The Price College of Business recognized the excellence and extraordinary commitment demonstrated by faculty, staff and Ph.D. students during this year’s award ceremony.
“At Price College, we’re blessed with exceptional faculty, who are building the leaders of tomorrow, and exceptional staff, who do all they can to ensure the operations of the college run smoothly,” Dean Corey Phelps said to the almost 150 people in attendance. “It is through your efforts that we can support our students in their pursuit of higher education. I am privileged to work with this exceptional and growing team of professionals every day.”
Phelps presented 19 awards – nine to faculty, eight to staff and two to Ph.D. students during the April 7 luncheon at the MidFirst Bank Stadium Club. He also recognized 16 faculty members for having research articles accepted for publication in “A” journals and acknowledged service milestones for one faculty member and two staff members.
Phelps said the award recipients have made a significant impact on students, faculty and staff. However, he praised all faculty and staff for their outstanding work and commitment.
“While the current trend in many of our fellow institutions is a decline in enrollment, Price continues to see steady growth thanks to your efforts,” he said.
After congratulating the award recipients, he said, “Thank you to everyone here for your commitment to helping change the lives of our students.”
Continue reading to learn more about this year’s award recipients and others recognized at the event.
Bruce Magoon Master Teacher Award
Presented to a faculty member who is recognized by students and faculty as an exceptional teacher and as a person who is generous in mentoring and advising students.
Natasha Poularikas
“This recipient’s success in the classroom is a direct result of her devotion to ensuring every student receives the best opportunity to learn and succeed. She leads thoughtful discussions that her students thoroughly enjoy and understand well. Her students say she is simply an ‘amazing’ professor. She also coaches student teams to impressive outcomes in case competitions.”
Staff Member of the Year
Recognizes a staff member who consistently makes outstanding contributions to their specific unit and the college. The criteria stipulate that the recipient is recognized by constituents and peers as an individual who performs all duties in an outstanding manner and who has made their jobs easier and more enjoyable.
Adrienne Jablonski
“Our recipient this year is a critical member of the team up at the Bolt. She is incredibly knowledgeable in all things admissions and recruiting, but perhaps most importantly, she always has the best interests of our MBA program and its students at heart.”
Harold Hackler Award
This award recognizes extraordinary results in developing and educating MBA students.
Wei Wei
“For the full-time MBA program, this person consistently receives high marks from his students for the exceptional organization of his course, his professionalism and his dedication to helping students master challenging materials covered in his courses. This recognition is an indication of his own mastery of the art of teaching MBA and MSF students.”
Saleh Tabrizy (not present)
“From day one, he’s taught graduate students across multiple formats and created brand new courses, one of which was turned into a completely asynchronous online course. MBA program team members regularly receive unsolicited feedback from students that this individual is ‘my favorite instructor.’”
Dean’s Excellence Award
This award recognizes a staff member who consistently makes outstanding contributions to their specific area as well as the college as a whole. The award recipients perform their jobs in an exceptional manner.
Sarah Hamby
“The first award goes to an individual who has played a critical leadership role at the Tom Love Innovation Hub, building incredible relationships across the region with partner institutions, and greatly impacting university research commercialization. She is always open to change and constantly strives to improve both her own performance and her department’s performance. In recent months, she has worked alongside key members of our leadership team to create sustainable paths to funding and growth for the Innovation Hub.”
Dean's Excellence Award
Christine Frank
"Nominated for her outstanding service to Price College in the execution of numerous high-level events critical to the success of the College. She successfully conducted four large-scale events over the fall semester, including the Red River Reception, the Michael F. Price Memorial Event, Adams Society Dinner and the Price College Tailgate. These events were elevated substantially above prior years—an impressive feat for a staff member who had not planned the events before. Her dedication to the college’s events and ensuring the success of each one, no matter the size, is worthy of recognition and reward.”
Jan Nelson (not present)
“Goes well beyond her job duties to assist students and is incredibly responsive to any faculty projects or issues that arise. Despite an increase in her workflow in terms of logistics, her consistency continues without dropping anything. Her steady and reliable contributions keep her team running smoothly.”
Dee Dee Wyckoff (not present)
“A critical part of our Center for Student Success team. She works diligently with our students to ensure they have opportunities for placement, and with our recruiters to ensure they are always coming back to hire our Price College students.”
Hurley Roberson Award for Teaching Excellence
It is awarded to a faculty member who has demonstrated a mastery of the art of teaching. It recognizes extraordinary results in educating business students to be better communicators.
Yael Lavender-Smith
“This recipient blends deep expertise with genuine care for her students, which is clearly reflected in her nearly perfect Student Experience Surveys. In addition to managing a heavy grading load, she held an extra office hour each week during the fall to offer customization and expertise in business writing that surpasses the Writing Center’s offerings.”
Houston and Mary Jo Johnson Master Teacher Award
Awards superior instruction by a full-time faculty member.
Naveen Kumar
“This MIS professor takes very technical programming material and makes it easy and enjoyable for his students to understand. Using his industry connections, he brings in guest speakers from Microsoft, Intel, Google and other technology powerhouses to provide our students with connections for the future. One student who recently took a course from this recipient said, ‘[He] was one of the most helpful professors I’ve ever had. He frequently opened his office, answered questions, and really made sure the material was being understood. For being a fully online class, [this professor’s] effort was the best I’ve seen from a teacher.’”
Morris Butkin Memorial Professor of Excellence Award
Sam Greco
This award is given to a faculty member recognized by students and fellow faculty as having demonstrated excellence in teaching, including mentoring and advising students.
“This year’s winner invests tremendous energy into enabling his students to be successful. In his nomination, one of the recipient’s students wrote, ‘I cannot thank [him] enough for inspiring me to pursue my passion and research. My project transformed from just another honors research project into a paper that I am very proud of and expect to make bigger changes in the world. [This professor] represents the best the University of Oklahoma has to offer, and I cannot recommend him highly enough.’ We are very grateful for this professor’s dedication to the mission of teaching and learning and for the many contributions he makes to our students and academic programs.”
Bruce Magoon Award for Service Excellence
This award is presented to a staff member who has demonstrated excellence in service to a division or school, the college, and the university. It recognizes extraordinary efforts directed at providing excellent service on committees, in daily work, activities, or in administrative assignments or duties.
Avery Hollingshead
“This year’s recipient has stepped up to fill the needs of multiple roles, working beyond defined duties and has proven herself an excellent team member. Additionally, she’s provided excellent communication and responses to team member requests while taking on new responsibilities.”
Business Ethics Award
Recognizes and rewards a faculty member who effectively communicates ethical issues in business to our students and whose research provides insights into key ethical issues in business.
Kristen Hilty Caruso
“This award recipient has implemented several teaching innovations, including hypothetical group discussions, computer simulations and role-play exercises that have received extremely positive response from students as they learn about legal and ethical aspects of management.”
College Choice Award
This award allows our staff to recognize a colleague who consistently makes outstanding contributions to their specific area as well as Price College as a whole.
Don Rodgers
“This year’s winner consistently goes above and beyond to meet student needs and assist faculty. Not surprisingly, numerous students and faculty have provided unsolicited praise regarding his efforts and shared their appreciation for everything he does for the college. If anyone ever needs help on a task, he’s the first to volunteer.”
Tamara Pullin Partners in Learning Award
The Tamara Pullin Partners in Learning Program allows students to work one-on-one with professors for a year-long project. Faculty are nominated by the division directors or members of the college’s executive committee, and the final selection is made based on their accomplishments in teaching and research as demonstrated by their loyalty and dedication to working with our students on topics of important inquiry.
Devin Williams
“This year’s award goes to an individual with an early-stage project involving textual analysis of auditor change 8-Ks—a timely and relevant research project with core issues that are approachable to non-doctoral students. The student would be exposed to research, common accounting data sources and auditing issues, while involved team members in Price College would provide valuable research assistance to a promising junior faculty member simultaneously.”
Outstanding Graduate TA Award
Ling Zhang
“The Outstanding Graduate TA Award goes to a doctoral student who has proven to be flexible and responsive despite multiple challenges, including quickly adjusting to moving a course online at the last minute. She immerses herself in the material and has a genuine desire to help students.”
Outstanding Graduate RA Award
It is awarded to a doctoral student who demonstrates exceptional research ability and quality publications.
Michael Matthews
“This year’s winner has demonstrated strength in collaborating with multiple faculty members on various research projects while pursuing his own research. So far, we’ve seen this individual’s work published in The Leadership Quarterly and Journal of Organizational Behavior, in addition to multiple co-authored articles.”
The Purpose of Price® Staff Award
This award recognizes a staff member who helps Price College ensure the enduring global competitiveness of Oklahoma and the nation.
Garrett Hollingsworth
“Despite growing enrollment and space and policy challenges that can make class scheduling a tough task, this individual does a great job responding to faculty and student requests, being meticulous in his work, and advising students across diverse programs. He has been a vital partner in preparing leaders by ensuring that our students are getting through our programs with all the right classes. His nominator noted that without this individual, he wouldn’t be able to address other areas that are vital to the success of Price College.”
The Purpose of Price® Faculty Award
Our faculty award winners embody the Purpose of Price® by helping the college become bigger, broader and better in developing the future business leaders our state and nation need.
Joe Dulin
“A selfless and tireless member of Price who goes out of his way to serve our students. His teaching varies across the undergraduate accounting program, residential MAcc, online MAcc and MBA programs. He regularly meets with current MAcc and BBA students about internship and career decisions and reaches out to his network to find the right place for each student he assists. He takes it upon himself to host extra informational sessions on changes to the CPA exam, to survey major recruiters and to seek new connections and employment prospects for students."
Faculty Research Productivity
Price College faculty generated 16 research articles accepted for publication in “A” journals. These faculty members are:
- Colleen Baker
- Mark Bolino
- Russell Browder
- Alexandra Durcikova
- Inn Hee Gee
- Meng Li
- Pankhuri Malhotra
- William Megginson
- Daniel Ostas
- Radhika Santhanam
- Heshan Sun
- Wayne Thomas
- Trevor Watkins
- Matthew Wood
- Pradeep Yadav
- Hua Ye
