The Ohio State University at Lima has announced the winners of the 2021 faculty mentorship, scholarship and teaching awards and the Dedicated Staff Award. Faculty were recognized as part of the virtual Academic Awards Celebration video and the Dedicated Staff Award winner was surprised on a campus service call.
The Ohio State Lima Faculty Award for Sustained Student Mentorship recognizes sustained excellence over several years in mentoring undergraduate scholarly or creative endeavors. The 2021 winner is Virginia Tompkins, associate professor of psychology. Over the past five years, Dr. Tompkins carefully mentored and supervised six separate independent student research projects. She guided students through the difficult steps of selecting research topics, analyzing data, and writing up their findings for presentation at the Lima Undergraduate Research Forum and the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum. Her hands-on mentorship also involved promoting collaboration among students, helping them seek funding and scholarship opportunities, and fostering students’ long-term interest in science and research. Her students not only engaged in exciting projects, but some won prizes for their work and many will be able to add their names to scholarly publications, which is a fantastic result at the undergraduate level.
The Ohio State Lima Outstanding Scholar Award recognizes a faculty member for scholarship representing a significant contribution in the scholar’s discipline. The 2021 winner is Hea-Jin Lee, associate professor of education. Dr. Lee’s research focuses on designing tasks that improve mathematics teachers’ professional competencies, helping them gain an understanding of the factors that influence the teaching and learning of mathematics. She has received 15 externally-funded grants supporting development (PD) programs she designed that helped more than 400 local teachers enhance mathematics learning and teaching. The PD programs provided a context for her research and the grounding for the theoretical models of teacher learning trajectories she proposed in her published works. She has published at a steady rate in relevant peer-reviewed journals as well as book, chapter, and technical reports, typically as lead author or sole author on the overwhelming majority of her peer-reviewed journal articles as well as other entries. Her colleagues noted that “with increasing demands for high-tech workers who can reason mathematically and solve complex problems, the importance of her work cannot be overstated.”
The Outstanding Teaching Award at Ohio State Lima is a student-driven honor. The 2021 Outstanding Teaching Award winner is Carmen Cupples, a lecturer in social work. Students praised her ability to be an exemplary model of an ethical and effective worker in the field of social work. They shared that her patience and guidance as both a program coordinator and instructor encourages students to grow and achieve excellence.
Ohio State Lima’s Dedicated Staff Award recognizes a campus staff member who has demonstrated positive work ethic and a record of involvement, utilizes a leadership style that is an example for others to emulate and displays a strong sense of pride and spirit for Ohio State Lima. The 2021 winner is Levi Blank, a senior systems specialist in the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Blank works with faculty, staff and students across the campus and his calm demeanor and willingness to help has been much appreciated as technology needs ramped up during the pandemic year.