Awards Recipients
New Horizons 2022

Thomas M. Geary, Professor of English, Virginia Beach Campus of Tidewater Community College. Dr. Geary serves as the editor of Inquiry, the peer-reviewed journal for faculty, staff and administrators in Virginia’s Community Colleges.

Kwabena Konadu, Professor and Discipline Chair of Cybersecurity at Northern Virginia Community College.

This year’s CATE recipient, Richard Clark, has had the privilege of serving Virginia Western Community College, his colleagues, and students as Program Head of Engineering for the past sixteen years.  During this time, he has successfully expanded the facilities, capabilities, and resources at the college. Richard Clark has worked diligently to equip the new STEM building with state-of-the-art teaching and research equipment, to engage local industry through innovative partnerships, to develop sought-after online course offerings, to establish collaborative research efforts with university partners, and to secure numerous Federal and State grants which support STEM students. Through these efforts, the Engineering program at Virginia Western Community College has grown significantly in size and prominence within the community. Richard Clark has made learning fun as well as competitive and his personal commitment to his students is exemplary.

Marian Clifton serves as an adjunct Assistant Professor in the Human Services Department at Thomas Nelson (becoming Virginia Peninsula Community College). She is a certified Workforce Development professional and holds the credentials of Certified Federal Career Counselor and Certified Federal Job Search Trainer. Marian Clifton is also a founding board member of the Menchville House, a home for women in transition. She serves as the Chief Operating Officer of a community-based non-profit organization.  A transformational leader, Marian Clifton is passionate about organizational and fund development, including proposal writing.  She loves poetry and has been an invited guest to read her work on a national level. If she hasn’t done enough, she has completed the Harvard University School of Divinity Leadership Institute and is scheduled to complete doctoral studies at Trevecca Nazarene University in August 2022.

Floyd Schwartz managed several major data centers during his career including Dept. Labor, United Mine Workers, Dept. Of Transportation and Dept. Of Energy. Currently retired but still teaching at NOVA which included 3 courses this spring term, this 55-year veteran of NOVA’s IT department is proud he had the opportunity to help build a community college and IT program that ranks as one of the top programs in the United States. With continued commitment to the VCCS and a desire to bring cutting edge technology and education to our students, one reviewer stated Floyd Schwartz is the epitome of the award itself!

This year’s Susan Wood recipient is Kim Smith, Associate Professor of Nursing at Southwest Virginia Community College. She is an experienced nurse educator with thirty years of teaching experience, and she continues to work part time as a Nurse Practitioner meeting the health care needs of individuals in her community.  Kim Smith serves as Faculty Senate president and on the Chancellors Faculty Advisory Committee. She exemplifies leadership and collegiality among peers; not only at Southwest Community college, but across the VCCS.

NEW THIS YEAR! The 2022 New Horizons Excellence in Education Awards will be given in each of the following four categories – Collaboration, Connection, Inclusivity, and Knowledge.  The winner project/program in each category receives a certificate and $500.

Building Opportunity through Knowledge

The winners in this category looked for opportunities to evaluate learning by challenging historically acceptable approaches to assessment, to help faculty better identify their students’ strengths and weaknesses. They created a robust campaign “The Authentic Assessment Institute” to engage thought leaders across Virginia in designing bias-free, culturally responsive, authentic assessments. They wanted students to use higher order thinking and solve complex problems rather than simply select one response or recall rote information. Their work has been highlighted in Inside Higher Ed and the Online Learning Consortium.

Caryn Sever and Kim Grewe (not pictured) are both Instructional Designers from Northern Virginia Community College.

Building Opportunity through Connection

These winners from Blue Ridge Community College developed the Healthcare Pathways program which increased students’ opportunities for access, success, and advancement in healthcare fields. Discipline leads identified the major access and success barriers for students in their programs. One barrier they discovered was students struggling with medical and language terminology due to English not being a first language for many students. They developed a pathway that included two ESL courses for Health professions (one for credit and one for non-credit). Their work also provided faculty and staff needed education on local diversity issues and teaching strategies to support student success.

Claudia Etchebarne Hernández, Associate Dean & Foreign Language Department Chair, and Pamyla Yates, ESL Program Coordinator, Blue Ridge Community College.

Building Opportunity through Inclusivity

This Lord Fairfax Community College (soon-to-be Laurel Ridge) inaugural faculty fellows project was conceptualized in spring 2021 as a sustainable way to build knowledge and grow the capacity of faculty in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) with a special focus initially on assessment. During a Summer Learning Academy, fellows chose a course assessment to redesign, and they examined detailed student success data for each course to include a review of race/ethnicity, gender, income, first generation status, etc. In this context of equity and student success, they considered challenges students may be facing in the classroom and planned a course of action for bridging those gaps. The fellows’ excitement evolved organically, without prodding, it should be noted, and is a testament to their dedication.

Erin Mills, Instructional Designer
Dr. Soyoung Burke, ESL Program Coordinator
Rachel Dodson, Associate Professor of Business Management and Administration
Jeff Hollar, Associate Professor of Biology
Amy Judd, Director of Academic Assessment, Evaluation, and Analytics
Dr. Curtis Morgan, Professor of History
Polly Nesselrodt, Associate Professor of Spanish
Dr. Naomi Simpson, Associate Professor of Communication Studies

Building Opportunity through Collaboration

This large group of administrative staff formed the Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) group to share research on the new federal regulations. They needed to understand the correct interpretation of the requirements and then create a training course that could be used by all 23 colleges to educate faculty on the new expectations. The new regulations focus on standards to ensure faculty-student engagement in online courses, and each group member built one of the training modules. Though not all 23 colleges have used the course, the research and best practices developed has reached approximately 4,000 faculty across the VCCS thus far.

Terri Milroy, eLET chair, Southside Virginia Community College

Page Durham, Instructional Designer, eLET, Germanna Community College

Gabriel Scala, Director of Distance Learning & Faculty Development, eLET co-chair, John
Tyler Community College

Jim Schifflett, Educational Technology Specialist, eLET, Piedmont Virginia Community College

Tim Hoffman, Instructional Support Developer, eLET, Rappahannock Community College

Wesley Kinsey, Instructional Designer, eLET, Germanna Community College

Erin Mills, Instructional Designer, eLET, Lord Fairfax Community College

Gannon Nordberg, Instructional Technologist/Canvas Admin, eLET, Lord Fairfax Community College

Caryn Sever, Instructional Designer, eLET, Northern Virginia Community College

Melissa Stiltner, Director of Distance Learning, eLET, Southwest Virginia Community College

Jason Vance, Canvas Admin/Academic Technologist, eLET, Thomas Nelson Community College

Jennifer Walz, Instruction & e-Resources Librarian, eLET, Danville Community College

Nova Wright, Instructional Designer, eLET, Dabney S. Lancaster Community College