Each year, Colorado State University celebrates the teaching, research and service achievements of CSU students, alumni and friends, academic faculty, administrative professionals and classified staff. This year, the College of Health and Human Sciences had several outstanding members of the Ram Family honored with 2019 Celebrate! Colorado State Awards.
Michelle Foster – Multicultural Staff and Faculty Network Distinguished Service Award
This award honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to diversity, inclusive excellence, and multiculturalism in their professions and the multicultural community. Foster is an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. Foster engages in numerous school-supported programs designed to promote diversity and highlight the personal and professional value of working with people from different cultural backgrounds, experiences and ideas.
Louise Jennings – Margaret B. Hazaleus Award
The Hazaleus awards were started in 1997 to honor individuals for long-term efforts to enhance the opportunities and the campus environment for women. Jennings works in the School of Education as a professor of women and gender studies and a RISE Center Scholar. RISE is a research center the brings together educational stakeholders interested in advancing community-engaged research to transform practices, pedagogies, policies, and leadership for racial justice and equity in K-12 and postsecondary educational institutions.
Zara Hopkins – Classified Personnel Council Outstanding Achievement Award
This award recognizes meritorious and outstanding achievement in job skills and service to Colorado State University by state classified employees. Hopkins is the financial manager at Kendall Reagan Nutrition Center, the assistant to the department head of the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, and a communications specialist.
School of Social Work – Provost’s N. Preston Davis Award for Instructional Innovation
This award is presented to an individual or group from among University faculty in recognition of the use of technology to further or significantly encourage instructional innovation; in recognition of more than four decades of service by N. Preston Davis. The School of Social Work encourages students to discover how their passion and skills can focus on social justice, equity and equality, anti-oppression, and enhancing human health and well-being. Amy Martonis, Melody Brake, and Aaron Darnell were honored for their work creating an assessment tool in canvas. Martonis is the program director for the Master’s in Social Work, the director of the Center for Lifelong Learning and Outreach Education, and the program director for the Colorado Child Welfare Stipend Program. Darnell is the Canvas administrator and assistant director of IT for the College of Health and Human Sciences, and Brake is the Canvas central administrator and manager of learning systems at CSU.
Campus Connections – Community Engagement Scholarship Award: Distinguished Category
The CSU Community Engagement Scholarship Awards, jointly established by the Office of the Provost and Office of Engagement, are conferred annually in recognition of exemplary engaged scholarship by CSU faculty or academic staff members and their community partners. The distinguished award celebrates a collaboration, project or program with a long-term record of sustained impact, achievement, and scholarship. The goal of Campus Connections is to strengthen youth life skills and self-confidence and to promote the resilience and life success of at-risk youth. CSU students enroll in Campus Connections and are paired with a youth aged 11-18 to provide one-on-one mentoring for 12 weeks.