By Brenda Alling, WSU Vancouver
VANCOUVER, Wash. – Washington State University Vancouver will present annual Chancellor’s Medallions for research, service to the university, student achievement and teaching at commencement at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 10, at the Sleep Country Amphitheater in Ridgefield.
Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence: Thomas M. Tripp, professor of management and expert on workplace conflict, studies organizational justice, workplace conflict and negotiations. His pioneering research on revenge and retaliation in the workplace helped bring conflict management into management curricula.
He has consulted on workplace issues with organizations and management executives. He has won Outstanding Faculty Teaching awards at WSU Vancouver three times and received the Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Instruction throughout the WSU system in 2010.
Chancellor’s Award for Service to WSU Vancouver: Twyla Barnes, superintendent and chief executive officer of southwest Washington’s Educational Service District 112, is a 20-year member of the Campus Advisory Council – community representatives who serve in an advisory role and are appointed by the president of WSU and chancellor of WSU Vancouver to support the university’s mission.
She has embraced the idea of education as a shared community responsibility. Among her honors is the Justice Prentice Award from the Association of Educational Service Agencies for distinguished leadership nationwide.
Chancellor’s Award for Student Achievement: Helena Lucia, 2014 graduate in computer science, is a born leader who is helping other women build careers in a male-dominated field. She started an Association for Computing Machinery for Women chapter on campus and has been active in MESA (mathematics, engineering, science achievement) workshops to encourage students to pursue learning in these fields.
At the top of her class, she will be an application developer at Intel starting in June. She is the first undergraduate to be offered a place in a 10-person training program for future leaders, Intel’s IT Rotation Program. Divorced, she raised four children while attending school full-time and working. She hopes to pursue a graduate degree in computer science after settling in at Intel.
Students’ Award for Teaching Excellence: Dene Grigar, associate professor and director of the Creative Media and Digital Culture program, has built the program from 44 students to 210, increased the number of courses taught per semester from 5 to 17 and raised more than $250,000 for the program and student fellowships.
Through partnerships with local organizations and support from such funders as the National Endowment for the Humanities, students get hands-on experience in innovative uses of digital technology. For example, her students helped create the first interpretive application in the National Park System – the Fort Vancouver mobile app.
“I have never met an instructor so passionate about not only her field of study but also her students,” said one student nominator.