2022 Awards and Recognition Nominations
Val Horwath | Esprit De Corps
Val Horwath is the manager of recruitment and outreach for the College of Education and Human Development. Her responsibilities include the development, implementation and evaluation of recruitment and outreach activities, creation of strategies and programs to recruit for, and co-chairing the college scholarship committee. In addition, Horwath is a vital part of the CEHD marketing team, managing social media, promotional content creation, copyediting, and much more. In her work, she takes considerations beyond the scope of recruitment and makes sure to empathize and relate to every prospective student or family she interacts with. Horwath’s ongoing collegiality and meaningful collaboration include tasks that are within her job description and many that are not. She eagerly offers to assist campus partners, faculty members, advisors, etc., and supports a culture of collegiality, contributing to the good of the whole college. When approached with a request or project, Horwath listens with interest, humbly provides her vast expertise and insight, and approaches everything from a solution-focused disposition. Her positivity, wide-spread knowledge of the college and university, and personal and professional standards are an example of what it means to be a valuable contributor to the CEHD team.
Andrea Bau | Staff Excellence
Andrea Bau is a senior academic advisor in the Office of Admissions and Advising specializing in teacher education programs. She is extremely thorough with her students, consistently providing a safe place for them to seek support as well as plan and execute their college years. In addition to her responsibilities as a student advisor, Bau has recently played a role in the development of the newly-revised teaching majors. She has been a point of contact between many departments across campus, helping to facilitate understanding and the creation of accurate advising materials and plans with the goal of a positive experience for our current and prospective students in these majors. Bau regularly volunteers and serves on various committees, such as the Excellence in Academic Advising cross-campus committee, which is helping to inform the future of centralized advising at WMU, or the Merze Tate subcommittee, which helps develop Degree Works training for advisors. Whether working directly with a student or collaborating on a curriculum overhaul, Bau demonstrates leadership and engages in teamwork to provide a positive work environment for all in the college. Her above-and-beyond mentality makes her truly deserving of this award.
Regena Nelson | Community Connections
Dr. Regena Nelson a professor of early childhood education, as well as the principal investigator of two impactful grants: College Assistance for Parenting and Education (CAPE) and the WMU Urban Teacher Residency Program. The CAPE program assists student-parents with child care tuition assistance for birth through school age children at three high-quality child care centers within the community using a sliding fee scale. The grant works closely with the Kalamazoo County Ready 4s non-profit program that helps to provide high-quality pre-kindergarten education for every 3- and 4-year-old in Kalamazoo County. Dr. Nelson’s second grant partners with Benton Harbor Area Schools and Kalamazoo Public Schools, aiming to recruit, prepare and retain teachers within their respective districts, with an emphasis on teachers of color. It is projected to increase the number of certified teachers by at least 90. Dr. Nelson is also the director of the Center for Community Engagement. While this project is still in the beginning stages, it will aim to help connect students with their community to gain experience with the professional education careers. Students will be able to assist with community events, advocate for social change and participate in group service projects such as tutoring the youth. Dr. Nelson’s projects and grant awards are a reflection of her passion, intelligence, and genuine care for WMU and the surrounding communities. She has truly strengthened WMU’s community connections and greatly helped to improve areas within the profession.
Donna Talbot | Global Engagement
Dr. Donna Talbot is professor and chair of the Department of Educational Leadership, Research and Technology. She is a passionate advocate for international graduate students, has invested significant professional time in developing, leading, and endowing scholarship funds for study abroad programs. Dr. Talbot has advised, graduated and continued professional relationships with several international graduate students who have gone on to important positions within universities in their home countries. She then worked with those alumni and CEHD faculty to develop the first graduate-level study abroad program at WMU to Malaysia and Singapore. She then established an endowed scholarship fund to support ELRT graduate students in study abroad. Under Dr. Talbot’s leadership, the ELRT department has developed a graduate concentration in Educational and Global Leadership, established the university’s first graduate-level study abroad with connections to WMU alumni, led a completely new hybrid Ph.D. approach with a cohort of international students that allowed them to stay in their country and their jobs while earning their doctorates, and grew the proportion of international graduate students in the department and college to their highest levels ever. Her commitment to and work on behalf of CEHD’s global engagement has had a permanent impact on the college, WMU, and our partners in countries across the globe.
Dr. Jill Hermann-Wilmarth | Promotion of Diversity
Dr. Jill Hermann-Wilmarth is a professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Educational Studies, primarily for the educational foundations program. Dr. Hermann-Wilmarth’s main area of research is LGBTQ-inclusive English language arts instruction, which she has been examining for over a decade and a half by theorizing children’s literature, examining her own instruction in her teacher education classroom, and by co-teaching with both early and upper elementary school teachers in the Midwest. For the past two years, she has been a part of a research team that meets monthly via Zoom with teachers from across the country to discuss LGBTQ-inclusive children’s literature and how to incorporate that literature into diverse teaching contexts. Likewise, she has been a member of the board of Read and Write Kalamazoo for the past three years, helping realize their equity and anti-racist mission so that they reach and serve K-12 youth from traditionally-marginalized communities. Her work can be found in the Journal of Literacy Research, Language Arts, Journal of Language and Literacy Education, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Theory Into Practice, among other places. She is the co-author of the award-winning book, Reading the Rainbow: LGBTQ-Inclusive Literacy Instruction in the Elementary Classroom. Her work at WMU and beyond promotes diversity in the classroom and the community.
Hailey Timmerman | Rising Star Undergraduate
Hailey Timmerman is a student in the early childhood education program. She has made the Dean’s List every semester, maintaining a cumulative 4.0 GPA all while giving her knowledge to the university, the community and her students. Timmerman is a founding member of the Future Teachers of Color registered student organization. She played an instrumental role in developing and hosting the first CEHD Inspiring Future Teachers of Color conference. At this conference, she presented on ‘Successfully Balancing Academics and Extra-Curricular Collegiate Activities’, sharing with peers her personal lived experiences and researched methods of success. In the community, Timmerman is widely known by individuals in the youth development and out-of-school-time sector. She connects individuals with common interests and purposes to strengthen efforts and maximize resources. In addition to working, attending classes full-time, being a FEP and FAME scholar, and volunteering, Timmerman is involved in campus activities with numerous groups. Timmerman spends her summers working with elementary school children in the Kalamazoo area and volunteers regularly throughout the school year in various public-school settings. She also works to raise funds for the community and was asked to speak at the ribbon cutting for Prevention Works, an organization providing quality prevention education programs to youth and family in our community.
Zane Kathryne Schwaiger | Rising Star Master’s
Zane Kathryne Schwaiger is a graduate student earning her master’s degree in counselor education with a concentration in marriage, couple and family counseling. With a 4.0 GPA, Schwaiger is a leader in the classroom and actively participates in class discussions, offering insightful perspectives and questions. She has a strong interest in emotionally-focused couple therapy, one of the strongest evidence-based couple therapy approaches. She completed an Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) multi-day externship in April 2021 and EFT Core Skills 1-4 training (September 2021 - February 2022). It is very uncommon for a master’s student to complete such extensive training, and she is one of only two students involved in this EFT training. Schwaiger is currently completing her internship in the practice of a long-time marriage and family therapist in Traverse City who specializes in an intergenerational approach to family therapy and leads a group of clinicians interested in this approach. She will leave the internship being recognized as an early-career professional who specializes in this intergenerational approach to couple and family therapy. At this level, it is almost unheard of to have specialized training and deep knowledge of two specific approaches to couple and family therapy. Schwaiger’s dedication to her field makes her an outstanding rising professional.
Yunzheng Zheng | Rising Star Doctoral
Yunzheng Zheng is a doctoral student in the educational leadership program and a doctoral assistant assigned to the High Impact Leadership for School Renewal grant. In this role, Zheng has been a steady contributor to multiple lines of inquiry, conducting literature reviews, participating in data collection, conducting sophisticated data analysis, and supporting others on the grant project team with their research. From this work, Zheng has generated one first author published paper, two first author manuscripts and co-authored an additional four published research articles with one more under review. Zheng has also been first presenter and author on four research conference presentations and third presenter and author on two more, all at the highly competitive AERA conferences with one or two successful submissions for each year from 2019 through 2022. He won the Outstanding Poster and Honorable Mention at the 2019 and 2021 W.M.U. Research and Creative Activities sessions. On top of all that productivity, Zheng also made time in his busy Ph.D. program schedule to serve as an AERA reviewer in 2020 and 2021. Zheng is an exceptional Ph.D. student, both for the rigor of his own research and scholarship activities and for the value of his contributions to critical lines of inquiry for the High Impact Leadership Project.
Dr. Shamika Hall | Teaching Excellence, Part-Time
Dr. Shamika Hall is a part-time instructor in the Department of Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology, primarily serving as a clinical supervisor/instructor for the counseling practicum and the internship. Each of these courses are time intensive and involve the supervision of students doing counseling and assessment work, where close supervision, guidance, and feedback are essential to the students’ successful skill development. Dr. Hall is dedicated in preparing culturally-responsive counselors and psychologists and maintains a great rapport with students and faculty. Dr. Hall has served in this critically important role for more than 10 years, and the expertise she brings to instruction is enriched by her own full-time practice as a psychologist. She shares a wealth of practical experience and real-life examples of working with clients. Her students are well prepared, highly motivated, and able to effectively engage clients in the counseling process. She models to all her students how to be effective, professional and ethical counselors. In all of her courses, Dr. Hall teaches students the importance of balancing science and practice, the use of clinical literature, and students learning to approach their clinical work with a scientific mindset.
Dr. Arezoo Rojhani | Teaching Excellence, Full-Time
Dr. Arezoo Rojhani is an associate professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences and the undergraduate program coordinator for the nutrition and dietetics program. As the only full-time faculty member appointed to this program, Dr. Rojhani wears many hats. She created the career seminar exploratory course for freshmen and transfer students, which covers academic expectations of the major plus explores many aspects of the profession. Dr. Rojhani has also made several significant innovations to quantity foods, a junior-level course. The course emphasizes food safety; so, to make the topic more relevant, she incorporated the U.S. National Restaurant Association’s ServSafe food handler certification exam into the curriculum so students finish the course having earned this certification. For the advanced and experimental foods lab course, students write comprehensive lab reports that are judged for content and writing quality. The following semester, Dr. Rojhani mentors students who created the best 2-3 research projects to develop these into posters for the Michigan Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics annual conference. Since 2012, 15 sets of WMU students have presented research at this meeting, nine have placed in the top three, five have taken first place. This is a remarkable record, as the undergraduate students are competing against graduate students and professionals. Dr. Rojhani sets high standards for her students, and they deliver. She spends much time keeping up with an ever-changing field, and her courses reflect this.
Dr. Stephanie Burns | Trailblazer
Dr. Stephanie Burns is an associate professor in the Department of Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Michigan and Ohio and is a National Certified Counselor by the National Board of Certified Counselors. Since coming to WMU, Dr. Burns has taught a range of courses and taken a leadership role in the counselor education: clinical mental health counseling master’s program where she serves as program coordinator. While the mere number of publications and presentations is impressive, the mark that her contributions are making on the department and more importantly, the broader counseling profession are even more important. Her publications and presentations focus primarily on professional development of counselors-in-training with an emphasis on ethics. As a result of her contributions, Dr. Burns is garnering national attention. She has been selected as an Emerging Leader Fellow from the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, received the American Counseling Association Midwest Region Branch Best Innovative Practice Award in 2013, and was selected as the recipient of the Chi Sigma Iota Edwin L. Herr Fellowship for Excellence in Counseling Leadership and Scholarship. One other distinction was Dr. Burns selection as co-chair of the American Counseling Association Professional Advocacy Task Force on Counselor Branding. Being tapped for such a position is a testimony to Dr. Burns’ contributions in the area of professional identity.