University of the Cumberlands honors faculty and staff

 University of the Cumberlands held its 17th annual Faculty-Staff Dinner on April 23, honoring individuals for years of service and presenting awards for service and teaching excellence.

The University presented the 2009 Service Award for full-time administrators and non-teaching staff members to Susan Felts, assistant bursar. Felts, is well known on campus for her dedication, and she takes pride in the service she provides to students, faculty and staff. She greets everyone with a smile and a readiness to help, and she has been described as a “perfect fit” for her current position in the Bursar’s Office. While working full-time, she completed her Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management and is now pursuing a Master of Arts in Teaching degree. 

The University presents the William T. Miles Memorial Award for Community Service to a faculty member who has made a significant contribution to the Williamsburg community in an area consistent with university goals. The individual must be a Christ-like servant who: lives the mission of Cumberlands; achieves a bold service focused on physical and spiritual health; provides humble service; and models service to others.

The recipient of the 2009 William T. Miles Community Service Award is Dr. Anita Bowman, assistant professor of health. Since coming to Cumberlands in 2004, she has organized the breast cancer and heart disease prevention and awareness programs, and each semester she works with her students in the Dare-to-Compare program.  In addition, she takes an active part in Mountain Outreach (MO), the University’s home-building program, participating in local projects and spending her spring break with MO in Eastern Kentucky, where she helped to build wheelchair ramps. Bowman has even incorporated a MO project into the curriculum of her freshman INSIGHTS class, giving her students a unique opportunity to learn through service.

Bowman cares greatly about the community’s physical and spiritual health and lives the University’s mission by serving the underserved. Moreover, her humble, non-self-serving, Christ-like service allows her to show weakness and limitations and to ask students for help when necessary.  She not only achieves great things with her own hands but also models servanthood to others.  

Each year, based on recommendations by students, faculty and staff members, one University faculty member receives the Excellence in Teaching Award.  

Dr. Larry Newquist, professor of physics, received the 2009 Excellence in Teaching Award for his passion for teaching and seeing students succeed not only in the classroom but also in life.  In his eighteen years of service at Cumberlands, Newquist has set high standards for students, but has made himself available inside and outside the classroom, often working through problems with individual students who encountered difficulty with assignments. One student wrote, “When I needed help, Dr. Newquist always put aside his own tasks to provide assistance and always showed a true interest in doing so.” Another student commented, “His task might have been to teach me physics, but he taught me much more. He has been an inspiration as a role model, a friend and especially a teacher.”

Convinced that everything in life is related to his subject, Newquist is a passionate recruiter of outstanding mathematics and physics students for UC and also takes his astronomy show on the road to various school-age groups. Within the community, he works tirelessly for the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Rogers’ Explorers programs