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The Indiana University Northwest faculty had another big showing in the annual IU Founders Day Awards, which were handed out during a Sunday, March 30 ceremony at the Indiana Memorial Union’s Alumni Hall in Bloomington.

Professor of Sociology Stephanie Shanks-Meile, Ph.D., of Portage, Associate Professor of Psychology Cynthia O’Dell, Ph.D., of Valparaiso, and Associate Professor of Education Vernon G. Smith, Ed.D., of Gary, were IU Northwest’s representatives among the 21 university faculty members who received 2008 Founders Awards for teaching, research and service. They joined colleagues from IU Bloomington, IUPUI, IU Kokomo, and IU South Bend as this year’s Founders Day honorees.

This was the second consecutive year in which IU Northwest sent three award-winners to the annual IU Founders Day festivities. Last year, Professor of Sociology Marty Zusman, Associate Professor of Anthropology Robert Mucci, and Professor of Science Education Ken Schoon, who is associate dean of the School of Education, all received Founders Day honors.

Prof. Shanks-Meile received the Sylvia E. Bowman Award, which honors exemplary faculty members in discipline areas related to American civilization. Bowman was a respected scholar and author who gave 34 years of service to IU as a professor, academic administrator and chancellor for regional campus administration.

Shanks-Meile is an acclaimed teacher and is beloved by her students, who refer to her affectionately as “Dr. Steph.” She has taught at IU Northwest since 1987, earning in that time an assortment of other teaching awards, including four Teaching Excellence Recognition Awards and a Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching (FACET) Award. Shanks-Meile has also won several national and regional awards for research publications, and her sociological investigations have delved into such compelling topics as the White Separatist Movement and the phenomenon of American celebrity worship.

Shanks-Meile said she teaches at IU Northwest because she is inspired by the ethnically diverse and working-class students who study there.

“I am attracted to people whose lives have been full of personal challenges, rather than easy streets and silver spoons,” she said.

Shanks-Meile has earned accolades from students and colleagues who say that her insistence on two-way communication in the classroom allows students to make their own intellectual discoveries. She employs such learning tactics as rhetorical questions, humorous anecdotes, historical accounts, and current events discussions. Her students say that they “learn without realizing it.”

“Prof. Shanks-Meile is a lover of learning,” said IU Northwest Professor of Sociology Charles Gallmeier, who is Shanks-Meile’s colleague and occasional research collaborator. “She helps her students discover what they already know, and then assists them in creating new knowledge collectively in the classroom.”

Having survived a life-threatening illness in 2003, Shanks-Meile now says she better appreciates the importance of her role as an educator. As she recovered, her students visited her in the hospital to tell her how much she had influenced them, and to engage her in sociological discussions and debates.

“Our students stood out as thoughtful, intelligent, devoted, inquisitive, and good-humored, offering help to me when I was, at times, near death,” Shanks-Meile said. “Now the awards on my shelves and walls represent enlightenment, awakenings, and an emerging community of scholarship.”

Student engagement is also the hallmark of Prof. Cynthia O’Dell, who was one of four faculty members in the IU system to receive this year’s President’s Award for outstanding teaching, research or service. While teaching a broad range of courses from introductory psychology to senior lab courses, O’Dell seeks to expand her own knowledge and that of her students by conducting research in teaching and learning, and in experimental psychology.

O’Dell also offers psychology majors an opportunity to participate in her ongoing research program on sensation and perception. More than 20 of her students have presented posters of collaborative work at regional and national conferences in psychology, and an equal number have been accepted into graduate school or medical school.

“Having the chance to work in a research laboratory as an undergraduate was the transformative experience of my undergraduate education and led me to graduate school,” O’Dell explained. “I hope that I am able to pass along some of the magic that I enjoyed to students working in my laboratory. In turn, they continually provide me with a fresh look at the topics we are working on and unflagging energy and enthusiasm.”

“[She] becomes a mentor as well as a teacher . . . [and] guides her students through the process in a way that makes them feel like experts, like experienced researchers,” said Gallmeier, who has sat in on some of O’Dell’s upper-level classes. “Their interest is obvious and their enthusiasm is genuine. Prof. O’Dell creates this enthusiasm because of her generosity as a teacher. She enjoys what she does and it shows.”

Since 2003, O’Dell has also served as director of women's studies at IU Northwest. She organizes the annual “Celebrating our Students (WOST)” undergraduate research conference, and she mentors students from the local conference who attend the annual all-IU Gender Studies Conference.

O’Dell has taught at IU Northwest since 1994, and her contributions to the Department of Psychology include helping the department to develop assessment procedures, adopting introductory textbooks, and planning advising programs. She has also undertaken, with IU Northwest Professor of Psychology Mark Hoyert, an intervention study designed to increase learning goal orientation and emphasize the incremental nature of intelligence for at-risk students in freshman-level courses. O’Dell and Hoyert initiated the research to better understand their students who struggle with college courses, and ultimately to help them improve their grades and stay in school.

O’Dell’s exemplary teaching has earned her three Teaching Excellence Recognition Awards, three Trustees Teaching Awards, and a FACET Award, in addition to this year’s Founders Award.

In all that she does, O’Dell said, she seeks above all to empower her students.

“I try to provide a classroom setting in which many voices can be heard and their questions and opinions valued,” she writes in her philosophy of teaching statement. “I strive to have my teaching offer students the opportunity to strengthen personal characteristics such as maturity, tolerance, flexibility, high ethical standards, and a positive attitude toward lifelong learning.”

For Prof. Smith, who was one of five recipients of the W. George Pinnell Award for Outstanding Service, commitment to his students is matched only by his commitment to his constituents and to all of Northwest Indiana. Smith is also Gary’s representative in the Indiana House of Representatives, and whether he’s working in Hawthorn Hall or in the halls of power in Indianapolis, his dedication to the public good is supreme.

“Vernon has committed himself to bettering the country's educational system and to the promotion of social justice, focusing on America's youth,” said U.S. Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind. “He exemplifies the spirit of concern and giving of oneself by which we hope and believe this country is characterized.”

Indeed, Smith has a remarkable record of teaching and public service that spans four decades and includes 145 awards and more than 100 citations of achievement and appreciation. He has been a faculty member at IU Northwest since 1991 and served in the Indiana House since 1990; prior to that, he was a teacher and principal in the Gary school system and served 18 years on the Gary City Council.

When he's not teaching and mentoring students, advocating for public education initiatives, or speaking at local events and national conferences, Smith can be found serving meals to prison inmates at Thanksgiving, bringing a boarded-up Gary theatre back to life, or organizing local teens to help senior citizens with household chores. Smith is also the heart, head, and hands behind countless educational programs and civic endeavors.

Smith is the founder and president of IU Dons, Inc.; the founder and board president of African-American Achievers Youth Corps, Inc., in Gary; the founder of the Northern Indiana Association of Black School Educators; and the founder and sponsor of the Gary-based Vernon Stars. He is a member of numerous national, state, and community organizations, which include Omega Psi Phi fraternity, the Northwest Indiana Urban League, the Gary Reading Council/Indiana State Reading Association, the Brothers Keepers Shelter for Homeless Men, and the NAACP.

Much of Smith’s civic activism ties into his teaching and his belief that education is a powerful tool for social change. Empowering and educating American youth and black male youth are a critical focus of Smith's political, academic, and personal mission, and he has published numerous writings on these topics.

“Many of these efforts are directly related to research and teacher preparation for student and school success,” said Dorothy W. Ige, dean of the IU Northwest College of Arts and Sciences. “The cross-fertilizations between Dr. Smith's pedagogy and scholarly publications with his service commitments are evident.”

Smith received the Trustees Teaching Award in 2006 and in 2000 (when it was named TERA), and he received the Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching (FACET) Award in 1998.

Smith said he views his service to others as merely repayment of his debt to those who have helped him.

"There have been a lot of people who have helped me in my life, and I can never repay that debt," Smith said. "So that makes me a debtor, and I want to pay that debt back by serving others. Also, I have a strong belief in God, and I believe that God wants us to serve others. So I work hard ... to serve mankind."

IU Northwest congratulates all three of this year’s Founders Day honorees from the Northwest Indiana campus of Indiana University. Their hard work and dedication to their students, their disciplines and their community reflect the university’s unwavering commitment to excellence in learning, scholarship and service.