Each year, Otterbein honors outstanding teachers for their impact on their students, colleagues, and the University. Professor of Music Jennifer Merkowitz, the recipient of this year’s Teacher of the Year Award, was recognized for striking a perfect balance between theory and application that leads her students to land jobs and careers they are passionate about.
Associate Professor of Communication Eric Jones received the Exemplary Teaching Award, a national honor sponsored by the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Higher Education. In addition to creating an inclusive, equitable, and understanding learning environment in his classes, he has offered his time and expertise to Otterbein’s Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center. He has mentored undergraduate TRHT Fellows as they collect and record oral histories from Otterbein alumni of color, a project at the center of TRHT’s efforts to create narrative change and reckon honestly with the past.
Art Professor Emeritus Nicholas Hill has been visually chronicling the COVID-19 pandemic since it began, creating The Pandemic Portraits Series (2020-present). An exhibition of the portraits premiered at Otterbein in spring 2021. Now a catalog containing 105 portraits from the series is available, with proceeds benefitting Otterbein’s Frank Museum of Art. Click here to order the book.
An internationally acclaimed art exhibition that premiered at Otterbein co-created by English Professor Patricia Frick and Director of Museum and Galleries Janice Glowski is traveling to Chile for its next engagement in Valparaiso in Spring 2023. Lands, Real and Imagined: Women Artists Respond to the Art and Travel Writings of Maria Graham, features five female artists. It is based on Frick’s research on Graham (1785-1842), an accomplished Victorian travel writer, historian, illustrator, and amateur scientist.
