FHSU University Communications
Now in its fifth year, FHSU’s Engaged Scholars Celebration recognized 48 awardees on Wednesday, April 30. This collaboration between Forsyth Library, University Communications, and the Office of the Provost recognized the scholarly activities of the university community. Throughout the year, faculty and staff submit their scholarly works for recognition through Forsyth’s social media page and to be promoted in Tiger Weekly. Annually, in April, these accomplishments are celebrated with an awards ceremony and breakfast. The Engaged Scholars Celebration also allows awardees and their supporters to mingle and discuss their works.
Recognition is categorized as follows: the top downloads from the Scholars Repository, use of Open Education Resources (OERs) within courses, scholarly news, and thought leaders. Acknowledging these scholarly activities shines a light on the amazing work of the talented faculty and staff members at FHSU. This event lifted up the accomplishments of faculty and staff members, honored the time and effort needed to create them, applauded the creation of relationships within and across departments, and championed furthering the reach of each individual’s focus of study.
The FHSU Scholars Repository seeks to collect and preserve the creative and scholarly works of the FHSU community and to make these works available to a global audience. The repository is focused on the principles of Open Access as both an ethical choice and a means of expanding the reach of FHSU’s scholarship. It is designed to make that scholarship easy to find, share, cite, and use. The repository features works from across disciplines, and the awards were given to each of the five colleges. Last year, items in the repository were downloaded 390,145 times across the globe. The winners in this category were responsible for 2,959 of those downloads. The Overall Downloads winner was Dr. Abeni El-Amin, who represented the Robbins College of Business and Entrepreneurship, with 1,748 downloads.
The OER Committee created Departmental Awards to recognize departments that are making significant progress in reducing course material costs for students by using OERs and other zero-cost course materials. Awards were given to university departments in three categories: Growth (an increase in use), Innovation (creative ways to integrate OERs into courses), and Impact (advocating for more zero-cost materials for use across the university). The winners for each category respectively were the Department of Psychology, the Department of Economics, Finance, and Accounting, and the Department of Advanced Education Programs.
The university recognized 40 faculty and staff members for their scholarly news. These news-worthy activities highlight scholarly and creative works such as published textbooks, chapters in books, peer-reviewed articles, or OERs; or public performances, exhibits, design, or displays.
Media Thought Leaders were recognized for their efforts in print media, TV, podcasts, and more. During Wednesday’s celebration, the University Communications Office awarded 27 faculty and staff members with this honor. These trailblazers provided an invaluable service to editors and journalists, helped to create and cement relationships with media outlets across the state, and advanced the FHSU brand nationally.
For a full list of awardees, please see the event program.