CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Mid-American Conference announced today the 12 institutional winners for the Outstanding Faculty Award for Student Success. This marks the second year that the award has been given out to recognize the outstanding efforts of MAC faculty to support and develop students both inside and outside of the classroom. 
 
This student-focused award is distinguishable from academic or research-based awards as it celebrates the commitment of the MAC to a holistic student experience and the creation of an environment that supports success in school and in life.  
 
Eligibility for this award is broad in nature in an effort to identify a wide range of outstanding means by which faculty are significantly impacting students, and to create an opportunity to recognize the various ways that student success is supported within the MAC.  It is the hope of this award that the twelve nominees represent a diverse community that demonstrate support for student success throughout their entire collegiate experience.

The list of the institutional winners from each MAC school can be found below. The winner of the 2021 Outstanding Faculty Award for Student Success will be announced on Friday, May 14.  

2021 Outstanding Faculty Award for Student Success Institutional Winners



Dr. Michele Zelko, Akron
Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs at The University of Akron School of Nursing
Dr. Michele Zelko has been a registered nurse for 36 years and my area of specialty is perinatal nursing.  Her career path started with earning a BS in Biology from Baldwin Wallace University.  she then attended Case Western Reserve University and earned her first nursing degree and MSN.  After obtaining her MSN as a Perinatal Clinical Nurse Specialist, she worked in the Bronx, NY at Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center. Zelko was responsible for developing and writing nursing policies and procedures as well as a formalized RN orientation program.  She has been teaching at The University of Akron School of Nursing since 2003 and is currently the Assistant Director.  Zelko's passion remains teaching in the Nursing of the Childbearing Family course and helping students learn the role of the nurse when caring for women who are pregnant and giving birth.




Dr. Lindsey Blom, Ball State
Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology // Faculty Athletics Representative
Sport and Exercise Psychology Graduate Program Coordinator
Dr. Lindsey Blom is a Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Faculty Athletics Representative, and Sport & Exercise Psychology Graduate Program Coordinator at Ball State University interested in psycho-social aspects of youth sport and sport for development and peace. For the past decade, she has investigated positive youth development through sport and using sport to promote peace at the individual, community, and international levels. Specifically, her research focuses on maximizing the benefits of sport participation through a mastery and cooperative approach fostered by trained coaches and supportive parents, emphasizing holistic athlete development. Her recent projects include exploring the peace indicators and development of purpose in Liberian youth involved in a sport for development program, conducting sport for social change programs in India, Jordan and Tajikistan, developing a values-based curriculum that can infused into recreational sport leagues, chairing the NASPE task force for the position statement on Maximizing the Benefits of Youth Sport, and running local after-school sport for peace and leadership programs with elementary school children. Throughout her academic career, Dr. Blom has co-authored numerous journal articles, book chapters, and a book, Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Soccer, and received over three-quarters of a million dollars in externally funded grants as the principal investigator or Co-PI, with two recent PI grants related to sport of social change funded by the Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ SportsUnited program. Dr. Blom also serves on the Board of Director for Dream Sports Africa and Ball State’s Center for Peace and Conflict Studies as well as the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology Editorial Board, and is a Ball State New Faculty Academy Facilitator and an Association for Applied Sport Psychology Fellow. To accompany her educational training and research experience, Lindsey has over 15 years of consulting experience as a certified mental performance consultant (CMPC) and over 15 years of experience as a youth soccer coach. As a consultant, she has worked with administrators, coaches, and athletes from the youth to collegiate level on issues in creating a positive sport environment and maximizing performance. Furthermore, she has led numerous team-building workshops and presented at coaching conferences. Additionally, as a soccer coach, she has worked with children ages 4 to 18, in recreational, competitive, and school-based settings using her experiences as a semi-professional and Hall of Fame Division I soccer player.




Dr. Carrie M. Hamady, Bowling Green
Associate Clinical Professor, Director UG Dietetics
Carrie Hamady is a registered/licensed dietitian and the Director of the Undergraduate Dietetics Program at BGSU. She worked as a clinical dietitian for the majority of her career in sub-acute rehab and long-term care facilities. She has presented at FNCE, the Ohio NDEP Conference, and the CREATE Conference on innovative teaching practices and was featured in Today’s Dietitian for her use of Twitter in the classroom. She has also presented at the SCAN symposium and is nutrition coach for the Sports Performance Team. She serves as the Vice-Chair for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ Nutrition Informatics Committee and is the group leader for the Nutrition Care Process and Research Outcomes (NCPRO) Committee for ANDHII. She serves the Faculty Affiliate on campus for the Presidents United to Solve Hunger (PUSH) initiative. She won the award for best innovation in dietetics education at FNCE, and the Faculty Excellence Award for Community-Based Teaching at BGSU. Carrie completed her doctorate in Leadership Studies at BGSU in 2019. 



Christine P. Bartholomew, Buffalo
Professor of Law at UB School of Law
Christine Bartholomew is a professor of law at University at Buffalo School of Law.  She teaches evidence, antitrust, and civil procedure, and her scholarship focuses on the interplay of these topics, particularly in complex litigation.  She is a four-time winner of the law school's only teaching award, the Faculty Award.  She also received the 2019 Jacob B. Hyman Distinguished Professor Award. Bartholomew’s academic publications have appeared in many leading academic journals, including Duke Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Fordham Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Vanderbilt Law Review.  Her work is frequently cited in the press, and she has been quoted on Slate and The Conversation and in news outlines including USA Today, Reuters, and Mother Jones. Bartholomew received her B.A. from San Francisco State University in 1997 and her J.D. from the University at California, Davis, in 2000. Upon graduation, she worked in the San Francisco Bay Area as an attorney, practicing in the areas of antitrust and consumer protection. During her career in legal practice, she served in executive and lead counsel positions for numerous national, multi-million dollar cases and was the managing attorney for the San Francisco branch office of a Washington, DC-based class action boutique law firm.




Michael Mamp, Central Michigan
Professor // Director, Fashion Merchandising & Design
For years, Michael Mamp has been teaching fashion merchandising and design courses at CMU. For him, the most rewarding part of being an instructor is developing lasting, meaningful relationships with students.  In the classroom, Michael does his best to keep things dynamic and inspiring for his students. The recent addition of the Makerbot 3-D printing lab at CMU has offered new opportunities and challenges for students of design. But while the technology may have changed since the last time Michael was at CMU, one thing has remained the same – the Chippewa spirit.  

“I think at CMU we do a better job of connecting with students and also maintaining those relationships,” he said. “There are always going to be things in a job that you like and don’t like, but if there’s something that motivates me every day to continue to try to do my job to the best of my ability, it’s because I know I have the ability to impact students. I think we have a responsibility to provide the best experience we can for those students, and I think we take that very seriously.”



Jeffrey L. Berstein, Eastern Michigan
Professor of Political Science
Jeffrey Bernstein is Professor of Political Science at Eastern Michigan University, where he has been on the faculty since 1997.  He holds a B.A. from Washington University and an M.A. and Ph. D. from the University of Michigan.  His research interests include public opinion and political behavior, citizenship education, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.  Bernstein was a 2005-06 Carnegie Scholar with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Palo Alto, California.  He is co-editor and contributing author of Citizenship Across the Curriculum (Indiana University Press, 2010) and of numerous scholarly articles and book chapters, many co-authored with the kind of remarkable students who make being an academic so much fun, and so rewarding. 


Julie Mazzei, Kent State
Associate Professor of Political Science 
Julie Mazzei has been a Political Science Profesor at Kent State since 2007. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from American University, 2006 and her Bachelor of Arts, from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Dr. Mazzei is the author of Death Squads or Self-Defense Forces Paramilitary Emergence in Contemporary Latin America, published in 2009 by University of North Carolina Press. Among her additional publications are articles on the post-conflict ramifications of paramilitary violence and reconciliation processes in El Salvador (Human Rights Quarterly, 2011), and the development agenda and its impact on rights in Cuba, looking specifically at the so-called "tourist apartheid" (Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 2012). Dr. Mazzei teaches our graduate courses on human rights, political violence and development. At the undergraduate level, Dr. Mazzei teaches sections of our World Politics and Comparative Politics courses, as well as the upper-division Human Rights and Social Justice, Politics of Development, and Latin American Politics courses. She also periodically teaches the Senior Seminar, focusing on political violence.



Karen C. Davis, Miami,
Associate Professor 
Dr. Davis has been an Associate Professor at Miami University in 2017.  She has been active in developing new curricula at both undergraduate and graduate levels, introducing new teaching techniques in the classroom and assessing their efficacy, mentoring and advising students, advocating for women in computing, and participating in pre-college outreach. She is committed to advocacy for, and recruiting and retention of women in computer science and software engineering.  In 2021, it is estimated that 1,000,000 jobs in the computing industry will go unfilled in the United States, yet the number of women and minority students graduating in the discipline is at an all-time low after nearly achieving parity in the 1980s.  She has received over $5,000 in grants from Miami's Career Exploration and Success Center to support female students attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing as well as local celebrations in Ohio (OCWiC) and Kentucky (TriWiC); she has accompanied more than 30 students to these events since joining the faculty at Miami University.  She serves on the organizing committee for TriWiC and participates by giving technical talks, mentoring, judging poster competitions, and organizing board game events.  She is the co-advisor for Miami's ACM-W student chapter. As one of the co-editors of the ACM SIGCSE Bulletin (a quarterly newsletter for about 3,000 computing educators), she helped to initiate a column on how to address equity and inclusion in computing education.



Jamie Mayer, Northern Illinois
Associate Professor 
Dr. Mayer currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Speech-Language Pathology unit at Northern Illinois University. Earning her B.A., M.A. and Ph. D from Indiana University, Mayer currently researches treatment of adult neurogenic language disorders, Aphasia assessment and treatment, Gerontology and enhancing communication and quality of life for individuals with dementia.


Andrew Pueschel, Ohio,
Associate Professor Instruction 
Andrew Pueschel Ph.D., Director of the Emerging Leaders program at the Robert D. Walter Center for Strategic Leadership, is a Lecturer in the Management Department of the College of Business at Ohio University. He teaches Management in the Integrated Business Cluster, Introduction to Business, and Leadership in Practice.  Andrew holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Ethics and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon, a Master’s in Public Policy and Management from the Heinz School, and a Doctorate in Leadership and Instructional Management from Robert Morris University.  Research includes Well-Being, Leadership, Soft Skill Development, Organizational Behavior, Culture Change, and Motivation.


Matt Foss, Toledo
Associate Professor Acting/Directing 
Matt Foss received his M.F.A. in acting from Chicago’s Roosevelt University and Ph.D. in theatre studies and directing from Wayne State University in Detroit. Recent professional credits include Red Tape Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Oracle Theatre, Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, American Blues Theatre, The Jewish Ensemble Theatre and Tipping Point Theatre. In 2016, his touring production of The Glass Menagerie performed at Russia’s Moscow Art Theatre. He adapted and directed Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle for Oracle Productions in Chicago in 2014.  The production received Chicago Jeff Award Nominations for Outstanding Production, Director, Ensemble, and won for best new adaptation. In 2012 his production of Six Characters at Iowa State University received the Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival's National Award for Outstanding Production of a Play and Outstanding Director of a Play. In 2019, his adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front received the Kennedy Center’s David Mark Cohen Playwriting Award.  The play had its professional premiere in Chicago in 2019, winning 6 Jeff Awards-including Best Production, Best Ensemble and Best New Work.  Foss was the recipient of the ATHE/KCACTF Prize for Innovative Teaching in 2013 and the 2020 University of Toledo Edith Rathburn Outreach and Engagement Excellence Award.


James Springstead, Western Michigan
Associate Professor
Dr. James Springstead received his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2001, and then earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2008, under the direction of Harold Monbouquette. During his studies at UCLA, Dr. Springstead discovered and characterized a novel trifunctional polypeptide and characterized the membrane lipid of the hypethermophilic archaeon, Archaeoglobus fulgidus, using mass spectrometry. Furthermore, he developed a method to measure the thermal area expansivity of lipid vesicles with multi angle laser light scattering, applicable as a quality control method for liposomes used in drug delivery and other industries. During his time at UCLA he also taught classes in chemical engineering and molecular biotechnology and held leadership positions in several UCLA organizations. Immediately following his Ph.D. studies, Dr. Springstead joined the prolific Atherosclerosis Research Unit in the Cardiology Division of the UCLA Department of Medicine as a postdoctoral researcher, his present position, performing research under the direction of Dr. Andrew Watson and Dr. Judith Berliner. In this work, he applies his enthusiasm and expertise in studying lipid chemistry to solving biological problems and studying lipids involved in medicine. He specifically uses mass spectrometry, western blotting, and microarray analysis to study the activation of endothelial cells by oxidized phospholipids, an event which can lead to the development of atherosclerosis, an underlying condition in heart disease and stroke. In his future research, he will further elucidate the mechanisms involved in atherosclerosis, and he will also explore the development and delivery of novel therapeutics for treatment of atherosclerosis.