The Creighton Students’ Union (CSU) will present the Robert F. Kennedy Award to an outstanding professor on May 12 during the commencement of the class of 2012.
“The Robert F. Kennedy goes to an exceptional professor at Creighton University,” Anna Shymanski, Arts & Sciences sophomore and the vice president of communications for CSU, said. “I think we all have that teacher that has truly touched our lives.”
Nomination forms for the award are due today (Editor’s Note: Friday, March 23) and the the CSU Standards Committee will decide who will receive the award soon after.
Past winners of the award include Dr. Victoria Roche, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences and the senior associate dean at the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions, and Dr. Shirley Blanchard, a professor in the occupational therapy department.
The winner of the award receives a plaque from the president of Creighton and gets an opportunity to take pictures with him. The president of CSU reads the citation.
“Students recognize that I am committed to their learning and professional development by striving for excellence (Magis),” Blanchard, who won the award in 2011, said.
“[Commitment to student learning] involves taking time to work one-on-one with students who have trouble understanding or applying the content, challenging those who ‘get it’ to strive for content mastery and celebrating each and every student’s success, whether that’s a good score on an exam of which they were fearful or the final course grade they worked hard to achieve,” Roche, who won the award in 2010, said. “It means respecting and celebrating the students who tenaciously fought their way from an early unsatisfactory performance to a passing grade in addition to the students who achieved top marks.”
Blanchard said she was “numb and humbled” to receive the award. Roche felt “honored, humbled and a bit overwhelmed by it all.”
“There’s some self-consciousness associated with the presentation because you know that other faculty who are outstanding teachers are in the audience, and you realize they are equally (if not more) deserving of the recognition,” Roche said. “At the same time, there’s a sense of elation that the person being singled out for this honor is you.”
“Our professors do so much for us,” Shymanski said. “At other schools, we wouldn’t get the same kind of individual attention from professors that we so thankfully do at Creighton. These outstanding professors deserve to be recognized for their amazing dedication. I’ve had so many professors here bend over backwards for me, and I couldn’t be more grateful.”