Georgia Southern Professors Win Top Regents’ Awards

STATESBORO, Ga. – Dec. 4, 2013 – Georgia Southern professors Delena Bell Gatch, Ph.D., and Misty Loughry, Ph.D., are among only five University System of Georgia faculty members selected to receive the System’s most prestigious teaching awards named in honor of the late Regent Felton Jenkins Jr. The award is given in two categories, the Regents’ Teaching Excellence Awards and the Regents’ Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Awards.

Gatch, a physics professor in the College of Science and Mathematics won the 2014 Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award for faculty in regional and state universities. Loughry, a professor of management in the College of Business Administration, is the only winner of the 2014 Regents’ Award for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), which the University System of Georgia (USG) typically awards to two faculty members each year. Dr. Gatch is an alumna having graduated from Georgia Southern in 1995. She began teaching here in 2001, after earning her doctoral degree in physics from the University of Georgia. The USG letter announcing the professor’s selection noted the review committee’s vote was unanimous and it cited her “ability to gather data and adjust her teaching methods from a traditional teaching style to one that involved active learning.” Professor Loughry has been at the University since 2007, and her selection as the sole winner was unanimous by the review committee. She was selected as a result of her work in helping first-generation college students succeed. Loughry’s research interests include using management research to enhance college teaching and student learning, team-member effectiveness, peer evaluation of teamwork, and controls in organizations, particularly peer control. “I am honored to receive the Regents’ SoTL Award and happy for Dr. Delena Gatch, also from Georgia Southern University, who won the Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award,” Loughry said. “My colleagues and I have been working for more than a decade to develop web-based tools to support teamwork in higher education classes.  Information about the tools and the research on which they are based is posted on CATME.org. I am grateful to the Board of Regents for offering the Regents’ SoTL award to recognize research that contributes to teaching and learning.”

 Both Georgia Southern winners will be recognized during the USG Foundation’s annual “Regents’ Salute to Education” awards gala on March 22, 2014 at the World of Coke in Atlanta.

Georgia Southern University, a Carnegie Doctoral/Research University founded in 1906, offers 125 degree programs serving more than 20,000 students. Through eight colleges, the University offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs built on more than a century of academic achievement.  Georgia Southern is recognized for its student-centered approach to education. Visit: www.georgiasouthern.edu.