Member Awards Program

WCET gives two types of awards annually: a lifetime achievement award to one individual and awards to multiple members on the cutting edge in the use of educational technology tools or techniques for instruction, both on- and off-campus. An awards committee selects the awardees from submissions to the calls for nominations during the summer, and the recipients are honored at the fall conference.

Richard Jonsen Award for Service to the
Educational Telecommunications Community

At the WCET 17th Annual Conference, the Richard Jonsen Award was given to Darcy Hardy, the assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs and executive director of the University of Texas TeleCampus, for her contributions to the field of e-learning and WCET. She was recognized as a persistent force for change in her university system and throughout the country.

WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Awards

The WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Award recognizes members for “outstanding innovation, quality improvement, or other achievements in using educational technology tools or techniques to educate (or support educating) students.” In the second year of granting the honor, the WCET awards committee received 23 nominations. The recipients were:

• MarylandOnline: Quality Matters. To assure the continuous quality improvement of online courses, a consortium of institutions partnered to create an interinstitutional, faculty-driven, collegial peer-course-review process.

• University of Arizona: Online Nursing Ph.D. Program. Responding to the critical shortage of nursing faculty, the university created the first fully online nursing Ph.D. program to be offered by a research-intensive university.

• University of California College Prep: CyberTutor Program. Hundreds of high school students have received immediate online academic assistance in their homework assignments, exam preparation, and college applications through this program, which employs undergraduates from University of California campuses as tutors.

• University of Phoenix: rEsource – An Incubator for Digital Education Innovation. To assist students in conducting academic research and completing course assignments, the University of Phoenix created a unique set of digital tools (e-books, simulations, and virtual organizations) that serve students regardless of location.

• University of Texas System TeleCampus: TRACK - TAKS Readiness and Core Knowledge. Texas students preparing to take the 11th grade exit exam can participate in a free, online test-readiness tool containing diagnostics and learning materials in four subject areas. More than 45,000 students accessed this tool in preparation for the 2005 exam.

Susan Scott of the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System chaired the awards committee that selected the WOW recipients. Joining her on the 2005 committee were: Caroline Bowers, Lisa Cheney-Steen (Colorado Community Colleges Online), Mollie McGill (University of Colorado System), Larry Porter (South Dakota State University), G.A. Redding (Institute for Defense Analyses), and Judie Rhoads (Western Oregon University).

After the awards ceremony at the annual conference, three members asked if they could be added to this year’s awards committee. Mollie McGill is chairing the committee, which is currently reviewing 27 nominations for the 2006 award.