Reduction Task Force.

Through her work with the McCullough Fellows program, Ormsby has built relationships with community partner organizations that include Blue Horizons Project, Center for Biological Diversity, NC Forest Service, Western North Carolina Nature Center, and The North Carolina Arboretum.

Amanda Wray, Associate Professor of English

Amanda Wray’s LGBTQIA+ Archive and oral history initiative have brought so many students and members of the larger community together over the past few years. She fosters creativity in her students and allows them to explore the stories of LGBT individuals in innovative ways. Recent outreach has included moving beyond the city of Asheville and Buncombe County, and into rural parts of WNC, with a recent oral history community workshop event in Marshall. In the last few years, her professional writing service learning course has created an interactive media site for Burton Street Community Peace Gardens and written and received grants for local nonprofits totaling over $9,000.