5 Honored for Student Advising

Five NC State employees received undergraduate academic advising awards last month for their efforts to support and encourage students. The award ceremony, held at the Witherspoon Student Center on Jan. 24, was sponsored by the Division of Academic and Student Affairs and Academic Advising Services.

Casey Self, executive director of academic services at Arizona State University, presented the keynote address, titled “Embracing  Change to Promote Student Success.”

Here are this year’s winners:

Jill Anderson — College of Sciences
Barbara Solomon Advising Award

Anderson has been an academic adviser for biological sciences and zoology majors since the fall of 2007. She holds an undergraduate degree in biology from Wake Forest University and a master’s degree in educational curriculum and instruction from Texas A&M. Her winding career path took her through work in the pharmaceutical industry, field work with red-cockaded woodpeckers, environmental education certification, and five years as a full time caregiver for her children. Her biggest current career-related interests include career readiness, transferable skill development and the effects of mindset on learning. Anderson has played a key role in improving communication between advisers and large student populations in her department and was a leading influence in the development of the new life sciences First-Year Advising Program. She strives to serve as a positive, gracious and compassionate role model in the lives of her students.

Roy Stamper — College of Humanities and Social Sciences
New Adviser Award

Stamper is a senior lecturer in the Department of English, where he regularly teaches courses in rhetoric and composition and American literature. Since the fall of 2011, he has been the academic adviser for the department’s junior and senior majors in the Language, Writing and Rhetoric and Film Studies concentrations. Over his 15-year career at NC State, Stamper has served on a number of departmental committees and in various administrative capacities, including assistant director for program development and associate director of the First-Year Writing Program. In addition to his teaching, advising and administrative service, he has presented papers at numerous local, regional and national conferences, including the NC Symposium on Teaching Writing, the Writing Program Administrator’s Conference and the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Stamper is currently co-authoring a book on writing in the academic disciplines for Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

Cheryl Cass — College of Engineering
New Faculty Adviser Award

Cass is director of undergraduate programs and teaching assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Her major duties include advising and teaching undergraduate students, research and proposal development, internal and external service and engagement. She coordinates all MSE undergraduate advising, including first-year and transfer students, exchange students, prospective students and students pursuing a minor. She has also advised students in the Pack Promise program, College of Engineering orientation, MSE senior design, MSE’s student society and the annual summer Materials Camp. Cass earned her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from NC State and her master’s and Ph.D. from Clemson, where she held a postdoctoral position in engineering and science education. Cass’s long-term research goals involve projects that ultimately promote the recruitment and success of engineering students.

Linda Williams — College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty Adviser Award

Williams is the director of the Bachelor of Social Work program. She is active in professional organizations at the local, state and national levels. She was recognized as the Social Worker of the Year by the North Carolina chapter of the National Association of Social Workers in 2008, and is currently co-chair of the chapter’s International Practice Unit. She serves on a variety of department, college and university committees. For about 10 years, she has administered the Child Welfare Education Program in the Department of Social Work and has brought in more than $1 million in grants for this program. As the campus contact for school social work licensure at the undergraduate level, she works with social workers across the state who are interested in becoming licensed school social workers.

Lauren Brown — Poole College of Management
Advising Administrator Award

Brown has worked at NC State for 14 years. Before finding her passion as an academic adviser, she worked in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the University Career Center and with university scheduling. Brown discovered her interest in advising later in her academic career, which led her to pursue her graduate degrees at NC State: a master’s in higher education with a concentration in student affairs and a doctorate in higher education administration. During her tenure as an adviser, she has worked in both the First Year College and the Poole College of Management. In 2010, Brown was promoted to associate director of advising in Poole, where she supervises a staff of five advisers, has an advising caseload of 300 students and coordinates the curricula for two courses.

Also at Friday’s ceremony, graduates of the Advisor Development Institute received certificates for completing the rigorous training program.