Indiana University East recognizes outstanding full-time and part-time faculty with awards.
The awards honor faculty contributions toward excellence in teaching, innovative teaching, community engagement, student success, and research and creative work.
Full-time Faculty Awards
Rosalie Aldrich, John and Corinne Graf Professor, received the Distinguished Research/Creative Activity Award. This award recognizes distinguished research and/or creative work by a full-time faculty member over a sustained period of time (10 years or more).
Aldrich received her Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Kentucky. She received her Master of Art in Communication from Michigan State University and a Bachelor in Business Administration in Marketing and Management from Grand Valley State University.
Aldrich’s research interests include health communication, suicide prevention and intervention, willingness to intervene with a suicidal individual, message design, teaching and learning online and in-person.
Feler Bose, associate professor of finance and economics, received the Horizon Research/Creative Activity Award. This award recognizes excellence in research and/or creative work by an untenured faculty member during some or all of their first four years at IU East.
Bose received his Ph.D. in Economics and a Master of Science in Economics from George Mason University. He received a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Engineering Physics from Hope College.
Bose’s areas of practice are law and economics, political economy, economics of religion, and applied microeconomics.
Edwina Helton, professor of English and director of Women’s and Gender Studies program, received the Distinguished Service Award. This award recognizes distinguished and sustained (10 years or more) service — campus, community or professional, by a full-time faculty member above and beyond the standard expectations of any compensation or release time provided for the service.
Helton received her Ph.D. in English from Miami University. She has a Master of Arts in English, a Bachelor of Arts in English, and a Graduate Certificate in Composition and Rhetoric from the University of Akron. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Maryland.
Helton’s research and creative activity interests include historiographical approaches to women’s and gender studies, digital humanities and the arts, new literacy studies and language development, online teaching pedagogies and reading and composition theory.
Parul Khurana, associate dean for the School of Science and Mathematics and an associate professor of biology, received the Student Success and Engagement Award. This award recognizes contributions by faculty or staff members who engage in activities that promote student success through active engagement with students outside of course settings. This could include advising, undergraduate research, mentoring, extracurricular student experiential opportunities, or other engagement activities.
Khurana received her Bachelor of Science in Botany and her Master of Science in Plant Molecular Biology from the University of Delhi, in India. She completed her Ph.D. in Plant Cell Biology from Purdue University in 2010.
Khurana’s research interests include root gravitropism; actin cytoskeleton; and biology education research. Khurana is an IU Bicentennial professor.
Carla Messer, assistant professor in business, received the Community Engagement Award. This award recognizes excellent community engagement by a faculty or staff member.
Messer has a Ph.D. from the Union Institute and University. She received her Master of Business Administration from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, and a Master of Arts from Western Michigan University.
Messer has 20 years of experience in coaching, mentoring and training top performers and has presented performance improvement techniques to Fortune 500 and 1000 companies throughout the U.S. and Latin America.
Deborah Miller, assistant professor of psychology, received the Horizon Teaching Award. This award recognizes excellence in teaching by an untenured faculty member during some or all of their first four years at IU East.
Miller received her Doctorate in Counseling Psychology, her Master of Arts in Counseling and her Bachelor of Science in Creative Writing from Ball State University. She is a licensed psychologist with a private practice in Muncie. She teaches courses in psychology, history of psychology in Europe, multicultural counseling, cooperative work experience, and others.
Miller’s research interests include masculinity, LGBT issues, fatherhood and clinical judgment.
Stephanie Whitehead, director of the Center for Faculty Development and associate professor of criminal justice, received the Helen Lees Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award was established in 1991. Professor Emeritus Lees passed away in 1992, but her spirit continues in this annual award to honor a full-time faculty member who has taught at least 10 semesters at IU East.
Whitehead received her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from IU Bloomington. She received her Master of Science in Criminal Justice from Eastern Kentucky University and her Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from Murray State University.
Whitehead’s research interests include policing, race and racism; ethnographic methods; cultural criminology; and the cultural politics of emotions and crime.
Trustees Award for Teaching Innovation recognizes accomplishment and innovation in teaching by faculty members (lecturer, clinical, tenure-track) at IU East. Up to seven awards are granted each academic year.
This year’s recipients of the Trustees Award for Teaching Innovation are Melissa Blankenship, Jamie Buffington-Adams, Amanda Carmack, Oi Lin Cheung, Ange Cooksey, Helton (see bio above), and Andrea Quenette.
Blankenship, lecturer in English, received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Non-Fiction from Murray State University and her Bachelor of Fine Arts in English with a Creative Writing minor from IU East.
Blankenship’s creative interests include creative nonfiction, memoir, essay forms, and poetry.
Buffington-Adams, associate dean for the School of Education and associate professor, received her Doctorate in Literacy, Culture and Language Education and her Master of Arts in Language Education from Indiana University. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Valparaiso University.
Buffington-Adams’ research interests include disability studies, curriculum studies, the performance of early career teachers, and the needs of teachers working on emergency licensure.
Carmack, associate dean for the Nursing Undergraduate Program and assistant professor, received her Doctor of Nursing Practice from IUPUI. She holds a Master of Science in Nursing in Education from IU East and her Master of Business Administration from Indiana Wesleyan University.
Carmack received her Associate of Science in Nursing from Ivy Tech Community College in Richmond, and her Bachelor of Arts in English from Northern Kentucky University.
Carmack’s research interests include simulation in nursing education, developing clinical reasoning in undergraduate nursing students, and student centered learning.
Cheung, associate professor of finance and director of the Business and Economic Research Center, received her Ph.D. in Financial Economics and her Master of Science in Financial Economics from the University of New Orleans. She received her Master of Business Administration in Banking and Finance and her Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Information System from the University of Macau.
Cheung’s teaching interests include corporate finance, entrepreneurial finance and personal finance.
Cooksey, director of the Honors Program and senior lecturer in humanities, philosophy and religious studies, received her Master in Arts in English, her Master of Arts in Philosophy and her Bachelor of Science in Philosophy from Ball State University.
Cooksey’s research interests include biomedical ethics, death and dying, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Quenette, director of Public Speaking and the Communication Center and assistant professor, received her Ph.D. from Ohio State University. She holds a Master of Science in Mass Communication and her Bachelor of Science in Mass Communication and Psychology from North Dakota State University.
Quenette’s research interests include the area of political communication and the effects of news content on the public.
Quenette also studies the communicative process of teaching and learning and is interested in using alternative types of grading to facilitate the educational experience for students and instructors.
Part-time Faculty Awards
Lindsey Hobson, adjunct for the School of Nursing and Health Sciences, and Angie Smibert, adjunct for the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, received the Part Time Instructor Excellence in Teaching Award. This award recognizes excellence in teaching by part-time faculty members.
Hobson received her Master of Nursing in Family Nurse Practitioner from the University of Cincinnati. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from IU East and her Associate of Science in Nursing from Ivy Tech Community College. She received a Post-Master’s Acute Care Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner certification from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.
Hobson teaches three primary care courses, advanced office procedures, and the final family course. She is a clinical faculty member and on the Advanced Practice Committee in the M.S.N./F.N.P. program. Also, she served as the interim F.N.P. director until 2019.
Smibert received her Master of Arts in English from IU as well as a Master in Liberal Studies from Hollins University. She has a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Virginia Tech.
At IU East, Smibert teaches professional writing, argumentative writing, and freshman composition online. She also teaches for Southern New Hampshire University’s creative writing M.F.A. program on young adult and speculative fiction. Outside of teaching, Smibert is a children’s non-fiction and fiction novelist.