Katrice Hawthorne, Dani Lane and Katie Baker in the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education were recognized on May 16 for faculty excellence in service, scholarship and teaching at the annual school awards banquet.
Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education faculty members Katrice Hawthorne, Katie Baker, and Dani Lane were recognized on May 16 for faculty excellence at the annual school awards banquet.
In addition, Bryan Hedrick was recognized for his 18 years of service by Ann Bullock, professor and Dr. Jo Watts Williams Dean of Education, and Carol Smith, professor and interim department chair for education and wellness.
During his time at Elon, Hedrick created numerous activity courses for the benefit and to the interest of all Elon students. His “statistics” include: 453 semester hours of courses taught that included 5,060 students for a combined total of 11,976 credit hours earned. In addition to teaching an eclectic group of courses, he has provided leadership and service to the department, university and North Carolina’s College and University Instructional Physical Activity Programs Leadership Committee. Hedrick has presented regionally and nationally, and is a current member of both SHAPE America and NC-SHAPE. The Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education wishes Hedrick well in his upcoming retirement and may he always be remembered as the “Pickleball King.”
Faculty Excellence Award for Service
Katrice Hawthorne, director of Accreditation
Consistent with Elon’s call for a rich intellectual community characterized by active student engagement, the Faculty Excellence Award seeks to recognize contributions of a Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education faculty member of distinction in one or more areas of teaching, scholarship, mentoring and service-leadership.
In her nomination, Mary Knight-McKenna, professor of education and director of the Master’s of Education program, shared, “this year’s service award recipient was our architect, structural engineer, construction manager and project manager, and we are all grateful for the amazing and impressive work she accomplished.”
Having recently completed our Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) accreditation review and being recommended for full accreditation with no areas for improvement or stipulations, Knight-McKenna noted this year’s service award recipient put in countless hours working towards this outcome.
Katrice Hawthorne, director of accreditation, carefully designed the continuous improvement process for the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education undergraduate programs. She spent numerous hours collecting, organizing, analyzing and then presenting data to the faculty so they could better understand the programs and changes that needed to be made. She knew every detail expected for the CAEP Self-Study Report and then wrote an outstanding report. In addition, she worked diligently in a wide range of ways to showcase the work happening in the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education.
“Katrice has both the ‘big picture’ and ‘attention to detail’ that was needed for our successful CAEP review,” said Knight-McKenna.
Faculty Excellence Award for Scholarship
Dani Lane, assistant professor of education
Consistent with Elon’s call for a rich intellectual community characterized by active student engagement, the Faculty Excellence Award seeks to recognize contributions of a faculty member of distinction in one or more areas of teaching, scholarship, mentoring and service-leadership.
In her nomination, Lisa Buchanan, associate professor of education, noted that Dani Lane “published, presented or submitted for blinded peer review a total of 12 forms of scholarship during the 2021-2022 academic year.” This agenda included five presentations, three being international and one co-presentation with an undergraduate research student. It also resulted in two published articles, an edited book, a book chapter and an additional three publications under review/in the final stages of publication.
Lane’s research focuses on global understandings of disabilities and inclusion in various cultural contexts. Specifically, Lane is interested in utilizing qualitative methods to centralize the importance of inclusive practices in educational provisions that are provided to students with disabilities.
Lane started her career at Elon in the fall of 2018 as a pre-doctoral candidate from the University of South Florida. At the end of her pre-doctoral fellowship year, she joined the faculty as an assistant professor. Since then, she has been instrumental in leading the special education curriculum revision and the implementation of the Alamance Scholars program, a collaboration between Alamance-Burlington School System, Alamance Community College and Elon University.
In the summer of 2021, Lane served as a Visiting International Scholar at Mahidol University, in Thailand, on a project focused on how teachers who support inclusive practices in Thailand use research to inform their practices. During this time, she also facilitated a virtual workshop focused on the inclusive practices for students with disabilities.
Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching
Katie Baker, assistant professor in education
Consistent with Elon’s call for a rich intellectual community characterized by active student engagement, the Faculty Excellence award seeks to recognize contributions of a faculty member of distinction in one or more areas of teaching, scholarship, mentoring and service-leadership.
Katie Baker has consistently demonstrated teaching excellence during her time at Elon. In his nomination, Jeffrey Carpenter, associate professor of education and director of the Teaching Fellows Program, noted that students regularly praise the quality of Baker’s teaching. In particular, she is known for how accessible and clear she makes the teaching of math, a subject that can be intimidating for some elementary education majors. Baker also integrates her teaching with her research, having published regularly in high impact journals on topics related to her teaching.
One alum had this to say about Baker: “She is the epitome of a lifelong friend, teacher, and learner. Her students, whether aged 10 or 23, feel seen, heard, and loved. She made math, a subject that can often be filled with anxiety, feel more accessible and enjoyable. Even now, in my first year of teaching, she acts as an advocate for my own continued learning as a student and respects my opinions as a professional. So much of who I am as a teacher, comes from interactions and experiences I have had with Dr. Baker, in and out of the classroom. News and sharing, respecting students’ time, being open, honest, and vulnerable with students and finding joy in every day. I am so grateful for all shared time Dr. Baker and I have had together and cannot wait to be lifelong friends and learners together!”
Another recent grad shared, “Dr. Baker is excellent both in and out of the classroom. She cares deeply about students and instills a lifelong love of learning. I used to hate math, but her classes became my favorite college experiences and made math my favorite subject to teach. Dr. Baker always says once you’re my student, you’re my student forever, and she truly means it. She’s right there to help and support, whether it be about teaching, or just life in general. She was easily one of the best parts of Elon and I am forever grateful for all the knowledge, love, and support that she’s given me. No one deserves this award more than her.”
Finally, a third alum stated, “ It is a privilege to have Dr. Baker in my life as a mentor, colleague, and friend. Every course I took from Dr. Baker opened my mind to what honoring children and nurturing them to become better people looked like. Dr. Baker taught me how to give ‘grace and space’ to those around me and to really center humanity in my teaching practices and in my interactions with others. She gave me the confidence to teach decimal work to fifth graders and the excitement to teach one-to-one counting strategies to kindergartners. Dr. Baker is so deserving of this and anyone who has the opportunity to learn from her will be changed for the better!”
Baker was previously awarded with the Dean’s Emerging Scholar award in May 2019.