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REXBURG
-- Brigham Young University–Idaho has recognized five faculty members
by naming them this year’s recipients of the Distinguished Teaching
Award.
The
awards are given out each year based upon recommendations from faculty and
students at the university.
The
five recipients this year are John Ivers, a
Spanish teacher; Kim Van Wagoner, department chair in the nursing
department; James Keller, dean of the College
of Religious and Social
Sciences; Keith Patterson, an accounting faculty member; and Kevin Shiley, chair of the Business Management Department.
Ivers has been teaching Spanish at BYU–Idaho for
14 years, and has been involved in a number of activities beyond the
college classrooms.
For
three years, Ivers worked with academically
gifted high school students with the Summer Honors Program. He was also
director of the “Teaching Tune-up” program at Ricks
College after teaching for only
a few years, instructing roughly one-third of the faculty on ways to
improve their teaching. Ivers was co-director of
the volunteer program designed to teach foreign languages to students at Madison
Middle School for nine years.
Patterson
has been teaching in the accounting department for 14 years, and has been
involved with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program for many years.
The program allows business students to review and help prepare tax forms
for fellow students as a learning experience for the students and a free
service for their “customers.”
He
was also adviser for the Ricks College
chapter of Sigma Gamma Chi before the fraternity was dissolved.
Aside
from serving as the dean of the College
of Religion and Social
Sciences, Keller has in the past been adviser for the Native American Club
on campus, and has been teaching religion at Ricks College/BYU–Idaho
for 20 years. Prior to coming the university, he
was a seminary teacher in Sugar City.
Shiley has been teaching in the business management
department for nearly 10 years, ever since he applied for a position at Ricks
College after working his way
up the corporate ladder for 12 years in the marketing field. Since then, he
has felt like he has found his calling in life.
For
the last four and a half years, Shiley has been
department chair in the Business Management Department, during which time
he has overseen the transition from Ricks
College to BYU–Idaho,
including the addition of baccalaureate programs to their curriculum.
Previously,
he was in charge of recruiting speakers for the Business Summit for three
years. He has also been involved with the Forum Committee and three student
groups traveling to Mexico
for an experience in international business.
Van
Wagoner has been chair of the Nursing Department for 10 years, during which
time he has been involved in several different changes to the nursing
program.
Aside
from the addition of baccalaureate programs with the change to a four-year
university, he has also overseen the expansion of the transcultural
program to include Peru
and Brazil
beyond the trips to Mexico
that have been a long-standing tradition. There have also been some changes
to the associate program and the addition of a distant education program,
allowing students to get degrees from BYU–Idaho from their homes
across the country.
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