Achievements
Faculty, staff honored with Center for Service Learning awards
Robert Ford, Jolene Coggins, Betty Farmer, Dan Clapper, Gabe Nucci, Susan Brown-Strauss and Barbara Jo White were among honorees recognized by the Center for Service Learning for their achievements in 2011-12.
Recipients of the community service award were Robert Ford, a construction management faculty member, and Jolene Coggins, a staff member in the Registrar’s Office. Ford led groups of student volunteers at renovation projects at the Community Table and Full Spectrum Farms, sets up a Mountain Heritage Day with his surveying class and organized a summer camp for high school students interested in construction management. Coggins regularly volunteers at area schools, helps rally support for school programs and promotes service to youth in such ways as helping her nieces and nephews collect poptops to help the Ronald McDonald House charities.
Honored for outstanding achievement in teaching through integration of service learning into courses at WCU were Betty Farmer, professor of communication; Dan Clapper, associate professor of computer information systems; Gabe Nucci, assistant professor of communication; and Susan Brown-Strauss, professor of theatre. The faculty members were responsible for a co-curricular project to create and launch the Dillsboro Mobile App.
Barbara Jo White, associate professor of computer information systems, received the outstanding achievement for research award. White co-authored papers including “Geolocation Enabled Mobile Web Projects for Smartphones in the CIS Classroom” and “Real-World Information Systems Projects in the CIS Classroom.” White also spearheaded an interdisciplinary team from the College of Business, College of Arts and Sciences, the Kimmel School and Hunter Library to examine how service learning projects are evaluated as scholarship.
