| This year’s Faculty Excellence Awards include honors to nine top N.C. A&T faculty members for excellence in teaching.
Dr. Karen Hornsby (pictured left)
CASE-Carnegie North Carolina Professor of the Year
Department of History
As a teacher, Hornsby’s aim is not to provide uniform instruction to each student in her classes, but to meet students where they are, challenge them to achieve goals they might not have thought possible, and to support them individually in that process.
In the classroom she provides goal-directed practice and targeted feedback to encourage strong and enduring growth of those nascent ideas. As one student explained, “Hornsby strives to open the eyes of her students to what is possible, not just what is present, and she is willing to shepherd her students to a place that they never thought could be reached.”
Describing Hornsby’s teaching style, another student remarked: “She is truly passionate about her students and always gives them ‘tough love’ to bring out their best. She effortlessly breaks down complicated subject matter and translates it practically where students can easily understand and apply the information.”
Hornsby’s impact on students, both inside and outside the classroom, is transformational, changing the course of their lives both academically and personally.
Dr. Jerono Rotich (pictured right)
2015 UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching
Outstanding College/School Teaching Award Recipient, School of Education
Rotich maintains a passion to teach, mentor and assist students to reach their full potential. She is engaging, approachable, supportive and inspiring. She strives to light the fire of learning in her students by providing diverse activities, assignments, projects, and international experiences that challenge and prepare them to be catalysts for change, role models, mentors and global leaders in a diverse and technologically advanced society.
She co-teaches a hybrid distance learning/face-to-face course every semester with colleagues from China, India and Africa that truly transforms the lives of her students – by connecting A&T students with students from around the world in real time via teleconference the course broadens students’ knowledge of other cultures and makes them aware of their place in a much larger world.
In other courses, Rotich’s innovative assignments and projects have led students to create campus-wide student organizations that connect students with the community and promote valuable health-related training, such as First Aid, CPR, and AED certifications. One of her students described Rotich as “a shining light, the encourager and an icon of hope.” Another writes: “Dr. Rotich, not only are you a great professor, you are also a great advisor and mentor. You are an incredible and inspiring woman that any young lady would look up to.”
In addition to Rotich, these faculty members received Outstanding College/School Teaching Awards:
- Dr. Kathy Cousins-Cooper, College of Arts and Sciences
- Mr. Robert Powell, College of Engineering
- Dr. Benjamin Gray, School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences
- Dr. Obasi H. Akan, School of Business and Economics
- Dr. Li-Shiang Tsay, School of Technology
The Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award Recipients were:
- Dr. Checo J. Rorie, College of Arts and Sciences
- Dr. Elizabeth Newcomb Hopfer, School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences
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