Deborah Bice, Danielle Gruhler and Kristen Marcussen received the Distinguished Teaching Award, an honor sponsored by the Kent State Alumni Association for tenure-track faculty members.

Six teaching award recipients and nine finalists were honored at a conference hosted by the University Teaching Council, Friday.

Deborah Bice, Danielle Gruhler and Kristen Marcussen received the Distinguished Teaching Award, an honor sponsored by the Kent State Alumni Association for tenure-track faculty members.

The University Teaching Council awarded Don McFall, Richard Robyn and Ivanka Sabolich with the Outstanding Term Teaching Award, which honors full-time, non-tenure track and part-time faculty members.

“I think it’s good for the students to see that the university cares about the quality of their instructors,” said Maureen Blankemeyer, a finalist for the Distinguished Teaching Award and professor of human development and family studies.

Students, faculty and alumni nominate teachers for these awards. Committees then review portfolios of the finalists to determine the winners, said Anne Morrison, the Outstanding Teaching Award Selection Committee Coordinator and a professor in the College of Education.

Morrison said when analyzing the portfolios to determine the winners, they look for the enthusiasm of the nomination. The professors who win these awards go beyond the expectations of his or her job, she said.

“It’s that thoughtful comment about the approach to teaching or how they include students, how they motivate and infect them with a joy of learning,” Morrison said. “It’s special. It’s not just what we’re supposed to do. We’re all supposed to be good.”

The professors are notified they’ve won when students, colleagues and administrators invade their classrooms with celebrations. Morrison said they try to gather as many people as possible to bring in food and sometimes balloons to surprise the professor with his or her award.

“I think having it be a surprise makes it even more special,” Morrison said. “We like the idea of having the students involved in that celebration.”

When the group went into McFall’s classroom to congratulate him as a winner, he was sitting in the back of the classroom watching his students make presentations.

McFall, a retired accounting professor who wears a whistle around his neck given to him as a gift from students, said he thinks he does some of his best teaching when he encourages his students to be in the front of the room instead of him.

“I’m much more like a coach, someone there to encourage them and build them up, than just an instructor,” he said.

Alexis Janes, a senior accounting major, said McFall’s award was expected.

“He’s really humble about it, but I don’t think anyone was really surprised. He’s had a lot of impact on a lot of different students,” she said.

Janes said McFall’s energy in the classroom motivates her to be excited about the subject.

McFall, who said he tries to encourage learning through entertainment, made up an accounting cheer and sang to add excitement to the classroom.

“I still believe that in today’s world, you’ve got to entertain a little bit if you’re going to educate,” he said.

Blankemeyer said students usually learn better when they’re more involved in the classroom. She includes a lot of discussion in her teaching.

“(The students) learn not only from me, but from each other,” she said.

George Garrison, a finalist for the Distinguished Teaching Award and professor in the Department of Pan-African Studies, said he pushes himself to be a good teacher by making sure his students are getting the most recent information as the world constantly changes.

“The process of teaching is a dynamic process,” he said. “It’s not static.”

He said he thinks he has been successful as a professor because of his love for teaching.

“I get up every morning loving my job,” he said. “I’ve been a teacher now for almost 34 years, and I can honestly say that there has never been a day that I have gotten up to go to work that I have not been very pleased at the end of it.”

Morrison said it’s important to acknowledge the meaning behind the job of a professor and those professors who are committed to their purpose as an educator.

“We would not be here without our students,” she said. “We work for you, and I think we work for the larger society, too; so it’s important to hold people up who are doing a good job so that we’re held accountable to our society. This is a privilege to be a teacher in a university like this.”

Contact Alyssa DeGeorge at [email protected].