President Robert Lindgren and Provost Alisa Rosenthal announced the winners of the College’s prestigious faculty awards on May 11.

Samuel Nelson Gray Distinguished Professor Award

The College’s highest honor, this award was established by the late Mrs. Virginia Clark Gray Backus in memory of her husband, an alumnus and former trustee of Randolph-Macon College. This prize was established to honor the faculty member or senior administrator selected by the RMC President as the person who has made a distinguished contribution to the College. The President solicits nominations and reviews nominees with former recipients of the distinguished award.

Dr. Alphine Jefferson, Professor of History, Director of Black Studies

Dr. Alphine Jefferson has honored RMC with 16 years of excellent service on the faculty and 43 years of exemplary teaching, research, and service in higher education. Professor Jefferson’s full-time teaching career includes Northern Illinois University, SMU and more recently, 15 years at the College of Wooster in Ohio.  

President Lindgren told the faculty: “Proud Wooster alumna…Dean Bell observed ‘Dr. Jefferson was a legend at Wooster.’ And it was his very admirable devotion to his then-elderly parents that so fortuitously brought him back to our area, for him to come home again, which availed him to us, and he began his teaching at RMC in 2005.” 

Dr. Jefferson has served with great distinction as a Professor of History and Director of the Black Studies program. He is respected as the conscience of the faculty, and is a highly regarded teacher and significant mentor to many grateful students. He invigorated Randolph-Macon’s Black Studies program, leading to the College establishing it as a major in May 2020.  He has been recognized for his ability to help us all learn how to walk in another’s shoes and think differently about the world around us. As such, Dr. Jefferson is an advocate for study abroad, and led J-term travel courses to destinations like Ghana, Brazil, Guatemala, Cuba, Kenya and others.

A national leader in the field of oral history, Dr. Jefferson has also been deeply involved in the local community, serving as the longtime leader of the Hanover County Black Heritage Society, chief organizer of this area’s Juneteenth Ceremonies, and also serving The Ashland Museum, the Hanover Tavern Foundation, the Ashland Theatre, and more. He will continue to serve on Randolph-Macon’s Racial Equity and Opportunity Commission, and as a Professor Emeritus.

“He has certainly left a significant mark on Randolph-Macon College and on his earlier academic homes, shaping literally thousands of minds in the liberal arts tradition, both inside and outside of the classroom,” Lindgren said.

Dr. Cathy Staples, Professor of Accounting

Dr. Cathy Staples joined the RMC faculty in 1995 to develop the Accounting major, now a significant and popular major at the College. In this discipline, she is required to keep up with ongoing changes in accounting standards and has been recognized previously for her innovative pedagogy with both the Thomas Branch Teaching Award as well as the United Methodist Church Exemplary Teacher Award.  

“She is well-known for her unwavering devotion to her students, which is evidenced by, among many attributes, her always being among our most prodigious academic advisors in terms of the sheer numbers of her advisees, always around 40 or more,” President Lindgren observed in his remarks to the faculty. “And the nature of her subject has meant that she has regularly taught students one-on-one to help them become qualified.” 

Dr. Staples scholarly work includes three dozen publications in the areas of government and non-profit accounting, accounting curricula, and pedagogy. She has also served as a presenter, session chair, discussant, and paper reviewer for several professional organizations at professional meetings on a regular basis. Her involvement with the Virginia Society of CPAs and the Richmond Chapter of the American Society of Women Accountants has benefitted Randolph-Macon students in a variety of ways, including scholarship and internship opportunities.

Dr. Staples has contributed strongly to Randolph-Macon as both interim and permanent department chair, and to faculty governance in numerous terms on both the Committee on the Faculty and the Committee on Faculty Development. She was a chair of the SACs Reaffirmation Committee and is co-chair of the Strategic Planning Committee. She serves currently on the Brock Venture Fund Advisory Committee, the Nursing Advisory Board, and the Audit Committee of the Board of Trustees.

Thomas Branch Award for Excellence in Teaching

The Thomas Branch Award is presented to faculty members selected based on the nominations and then votes of the RMC Senior Class.

Dr. Tim Brown, Associate Professor of Religious Studies

Described by his colleagues as an “impressive teacher, a first-rate colleague, and beloved by students,” Professor Tim Brown joined the RMC faculty in 2008, and has since offered a wide array of courses ranging from Religion and Literature to Native American Religions to New Religious Movements.

“Professor Brown consistently innovates both in the content of his courses as well as the means of delivery of that content—even when not forced by a pandemic!” noted Provost Alisa Rosenthal.

Students comment on his passion for the material, his ability to explain unfamiliar and complicated concepts clearly, and the supportive and rigorous learning environment he creates. They characterize their experience in his courses as “transformational” and credit the material in and the teaching of those courses as having “expanded their minds,” enabling them to think more broadly and to engage more respectfully with unfamiliar ideas.

Dr. La Toria Tookes, Visiting Professor of Computer Science

In the four years since she joined the RMC faculty, Dr. Tookes has quickly established herself as a teacher, mentor, and advocate, and influenced the student community in many ways. In addition to teaching courses in the Computer Science department, she teaches Yellow Jacket Success Strategies and in the Honors Program.

“Students and colleagues praise her commitment to reflection and self-improvement – theirs and hers – and this commitment is reflected in the ongoing development, assessment, and redevelopment of her courses,” Provost Rosenthal told the faculty. “Pre-pandemic, you might have found her lifting weights with the women’s lacrosse team as their faculty athletic liaison – and building relationships, connections, and trust along the way.”

Dr. Tookes serves as a College ombuds, and participates in the Retention Committee and Academic Integrity Council hearing. She is also a co-chair of the College’s Racial Equity and Opportunity Commission. For Professor Tookes, all of these activities –in and out of the classroom– are the fulfillment of her commitment to helping R-MC students develop their “mind and character.”

The United Methodist Church Exemplary Teacher of the Year Award  

The United Methodist Exemplary Teacher Award is awarded to a faculty member who demonstrates excellence in teaching, civility and concern for students and colleagues, commitment to value-centered education, and service to students, the institution, and the community.

Dr. Cedar Riener, Associate Professor of Psychology  

Dr. Riener articulates three core principles that inform his teaching: valuing students as whole people; valuing student agency and purpose; striving for productive discomfort and confusion. These principles, “coupled with deep disciplinary expertise and transdisciplinary interests,” were the components that Provost Rosenthal cited in conferring Dr. Riener this teaching award. “Deeply committed to, in his words, “humane pedagogy,” he has been among the faculty’s key leaders in focusing attention on the need to more intentionally consider how a commitment to inclusion and anti-racism can be made manifest in the College’s curriculum, pedagogy, processes, and practices,” she said.

In particular, Dr. Riener has leveraged technology to enable “humane pedagogy” throughout the course of the pandemic, converting his office into a kind of studio, complete with green screen, high-quality audio/visual technology and a USB microscope. He converted demonstrations into virtual experiences for his students and created methods to simulate group work that is important to his teaching. Provost Rosenthal noted he also generously sharing his technological expertise and knowledge of the science of teaching and learning with colleagues.  
 
He is an active scholar, both in disciplinary venues through journal articles and books, as well as in the popular press, and he regularly acts as a science ambassador to a broad audience of people outside the college by educating the public about social science, often by emphasizing the importance of scientifically based approaches that use empirically validated and reliable measures. He is also served ably as a department chair whose colleagues highlight his commitment to respectful problem-solving, supporting students, and leading by example.