Faculty excellence celebrated with recognition awards

Inspired teaching, mentoring, scholarship and creative work, and service to fellow faculty are celebrated annually with awards to deserving faculty.

Since the 2020 awards were postponed due to the pandemic, they were announced last week at a virtual meeting of the North Central College faculty, to celebrate as a community. All come with a monetary award and are designed to recognize excellence and spotlight accomplishments both inside and outside the classroom. 

The awards and their recipients: 

• Outstanding Teaching among Senior Faculty: Mary Beth Ressler, associate professor of education
• Outstanding Teaching among Junior Faculty: Jennifer Shah, assistant professor of education  
• The Excellence in Mentoring Award: Mara Berkland, professor of communications  
• Scholarship or Creative Work: Distinguished Accomplishments Among Senior Faculty: Hale Ekinci, associate professor of art and design  
• Scholarship or Creative Work: Distinguished Accomplishments Among Junior Faculty: Kristin Paloncy, assistant professor of health science  
• Distinguished Service by Senior Faculty Award: Suzanne Chod, associate professor of political science  
• Distinguished Contributions by a Half-Time Faculty Member: Paul Mullen, half-time associate professor in psychology  
• Distinguished Contributions by a Part-Time Faculty Member: Michelle DePasquale ’14, adjunct instructor in psychology and neuroscience