Emily Bobo, Ph.D. earns Ivy Tech’s President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 18, 2013

Emily Bobo, Ph.D. earns Ivy Tech’s President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction

 Ivy Tech Community College’s Bloomington campus has selected Emily Bobo, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English, as recipient of the 2012 President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction. Bobo is also the regional nominee for the statewide Glenn W. Sample Award for Excellence in Instruction, the College’s highest honor for faculty.

“Emily has earned the regional President’s Award for demonstrating excellence in instruction, for her significant contributions to students and community through service-learning in her courses, and for her numerous professional accomplishments as a poet and prose writer,” said Chancellor John Whikehart. “I want to congratulate Emily for winning this prestigious award and for her nomination for the statewide Glenn W. Sample award. She has certainly earned it.”

Bobo is the published author of 20 poems and three prose pieces in national and international, peer-reviewed, print journals such as Seneca Review and Redivider. She is also the published author of a short book of poems, Fugue, in Lost Horse Press’s Emerging Poet Series.

Bobo is founder and adviser of Ivy Tech’s creative writing club and literary magazine. She has raised more than $20,000 in magazine revenue for student writing projects and student scholarships. Outside of Ivy Tech, Bobo has judged poetry writing and recitation competitions for Wichita State University, Poetry Out Loud, and Bloomington’s New Technology High School. She has been a lyricist for Freedom High School’s Choir and has served as volunteer at Midwest Pages to Prisoners.

One of the service-learning projects Bobo developed and currently maintains is Art Into Poetry. Art Into Poetry began in 2009 and is an annual Ivy Tech-Bloomington service-learning project that brings art and poetry together through a form of ancient Greek poetry called Ekphrastic Poetry, or poetry written in response to art. In a series of free, after-school poetry workshops, Bobo’s English classes collaborate with community partners, such as the Crestmont and Ellettsville Boys and Girls Clubs, to teach children to write poems in response to art. Students’ work is presented alongside the art in the April exhibits at the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center.

Bobo was nominee for the 2012 Pushcart Prize for “The Beating Curtain,” short story published in Flint Hills Review. She was also nominee for the 2010 Pushcart Prize for “And the Recovering Musician Wanted to Write a Sonnet,” poem published in Fugue.

The President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction is presented annually to a faculty member from each of Ivy Tech’s 14 regions to recognize faculty who typify excellence in instruction and in representing the mission of the College. Faculty are selected based on their competence in subject matter, innovation, motivation, ability to develop and retain personal relationships, maintenance of low attrition rates, excellence in advising, and representing the college in community-focused activities.

About Ivy Tech Community College

Ivy Tech Community College (www.ivytech.edu) is the state’s largest public postsecondary institution and the nation’s largest singly accredited statewide community college system serving nearly 200,000 students annually. Ivy Tech has campuses throughout Indiana. It serves as the state’s engine of workforce development, offering affordable degree programs and training that are aligned with the needs of its community along with courses and programs that transfer to other colleges and universities in Indiana. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and a member of the North Central Association.

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