The Metro State community is encouraged to come out in support of 10 of their colleagues who will receive Distinguished Service, Teaching Excellence and Golden Key awards at the Welcome Back Ceremony Sept. 5, 7:30-9:30 a.m. in the King Center. In addition, the more than 90 Length of Service Award winners will be recognized.
Distinguished Service
Yvonne Flood, assistant vice president of Information Technology, will receive the first-ever President’s Award, a new category of the Distinguished Service Award to acknowledge contributions and commitment to Metro State of even greater significance.
In her 28 years with the College, Flood has received numerous promotions after starting as a program assistant in the Health Career Science Program. Prior to moving to Information Technology, she managed the Office of the President for 16 years and four different presidents.
In 2000, Flood became the director of information technology administration, where she was key in helping the fledgling department pioneer systems the campus now takes for granted, such as the IT Help Desk, the data management system and procurement systems, while supervising administrative and technical staff and overseeing $8.5 million in budget and allocation monies. She was named assistant vice president of Information Technology in 2004.
Flood gives generously of her time to serve on committees such as last year’s Integrated Marketing and Communications Committee and the Strategic Planning Committee. She has also chaired the Council of Administrators.
Martha Shwayder, professor of sociology and former chair of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Behavioral Science, will receive the Distinguished Service Award for Faculty.
Shwayder has been with the College for 34 years. Widely recognized for her dedication, this year’s award is the latest in the string of awards for Shwayder including the 2004 President’s Performance Stipend as Chair, the 1997 Outstanding Service to Students Award and the Advising Award, and the 1990 Outstanding Women Award for Faculty.
Shwayder spends hours at the general advising office as each new semester begins, as well as advising hundreds of behavioral science and sociology majors each year as department chair. She is also actively involved in various research projects--she’s currently researching job satisfaction in the funeral home business--and has lectured across the country on topics ranging from the environment as a public health issue to social stratification and health.
Donna Fowler, editorial coordinator in the Office of College Communications, will receive the Distinguished Service Award for Classified Staff.
A summa cum laude journalism graduate of Metro State, Fowler has been using the reporting and writing skills she learned for 27 years as editor of the faculty/staff internal newsletter and the alumni magazine as well as numerous other official college publications. Over the years she has promoted Metro State’s mission, in which she strongly believes, and heightened awareness and understanding of College initiatives, decisions and policies.
Currently Fowler is a member of the Hispanic Serving Institution Task Force and in 2006-07 served on the HLC-NCA Steering Committee and the Integrated Marketing and Communications Committee.
Fowler’s work has won awards from CASE (national and regional), HEAR, the Denver Advertising Federation and others. In 1997 she was named Outstanding Alumna in Public Relations by the Department of Journalism.
Teaching Excellence
Nancy Frontczak, professor of marketing, will receive the Tenured Teaching Excellence Award. In her 20 years of teaching at Metro State, Frontczak has designed, tested and published innovative experiential learning techniques, frequently engaging her students in real-world community projects in Denver. The Marketing Educators’ Association, which in 2005 named Frontczak the national Marketing Educator of the Year, said Frontczak “truly is a master educator … (and) a leader in the field of marketing education.”
Cynthia Kuhn, associate professor of English, will receive the Tenure-Track Teaching Excellence Award. Her teaching philosophy is to uphold the high standards of the academy while helping her students reach those standards. “I want to invite students to take a wondering stance…to think and explore, to re-think and re-create,” she says. Kuhn also engages with students outside the classroom, often judging poetry and fiction for the Writes of Spring contest and serving as faculty advisor for the Sigma Tau Delta Honor Society.
Karen “Kas” Parsons, visiting assistant professor of human performance and sport, will receive the Adjunct Full Time Teaching Excellence Award. She believes it is essential that she practice what she preaches regarding healthy lifestyles and brings her personal experience with exercise, nutrition, competitive sports and overall wellness into her classroom. She always incorporates teambuilding activities into the curriculum in order to increase student interaction, observe students in action and lay the foundation for group work.
Golden Key Honour Society Award
Linda Lockwood, professor of psychology, will receive the Outstanding Faculty: Full-Time Award. A magna cum laude Metro State graduate, Lockwood has been a professor at the College since 1995. According to one of her students, she “is concerned about whether students learn and succeed. She encourages her students and assists every step of the way. She is also available as an advisor and mentor.” Among other honors, Lockwood received the Psi Chi Excellence in Teaching Award in 2005, and has been nominated for the Golden Key Excellence in Teaching award numerous times.
Alexandre Padilla, assistant professor of economics, will also receive the Outstanding Faculty: Full-Time Award. He gives his students “guideposts to economic thinking” by first introducing fundamental concepts in economics then demonstrating their applicability. He encourages his students to apply the economic way of thinking to real-world issues such gun ownership, crime and housing shortages. In addition to textbooks and lectures, Padilla uses newspaper articles, Web sites, laboratory experiments and interactive dialogue to prompt his students with “questions for thought.”
Kathleen Mondonaro, visiting adjunct instructor of chemistry, will receive the Outstanding Faculty: Part-Time Award. In only one year’s time, Mondonaro has had a great impact on her students, one who describes her as “the most effective teacher I have ever had,” thanks to her “unerring patience, lively sense of humor and excellent communication skills.” According to another student, “She excels every day, providing alternative explanations and additional study materials in class and by e-mail, and employing teaching strategies to address all learning styles.”
Roberto Forns-Broggi, associate professor of Spanish, will receive the Outstanding Researcher/Scholar Award. Forns-Broggi has concentrated research in the areas of Latin American film, in both Spanish and Portuguese, and ecocriticism, the relation between ecology and literature/culture. He has designed a film course at Metro State, and he regularly inspires his students by incorporating films and documentaries in his grammar, culture and literature classes.
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