Congratulations to Adjunct Excellence Award recipients
Kate Mitchell and Carolyn Rost are the 2021 recipients of Cincinnati State’s Adjunct Faculty Excellence Award.
Kate and Carolyn are the first-ever to receive this award, which was established by the Faculty Senate in 2020.
They will be honored during Common Time on Monday, Apr. 12, along with the recipients of the House/Bruckmann Faculty Excellence Award and the newest recipients of Professor Emeritus status.
The Adjunct Faculty Excellence Award criteria and process were developed by a task force that included faculty members and academic adminstrators.
- Nominations for the Adjunct Excellence Award were reviewed by the applicable program or department chair, and by an academic administrator.
- For more about the award process, see the Daily News article published Feb. 3, 2021. (Scrolling might be needed to see the link to the article.)
Kate Mitchell, Humanities & Sciences, teaches First Year Experience and Leadership courses
Kate’s nomination stated (in part): When the pandemic began, and we had to transition to remote delivery quickly, the First-Year Experience and Leadership courses were fully transitioned into fully functional, multi-modal, easy to understand, and highly organized Blackboard course shells. Kate led this development, and it would not have happened without her.
- She has updated every Blackboard course shell each semester, serving as the de facto lead instructional designer for two departments.
- She has listened to countless hours of student and instructor feedback on every course assignment and designed (and re-designed) them to meet the needs of both to ensure our learning outcomes are met.
- She also makes herself available to help colleagues troubleshoot their technological and Blackboard issues, and was essentially “on-call” to every single instructor in all courses in the departments.
Kate is a skilled instructor and thoughtful colleague who frequently creates and pilots new lessons and materials to ensure student success, including engaging and informative lessons on information literacy, as well as resources on issues of social justice and equality.
She also assists students in the Leadership Club and participates in club events outside of the classroom, even though there is no compensation or glory.
Kate’s teaching, training, and support provided for students and faculty are extraordinary examples of her skills and her collaborative spirit.
Carolyn Rost, Health & Public Safety, teaches Biology courses
Carolyn’s nomination stated (in part): Carolyn has been teaching at Cincinnati State for decades, and during that time she has demonstrated compassion and helped generate a sense of scientific curiosity for hundreds of students.
Carolyn has never rested on her experience. She is voracious in her search for new educational resources and new teaching strategies, and generously shares her knowledge and gives great teaching advice– including her full-time faculty colleagues with less classroom experience.
Carolyn is remarkable at helping students learn to think critically and scientifically. Her classes are full of active learning exercises, discussions, and writing assignments that require students to display higher-level thinking skills (and also require a huge time investment for grading).
During the pandemic, Carolyn has been indispensable for her reliability and her ideas as the Biology department converted two classes that had never been offered online to remote delivery. She helped ensure that students in these classes are receiving a high-quality educational experience.
As an adjunct, Carolyn is not required to hold office hours, but she puts many hours into finding better ways to teach her students, and (pre-pandemic) was often seen meeting with students outside of class.
Carolyn has a high commitment to the success of her students, and they absolutely love her. She has deserved an award like this for years!