Dr. April Ulery is a Professor in the Plant and Environmental Sciences Department. She teaches and conducts research on environmental soil chemistry. Most notably, she is President of the 6,000 member Soil Science Society of America. April has been active in the Teaching Academy since its transition from the Center for Educational Development in 2003. April has served on over 60 graduate student committees. She faithfully mentors assistant and associate professors as well.
Dr. Laura Madson joined the faculty of the Psychology Department in August 1996. She is a Teaching Academy Fellow for facilitating team-based learning workshops as well as book discussion groups on various provocative topics. Laura has mentored many faculty members at NMSU and has herself benefited from the wisdom of several wonderful mentors and tries to exemplify those characteristics in her relationships with protégés. Her protégé Moire Prescott wrote, “Laura is an amazing mentor first and foremost because she listens and listens well, validating my experience as normal and understandable, and encouraging me to just keep putting one foot in front of the other…She also specializes in what you might call “just-in-time mentoring,” where she is somehow able to tell me exactly what I need to hear, exactly when I need to hear it…Most of all, Laura has made me feel cared about with her listening, her understanding, her knowledge, and her wisdom.”
Dr. Mónica Torres has worked in higher education for thirty-five years. She’s been at NMSU since 2002-as a faculty member and department head at the Las Cruces campus-and as DACC’s chief academic officer. Mónica is a Teaching Academy Fellow and has participated in several formal mentoring relationships. She has also benefited from what she thinks of as mentoring moments, times when a single comment or question prompts another stage of professional development. Her protégé Will Kilroy wrote, “She provides wonderful insight into complex and difficult situations that I face as a department head. Because Mónica has served as a department head in the past, she readily relates to situations which I have encountered, and has offered varied solutions without dictating which path to take. I appreciate the guidance as well as the freedom to find my own way.”
Dr. Mary O’Connell has served on the faculty at NMSU since 1985. She is a Regents Professor and Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. Mary is an invaluable and dedicated mentor always providing tangible and practical advice. She is direct and some might say “brutally” honest. As one of her mentees reported, “Mary is always fair and doggedly honest. She looks for the best in all circumstances, and with an incontrovertible sense of humor, she has always aided me in correcting my perspective and improving my optimism. I think we would all agree that she has significantly enriched and enhanced our professional growth.”
Dr. Martha Mitchell is a professor in Chemical and Materials Engineering and a Teaching Academy Fellow who has mentored ten faculty members in the ADVANCE Mentoring Program or the Advancing Leaders Program. Her nomination, by Jessica Houston, was supported by no fewer than seven protégés, several of whom wrote dense two-page letters arguing that Dr. Mitchell’s talents as a mentor are astounding. Jessica wrote, “We have a collective enthusiasm for Martha that is undoubtedly mirrored by many others at NMSU… She is thoughtful, focused, caring, realistic and optimistic.” As another protégé put it, “Martha has taught me to approach obstacles at NMSU not as immovable barriers, but as complications that require creative solutions. . . She has grounded me and has prevented me from leaving my office never to return.”
Dr. Miriam Chaiken joined NMSU in 2009 as Department Head of Anthropology and became the Dean of the William Conroy Honors College in 2014. She has mentored multiple faculty through the Teaching Academy’s One-On-One Faculty Mentoring Program and the Advancing Leaders Program. Kassia Wosick, who nominated Miriam, wrote, “Miriam has been a source of strength, stability, and consistency for me…She always picks up the phone when I call, responds when I email, and checks in to see how I am fairing. Miriam is authentic, reliable, genuine, diligent, realistic, and happy…She is the ideal embodiment of what this award describes as “both the letter and spirit of mentoring”
