2023 Winners

Jessica Grace Robinson 

Senior Lecturer, Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Recipient

Jessica Grace Robinson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, where she has taught courses in the secondary education program since 2020. She is the recipient of the 2024 College Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching from the College of Education. Prior to joining the faculty at Texas State University, Ms. Robinson served as the director of the University of Georgia’s College Advising Corps, where she led partnerships with school districts in metro Atlanta to increase the number of first-generation college and historically underrepresented students who enrolled in higher education. 

Ms. Robinson began her career in education as a high school English teacher after obtaining a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a MAT from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Interested in a variety of approaches to literacy education, Ms. Robinson also worked as a youth services librarian and earned an MLIS from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 

Ms. Robinson shares her passion for teaching and reading as the co-leader of BookCats, the book club for Texas State University nontenure line faculty, and through service on the Library Board for the City of Kyle. 

With this award, Ms. Robinson is being recognized for her online course RDG3323: Teaching Literacies in the Content Areas. Ms. Robinson developed the asynchronous version of this course in 2022 and refined it as a participant in the 2023 ODEL Summer Institute.

Dr. Lauren Brentnell 

Senior Lecturer, Department of English 

Runner-Up

Dr. Lauren Brentnell earned their PhD in Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures from Michigan State University and joined Texas State in January 2023 as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and an Assistant Director of the University Writing Center. They teach courses in rhetoric and composition, including past courses in first-year writing, multimodal composition, research methods, and identity in writing.

Dr. Bre’s research is in trauma studies, writing program and center administration, and cultural rhetorics. Their research focuses on institutional policies and procedures, especially in integrating restorative justice principles into policies involving violence, harassment, and discrimination. Their work has been published in WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, The Peer Review, constellations: a cultural rhetorics publishing space and in several edited collections.

Dr. Bre is receiving this award for their online course ENG 1310: College Writing I. They have taught first-year writing in-person and online since 2012. Their favorite part of teaching this course is getting to connect with students in many different majors and helping them develop their writing skills for their unique interests.

Dr. Barbara Hewitt

Associate Professor, Department of Health Informatics and Health Information 

Runner-Up

Barbara Hewitt earned her PhD in Information Technology (IT) and her BS in Computer Science from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She earned a Master of Business Administration from Texas State University (TXST). She rejoined the Department of Health Information Management (HIM) at Texas State University and teaches Health Privacy and Security, Health Information Security, Project Management, and other health information technology courses. 

The course that Dr. Hewitt is being honored for is HIM 5342: Information Systems and Technology. She originally developed the course when the Masters of HIM program began 9 years ago with instructional designers from what is now known as Online and Extended Programs.

Dr Hewitt's research focuses on security and is published in several journals. As a Texas native, Dr. Hewitt began her undergraduate degree at then-Southwest Texas State University (SWT) and worked as a software developer/system analyst including a stint as a user analyst at SWT prior to starting her teaching career where she taught one of the first online courses in the first fully online degree at SWT, the Bachelor of Science in HIM. She also taught in the Computer Information Systems Program at Texas A&M University - San Antonio prior to returning to TXST in 2015. Dr. Hewitt supports students in competitions including healthcare and security competitions. She founded and led the San Antonio Women in Technology that supports women considering a computing career for 13 years.