Please join us in congratulating the recipients of our 2024 Methodist College faculty and staff awards!
Staff of the Year
Justina Kirchgessner, BS
Justina Kirchgessner, BS serves as the Director of Financial Operations at Methodist College, and works closely with countless members of our College team! Our team relies on her organization, and positive attitude to ensure our financial operations run smoothly. She is always willing to answer questions, and goes out of her way to help others. Justina not only works with the College's day-to-day finances, she plays a role in securing grant funding and enables our team to offer students exciting academic opportunities. Congratulations, Justina!
Faculty Excellence Award for Service
Lisa Gillespie, MSN, RN, CPN
The Methodist College Faculty Excellence Award for Service has a specific commitment to service that is a distinctive characteristic of the institution. Our mission implies that faculty are encouraged to apply their specialized expertise and personal passions in ways that contribute to the social, economic, cultural, and ethical quality of life in our local, regional, and global communities and on our campus.
This year's recipient, Lisa Gillespie, MSN, RN, CPN has been working in nursing for 30 years, and has been a nursing faculty member for more than 14 years. She member here and elsewhere in our community for more than 14 of those years. She has enhanced her courses and teaching by designing and successfully implementing significant experiential learning opportunities for her students. She is a master at designing service-learning projects!
Currently, our award winner has a service-learning project with the Southside Community Center. Our students interact with members of the center, teaching mothers about various health related issues and interacting with their children in fun activities. Congratulations, Lisa!
Faculty Excellence Award for Scholarship
Colleen Karn, PhD
To receive the Methodist College Faculty Excellence Award for Scholarship, a full-time faculty member must have evidence of significant achievement in professional scholarship as demonstrated through a record of strong, sound peer-reviewed work recognized according to standards of the nominee’s discipline. The award requires prolonged and ongoing scholarship and research during the time the nominee has been a full-time member of the MC faculty.
This year's award recipient, Colleen Karn, PhD, is a full-time Arts and Sciences faculty member at Methodist College. Dr. Karn should be recognized for producing eleven peer-reviewed book chapters, scholarly journal articles and conference breakout sessions over the past five years. She also has done community-based teaching and presentations—nine of these—related to her field of expertise, popular culture. In addition to these tangible recognitions for her role in advancing popular culture as a credible scholarly academic discipline, our award recipient has received two national awards, the PCA President’s Award and the William M. Jones Award from the Journal of American Culture. Congratulations, Dr. Karn!
Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching
Lori Wagner, PhD, MSN, BSN, RN
The Methodist College Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award was designed to recognize outstanding teaching during a time a person served as a full-time faculty member at Methodist College. Areas of evaluation include engagement in the discipline, course and class planning, course communication, ability to stimulate student learning, effectiveness in student evaluation and personal relationships.
Our award recipient, Dr. Lori Wagner, indeed excels in each of these areas based on artifacts submitted for the award, which included student evaluations, and also from colleagues basing their praise on her outstanding, unflagging role as a colleague devoted to good teaching. Lori strives for excellence in all she does - modeling integrity while on the job, instilling inclusivity while in the classroom and imbuing her relationships with others with empathy and compassion. Congratulations, Dr. Wagner!