Kara Gall and Kelly Johnson received the 2011-2012 Outstanding Faculty and Staff Wekesser Awards during a ceremony Feb. 18 on Southeast Community College’s Lincoln Campus.
Gall is a developmental English instructor in SCC’s Arts & Sciences Division. Johnson operates the Print Shop’s Copy Center.
Gall began teaching English as a Second Language classes for SCC in January 2008. About a year later she began teaching part time in the Arts & Sciences Division. She started teaching full time in summer 2009.
“I am thrilled and honored to receive this award,” Gall said. “I am proud to be a representative of the innovative projects and initiatives that are happening in the English Department and the Arts and Sciences Division. It is a group full of many instructors who are just as deserving of this honor. We inspire each other and keep each other motivated to hone our skills and create new ways to deliver skills to our students.”
Last fall, SCC student Morgan Dils had this to say about Gall.
“She always knows good ways of explaining things in class if you don’t really understand them,” Dils said. “She also is very funny and makes the learning environment fun. She also is very supportive of what you believe in.”
Gall has a simple teaching philosophy.
“Students who enroll in my classes are walking into a high-challenge, high-support environment where they will create an academic community with each other,” she said. “They claim a stake in creating assignment tools and assessments and connect that content to their communities.”
Gall said the most rewarding part of her job is witnessing students develop their voices and “step into their own power.”
“The majority of my students are first-year students who are underprepared for college,” Gall said. “That doesn’t mean they are blank slates. They have typically struggled for years with English in particular and academia in general, bringing with them preconceived notions about college, themselves as learners and the academic environment. The most rewarding parts of my job have very little to do with the field of English, in the end. The most rewarding parts come from the little shifts that occur when students realize they have power, not just over their own learning, but over their lives.
Gall is a graduate of Eustis-Farnam High School. She holds a Master of Arts degree from San Francisco State University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University.
Other nominees for the Outstanding Faculty Award were Dan Fogell, Science instructor; Randy Goldsmith, Electronics instructor; Mike Kuebler, Professional Truck Driver Training program chair; Patty Killman, Office Professional instructor; John Stephenson, Math instructor; and Susan Pallas, Business Administration instructor.
Johnson has served SCC as copy center operator since October 2007. She holds an Associate of Applied Science degree in Business Administration from SCC and is a 1993 graduate of Lincoln Northeast High School.
Diane Siefkes, a training consultant in SCC’s Continuing Education Division, praised Johnson.
“Kelly goes above and beyond the ‘typical’ copy center staff,” Siefkes said. “She is reliable and unruffled by additional or unusual requests. She has good suggestions to make the final product look better than what I originally intended. And never have I seen her without a smile and welcoming look. Not only does she provide the requested jobs in a timely manner, most of the time the work is completed before the due date. She is an excellent partner and an exemplary SCC employee.”
Other nominees for the Outstanding Staff Award: John Blowers, maintenance worker; Bridget Erickson, financial aid technician; Rachel Mason, student activities coordinator; and Carol Wells, Student Services Division secretary.
Gall and Johnson each received $500 checks, a plaque, a balloon bouquet, and their names inscribed on a permanent plaque on the Lincoln Campus.
In fall 1979, Robert and Edith Wekesser established a fund in SCC’s Educational Foundation to recognize people for outstanding service to the Lincoln Campus.
