Past Nominees 2020

Beth Welmaker, Director of Environmental Health & Safety, Facilities Management

Core Value: Student Centered; Academic Excellence; Opportunity; Community 

During the pandemic, Beth Welmaker took the time to create an excellent and informative presentation in order to educate all of our employees on COVID-19. Beth presented to OIIT during the month of April 2020. Beth Welmaker took the time to educate the staff of OIIT, as well as multiple other departments, on the proper ways to wear a mask and the importance of good hand washing techniques and how to stay safe during the pandemic. Through Zoom, Beth shared the presentation she created to our team and also took the time to answer our employees' questions regarding the pandemic. Employees asked Beth multiple questions and Beth did a fantastic job with answering each question. 

Beth is extremely knowledgeable and is up-to-date on everything regarding COVID-19. Beth made such an impact to our team and our employees were very appreciative that they were able to ask questions regarding the pandemic. We really appreciate Beth taking the time out of her day to do this for our team!

Dr. Darshana Palkar, Professor, H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship 

Core Value: Academic Excellence

Dr. Palkar provides top quality finance education to our undergraduate and graduate business students. She has been a leader in revising the core MBA finance course (FIN 5130)to ensure that it reflects the mission of HCBE and to reach a high quality level. This course template is used by all faculty teaching this course. Also, she is always there to ensure that the students get a top quality education. I have reviewed her student evaluations and they are consistently above 4.5/5. She is a great asset to our college. 

Dr. Albert Williams, Department Chair, Finance and Economics, H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship 

Core Value: Student Centered

Dr. Williams has been the faculty advisor to the GBSA for years. Each year, he recognizes all student clubs, and singles out individuals for praise. As an economics instructor, he has inspired non business students to consider taking business courses by showing them the relationship of economics to their fields, i.e. medicine, dentistry. 

Dr. Williams excels as a teacher and has received several teaching awards during his academic career. He enters a classroom well organized and very prepared. Students consistently describe him as an “excellent professor”, “effective and inspiring instructor”, and “helpful and available” while still describing his courses as “challenging” and “tough” yet “fun”. He is constantly available to answer student questions Monday through Sunday, day or night.

Outside of the classroom, he is engaged in several student-centered activities, ranging from meeting regularly with prospective students and their parents during Shark Preview Weeks to spending countless hours in his role as the faculty advisor to the Graduate Business Student Association (GBSA).

He is a mentor and a constant support champion. He is always available to assist students with life problems. His motto is, “Making the world a better place, one student at a time”.

OIIT Client Support Services Team

Core Value: Innovation

OIIT's technicians came together as an outstanding incredible team to serve all of our faculty, staff and students who needed assistance working remotely. Our employees stepped up to the challenge and were working 12 - 15 hour days to make sure everything ran smoothly. We cannot thank our team enough for their great effort during this challenging time.

Brian Foley, Director, Client Support Services, Office of Innovation and Information Technology

Core Value: Innovation

During our global state of emergency, faculty and staff were having technological issues working remotely. Brian built a brand new support center to support faculty and staff that were having issues working remotely. Brian did a tremendous job taking initiative to bring the team together to make this happen. There were over 1000 inquiries of faculty and staff needing technological assistance in a short period of time. Our employees and students were extremely grateful for the assistance they received and our office received multiple complimentary emails.

Jamie Althoff, O.D., Assistant Professor, College of Optometry

Core Value: Innovation

Since her appointment as the Director of Outcomes and Faculty Development, Dr. Althoff has been working hard to create and foster new plans to impact faculty development.  She is responsible for planning, organizing and leading new strategies to promote professional development and team bonding among faculty members, such as retreats and Friday morning meetings. The topics and speakers have been very interesting and instructional.

Jamie Althoff's efforts in faculty development, and getting great speakers for our faculty (from financial advice to just having communication exchanges over donuts) have been revitalizing and positively inspirational.

Diane Lippe, Executive Director of Instructional Technology, Office of Academic Affairs

Larry Lettie, Manager, LMS Architecture, Office of Innovation and Information Technology

Diane and Larry did an absolutely amazing and phenomenal job training 798 faculty on Canvas, Zoom and VPN in 3 days.

If it wasn't for Diane and Larry then out faculty would not have been prepared to teach out students remotely in our global emergency.