The Board of Directors established the Extraordinary Faculty Award to be conferred annually upon a single Walden University faculty member who exemplifies the university’s core values of quality, integrity and student-centeredness. This year, for the first time, Walden choose four faculty members for the designation.

At the awards dinner, Dr. Paula Peinovich, president and provost of Walden, said that when Walden established the award it had a much smaller faculty. “Today, we have more than 1,000 faculty members, and selecting one or two individuals for the award seemed inadequate to the task.”

The extraordinary faculty for 2006 are Dr. Stephanie Cawthon, in the School of Psychology; Dr. Mark Gordon, in the School of Public Policy and Public Administration; Dr. Linda Crawford, in the College of Education; and Dr. Elizabeth Hirst in the School of Management.

Dr. Stephanie Cawthon was nominated for the award by several students for her dedication to social change, her innovation and her commitment to her students. Patricia Speed, a master’s student in the School of Psychology, says Cawthon’s vision of social change parallels Walden’s—particularly Cawthon’s advocacy for people with hearing loss and disabilities. Speed says this is demonstrated in Cawthon’s innovative online research lab in psychology which has been surveying educators of deaf and hard-of-hearing students on the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

Susann V. Getsch, a doctoral student specializing in Health Psychology, credits Cawthon’s lab with giving students learning online an opportunity to apply theoretical learning to the real world. “Stephanie is deeply invested in mentoring her students ... to utilize the information learned in the lab to assist educators to better understand the effects of NCLB on educating children with handicapping conditions.”

Dr. Mark Gordon was also nominated by his students. “I have been impressed by his dedication to community service through his many roles in a number of nonprofit organizations, including the American Cancer Society, and the Stop AIDS Project in San Francisco,” wrote Kingman Wong, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration with a specialization in Health Services.

Walden student Donna Daniels notes that as a Walden alumnus, Gordon (who earned a Ph.D. in Applied Management and Decision Sciences in 2000), used his firsthand knowledge to help students succeed in the online environment. “He participates as an active faculty member and … takes the time to get to know the students in the Walden Community [at residencies] by meeting with them one on one, and at mealtimes and in social settings,” Daniels says.

Dr. Linda Crawford was nominated for the award by Dr. Iris Yob, associate dean in the College of Education. In the letter nominating Crawford, Yob said that Crawford helped break new ground in the area of part-time faculty involvement—particularly regarding the decision-making and instructional activities of the university. 

“She has served as a member of the College of Education Curriculum and Academic Policy committee and its Ph.D. subcommittee. Her involvement in these committees has helped shape their form and agendas. In addition, she also served on the CDL advisory committee, numerous search committees and the Institutional Review Board,” said Yob, who is quick to add that Crawford’s contributions go beyond committee service.

“It is often in her less public activities that I have come to appreciate Linda most,” Yob says.

“She has been there to help Walden in many ways, whether helping a faculty member who has run into difficulties, or a student who needs additional assistance, or by taking on a policy issue that needs to be analyzed.”

At the awards dinner, Crawford accepted the honor with emotion and grace. She said: “There is no greater honor than being honored by your peers—except, perhaps, working among the faculty at Walden. I accept this proudly.”

Extraordinary faculty member Dr. Elizabeth Hirst has had a substantial career at the university, says Dr. Jim Stahley, faculty chair of the Applied Management and Decision Sciences program, who nominated her for the award.

“The M.B.A. program experienced rapid growth under her direction,” Stahley says. “She developed a set of Knowledge Management courses as a specialization for the M.B.A. and created a course launched in March of this year for the lockstep M.B.A.”

Hirst also shepherded students from other colleges who transferred to Walden’s AMDS program and mentored them through orientation and their first KAM—successfully integrating them into Walden’s doctoral program, he adds.

Hirst, who attended the awards dinner, said she started crying when she found out she’d received the award. “And I don’t cry,” she said in her acceptance speech. “I’m a ‘steel magnolia,’”— a nickname for a strong Southern women—“and steel magnolias don’t cry. You don’t know how much this award means to me. Thank you.”

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