At the campus’s annual Honors Banquet last week, Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek celebrated faculty, staff, and students for their accomplishments throughout the past academic year. Tennessee Today will be highlighting those who received recognition for their efforts to support the campus’s mission.
Award recipients included:
LGBT Advocate Award
The LGBT Advocate Award recognizes a faculty member, staff member, or student who demonstrates a commitment to advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues on campus.
Joseph Miles, an assistant professor of counseling psychology, focuses on multiculturalism and social justice, especially LGBT issues, multicultural education, and the process and outcome of intergroup dialogue and group interventions.
Miles is a trainer with the SafeZone LGBT Ally training program. He is a member of the Diversity Dialogues Faculty Advisory Board, a mentor with the LGBT Commission’s Mentoring Program, and a Day of Dialogue and Diversity Dialogue facilitator.
Miles has been a panelist at UT’s OUTstanding LGBT issues conference and a Life of the Mind discussion group leader. He has helped with the Kernel Konvo diversity film and discussion series and Student Affairs Professional Development Series.
His research and publication records are extensive. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Ready for the World, a Creative Teaching grant, and the Scholarly and Research Incentive Fund.
Notable UT Woman
Visionary. Leader. Trail blazer. These are all words that describe Susan Riechert.
In her more than forty years at UT, Riechert has built a legacy that will benefit students for decades to come. She began the Biology in a Box program over a decade ago as an effort to provide K–12 teachers and students with science education materials. It is now used in seventy-seven public school systems.
In 2009, Riechert successfully co-developed the proposal to establish VolsTeach, an initiative that is already helping to improve the quantity and quality of mathematics and science teachers in Tennessee.
A professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, Riechert embodies UT’s mission in her dedication to education. She served for ten years as chair of the department’s undergraduate affairs committee, where she coordinated curricular changes, spearheaded petitions, and fielded enrollment issues for large numbers of undergraduates. She has served on and chaired every major standing committee in the Departments of Zoology and Ecology.
Powell Elementary School has twice presented Riechert with the Principal’s Award for Outstanding School and Community Service, and a nature trail at Powell Middle School is named in her honor.