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Distinguished Faculty Awards

 

Eligibility  |  Criteria  |  Nomination  |  Application  |  Past recipients

 

Distinguished Faculty Awards celebrate outstanding performance by faculty in all aspects of their role and the ongoing enhancement of their teaching and/or scholarship. Recipients of this prestigious award demonstrate excellence in scholarly teaching, leadership in service and significant accomplishments in scholarship.

Distinguished Faculty Awards have two award categories:

  • Excellence in Scholarly Teaching, Service and Scholarship Award
  • Excellence in Scholarly Teaching Award

Recipients of the Distinguished Faculty Awards in both categories receive a monetary award of $1,500 (choice of a cash honorarium, professional development funds or donation to a Mount Royal scholarship), a letter acknowledging the award signed by the provost and vice-president, academic, and a framed certificate. Recipients of the Excellence in Scholarly Teaching, Service and Scholarship Award also receive a $3,500 grant to support their work in teaching and/or scholarship.

Award recipients are also recognized on Mount Royal's Faculty Excellence Awards website and at the Faculty Excellence Celebration in May. They may also be recognized through other channels.

Typically, one (but up to two) awards may be granted in each category each year. A Distinguished Faculty Award may only be granted to an individual once in each category.

 

 2026 Distinguished Faculty Award Recipients

Excellence in Scholarly Teaching, Service and Scholarship Award

 

Randy Connolly

Randy Connolly

Professor
Department of Mathematics and Computing
Faculty of Science and Technology

Joining MRU in 1997 as an instructor, Randy became a full professor in 2014. Across his 28-year career he has published 4 books, 54 peer-reviewed papers, and about 80 conference publications. Several of these publications have had a significant global influence on how computing is taught and imagined.

The most important of these publications is Fundamentals of Web Development. The book has been very successful and is used at hundreds of universities globally. It is the market-leading book in this area, and as such, it defines how this topic is taught worldwide in post-secondary contexts.

Over the past half-decade, Randy's research work has focused on addressing the way academic computing education imagines its disciplinary mission. This has included papers on reflexive practice, critical research and theory, political activism within the classroom, and connecting computing to the theories and practices of the social sciences.

For instance, his 2020 paper, “Why computing belongs within the social sciences,” published in Communications of the ACM, the principal peer-reviewed academic journal for computing, has had an important influence in this regard; with more than 54 thousand downloads, it is among the journal’s top 10-most downloaded articles this decade.

Randy’s contributions to teaching, service and scholarship at MRU have been impactful at every step of his career. He played a critical role in shaping his department’s foundations. In 1998, he led the development of the Applied Computer Information Systems degree, which ran from 2000 to 2009, and contributed to the research, planning, and implementation of the four-year BCIS degree that replaced it. He has been a conference chair, program chair, associate editor, and in 2025, started a three-year appointment as co-editor-in-chief for ACM Inroads, an international quarterly print magazine on computing education, which has further increased Randy’s influence on the global conversation surrounding computer education.

As noted by the Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology Dr. Jonathan Withey, “Randy demonstrates the authentic and sustained integration of teaching, scholarship and service. His research informs what and how he teaches. His teaching questions feed back into scholarship and dissemination. And his editorial leadership and peer review work allows the scholarship of others to flourish.”

Excellence in Scholarly Teaching Award

 

Alexandria Farmer

Alexandria Farmer

Laboratory Instructor
Department of Biology

Faculty of Science and Technology

Discovering her passion for teaching while leading a Biology 0130 lab during the pursuit of her Environment Technology Certificate at Mount Royal College in 2002 changed Alexandria Farmer’s career trajectory, and she’s never looked back.

Today, Alex is a highly respected coordinator and instructor across a spectrum of MRU biology labs, renowned for engaging her students and inspiring connections with nature. With a reputation for fun lab content, Alex catches students off-guard, for instance, when she jokes about a woman farting in an elevator to help them understand how molecular state affects the rate of diffusion. 

“Alex inspires students to be part of, and connect to, the environment and not passively observe it from a distance,” says Dr. Carol Armstrong, PhD, an associate professor in the Faculty of Science and Technology. “Her game called ‘Live, Poop or Die’ is famous among the students and they take great delight in deciding which plants might be poisonous or cause other deleterious effects!”

Humour aside, Alex makes significant contributions to curriculum, developing and revising content in six courses to improve scientific communication skills, incorporate the scientific method into lab activities, generate data sets for statistical assessment and expand experiential learning opportunities.

Alex’s teaching strategies constantly evolve, responding to changes in course expectations, technology and the needs of incoming students. Her student-centred strategies facilitate collaboration and nurture an environment that is welcoming, free of judgement and open to curiosity. She seeks multiple angles to conceptualize theories and conveys relatable situations her students might encounter in their daily lives (hence the farting in the elevator joke!) to strengthen the understanding of concepts and information recall.

Alex co-founded the Alberta Native Bee Council (ANBC) in 2016 where she remains a director, ensuring her currency in scholarly research while sharing her expertise with nature groups, municipalities across southern Alberta and young students in K-6 classrooms. Her ANBC work also led to learning experiences for her MRU students and the development of “Plan Bee”, a science-based conservation initiative to create habitat for native bees and pollinating insects on campus.

 

Tamara Jenkins

Tamara Jenkins

Senior Lecturer
Department of Psychology

Faculty of Arts

“I wanted to . . . express my deepest appreciation for the incredible experience I had in your class. Your dedication, passion and expertise as a teacher made it one of my favorite classes throughout my university years. I am truly grateful for the way you have fostered a positive and engaging learning environment. Your ability to convey complex concepts in an accessible manner and your willingness to go the extra mile to ensure our understanding has been truly remarkable.”

That’s an excerpt from one of the student messages Tamara Jenkins displays in her office to remind herself of her potential to shape the experiences of students fortunate enough to take one of her psychology classes.

Having cultivated a broad academic perspective by teaching more than 180 psychology sections and 40 sections in other faculties over the last 21 years, Tamara’s philosophy and energetic classroom presence are her calling card – a contrast to the 24-year-old who found public speaking terrifying when she applied to MRC for a contract position in 2005.

Accordingly, Tamara ensures she smiles upon entry into the classroom, unleashes an enthusiastic delivery and treats each lecture as a conversation. Her goal is that her students understand how every concept they learn can make a difference in their lives and the lives of those around them.

“As a result of the overlap in our courses, Tamara and I have had frequent discussions about principles of course design, teaching techniques, evaluation and student development,” says Dr. James Taylor, PhD, associate professor of psychology. “I’m always interested in hearing what Tamara has to say, as she is a thoughtful instructor who finds creative ways to engage students.”

As co-chair of her department’s EDIA committee, Tamara launched a Psychology Peer Mentor Program. Each fall, in collaboration with Student Counselling Services, 15 to 20 psychology majors are trained as peer mentors who host drop-in hours in the Psychology Student Lounge. This academic year, Tamara collaborated with Career Services to have the mentors’ volunteer hours officially logged and captured as work-integrated learning on their experiential transcripts.

 

Awards Requirements

 

2026 Distinguished Faculty Awards Adjudication Committee

Member Title
Dr. Karim Dharamsi Vice-Provost Academic (Chair)
Dr. Connie Van der Byl Associate Vice-President, Research, Scholarship and Community Engagement
Dr. Kenna Olsen Vice-Dean, Faculty of Arts
Dr. Leah Hamilton Vice-Dean, Research and Community Relations, Faculty of Business, Communication Studies and Aviation
Dr. Sonya Jakubec Acting Associate Dean, Research, Scholarship and Community Engagement, Faculty of Health, Community and Education
Dr. Melanie Rathburn Vice-Dean, Faculty of Science and Technology
Katharine Barrette Associate Dean, Public Services, University Library
Dr. Jodi Nickel Professor, Education, Faculty of Health, Community and Education
2025 Distinguished Faculty Award recipient
Dr. Gülberk Koç Maclean Senior Lecturer, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts
2025 Distinguished Faculty Award recipient
Dr. Aries Sutantoputra Sessional Instructor, General Management and Human Resources, Faculty of Business, Communication Studies and Aviation
Tala Abu Hayyaneh REC President, SAMRU

 

Return to Faculty Excellence Awards

The Faculty Excellence Awards are administered through Academic Affairs, as part of Mount Royal’s Celebrate U framework for employee rewards and recognition.