Excellence in Online Teaching Award

The MSU Excellence in Online Teaching Award is presented to individuals who have provided outstanding teaching, course development, mentoring of students, and service to online education. The award recognizes those who have made significant contributions to credit or noncredit programs through inspirational online teaching.

Candidates are nominated by online students and reviewed by the MSU Online Advisory Committee, including a student representative.

The Award

Recognition will include a $2000 cash award and a plaque that will be presented at a university-wide reception.

2018 Winner: Ann Ellsworth

Ann Ellsworth, Education

Ann Ellsworth, Education, has won the Excellence in Online Teaching Award, honoring faculty who have provided outstanding teaching, course development, mentoring of students and service to online education. The prize comes with a $2,000 honorarium.

A professor of reading and language arts education in the College of Education, Health and Human Development, Ellsworth is known for possessing and defining an outstanding vision of online instruction. Colleagues note she has intentionally designed her virtual classroom to be a safe space for learning, discovery and engagement, as well as a space where academic risk-taking and exploration is celebrated. Students say that Ellsworth is an exceptional educator who recognizes their value and provides them with learning opportunities that allow them to experience success. Ellsworth’s students have previously recognized her with numerous excellence awards, and she was previously named the recipient of the university’s prestigious President's Award for Excellence in Teaching.

2017 Winner: Marvin Lansverk

Marvin Lansverk

Marvin Lansverk, English, has won the Excellence in Online Teaching Award.

Lansverk has a gift of mentoring students from afar. An early adopter of online teaching who started his first online course in 1995, Lansverk has built critical thinking into his online courses.  He "break(s) through the digital wall" with various creative approaches, including incorporating a service-learning public storytelling element into his online courses.

His design for his world mythology class, which is a diversity core course, is equally applicable to majors and non-majors, inviting them to approach the subject from a variety of academic disciplines as he shares with them some of the "best stories of the world." Students learn the value of the humanities as they think and write in elevated and sophisticated ways--and to see how global stories from Gilgamesh to Star Wars are much more than simple entertainment. One of his online students wrote that Lansverk has a great gift: "His lifelong dedication to our success .... makes him a cut above the rest. He truly cares for his students as people, and it shows in his teaching style."

2016 Winner: Robert Peterson

Robert Peterson, Land Resources and Environmental Science, has won the Excellence in Online Teaching Award.

Peterson founded the MSU Online Master of Science program in the College of Agriculture’s Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences. He also teaches two online graduate courses and instructs students on their professional papers for their final course.

Peterson is known to his students as a supportive and effective instructor and a strong and stable mentor whose online courses are clearly defined and provide a robust blend of factual learning, applied science and scholarly discussion. His delivery method for online learning materials is comprehensive and pertinent, while remaining user friendly.

Students say Peterson’s interactive teaching style, ready availability and expert guidance help to create a successful learning experience. He is known for his ability to deftly field questions and issues presented by his diverse group of students and seamlessly integrate them into course materials. His students have praised his online teaching methods and standards that, coupled with his commitment to excellence, make the online learning experience just as effective and rewarding as on-campus programs.

2015 Winner: Scott Powell

Scott Powell, Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, has won the Excellence in Online Teaching Award.

Powell has played a key role in the development of MSU's new online master's degree of environmental science in the College of Agriculture's Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences. Powell is involved in every aspect of a program that has grown to nearly 60 students in just two years.

As an instructor, Powell has received outstanding evaluations from his students. As program coordinator, he has helped shape the current and future curriculum, course design and improvements, faculty recruitment and retention, program marketing, and student recruitment, admissions, retention, advising, and professional paper development. As the academic adviser to all incoming students, he makes himself available via email, phone, Skype or office visits. Powell developed two courses for the program, designed to offer students the kind of lab exercises that quality science learning requires.

Powell's research is focused on understanding the drivers of change within landscape and vegetation patterns, as well as the consequences of those changes for ecosystem processes. He has secured multiple grant awards having received nearly $1 million, either as principal investigator or co-PI, and published more than 20 refereed journal articles.

• 2014: Brock LaMeres, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• 2013: Glenna Burg, College of Nursing
• 2012: John Graves, Department of Education
• 2011: Kathleen Schachman, College of Nursing