Third annual Open Champion award winners honored for work with open education

Six Penn State Commonwealth Campuses recently recognized faculty for their work with open education in the third year of Penn State's Open and Affordable Educational Resources Champion Awards

June 28, 2024

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Six Penn State Commonwealth Campuses recently named faculty members as Open Champions, recognizing their work with open education in the third year of Penn State's Open and Affordable Educational Resources (OAER) Champion Awards. A collaboration betweenPenn State University Libraries and the University-wideOAER Working Group, the OAER Champion Award began as a pilot initiative in 2022 and seeks to recognize excellence, innovation and impact in open educational practices at Penn State campuses.

The following faculty members were recognized for their work with open education at their campuses:

Penn State Abington

• Lisa V. Chewning, associate professor of corporate communication, for using OER in her own classroom as well as encouraging other faculty to do so. "Lisa is a good leader who does not just give lip service to their support for OER, they model it," Chewning's nominator wrote. "Such advocacy at the top of an academic unit is a model for adoption by other faculty."
• Timothy Smalarz, college registrar, for his work on the University-wide course marking initiative. "Tim has been instrumental in gathering information so that students are easily able to identify no-cost/low-cost textbook courses … leading to our campus really taking a lead in OER adoption," wrote his nominator.

Penn State Altoona

• Kelly Munly, associate professor of human development and family studies, for transitioning her HDFS 249N course to "no cost" through the 2023-2024 OER Leads Program. Using library-licensed e-books, streaming films, government websites, electronic reserves and other open resources, Munly bolstered the course's foundations in student-centered pedagogy by prioritizing cost-effectiveness and scholarliness. Munly is also transitioning her fall 2024 HDFS 301 course to "no cost," as well as integrating open educational practices with renewable assignments designed to promote student agency and social justice principles.

Penn State Berks

• Ike Shibley, associate professor of chemistry, for spearheading efforts to adopt open access textbooks for all the campus chemistry courses (CHEM 110, 112, 210 and 212), which required faculty consensus across the courses. Additionally, he led efforts to update the course materials and assessments in the Canvas learning management system, eliminating the need for students to purchase the required course texts and thereby reducing costs for more than 500 students annually.

Penn State Brandywine

• Timothy Lawlor, professor of physics and the second annual honoree for Brandywine. "Dr. Lawlor is very aware that physics is one of the least diverse fields of STEM, and he is taking active steps in and out of the classroom to raise awareness and address this issue," wrote one nominator. "(He is) a champion of open education not just for the financial impact it has on our students, but also for his awareness of how an OER textbook is one piece of broadening participation and representation in physics."

Penn State Greater Allegheny

• Debbie Gaydos, assistant teaching professor of mathematics, for converting all of her courses to OER, as well as for her ongoing contributions to the math OER community. Over the past few years, she has coded hundreds of questions and activities into the MyOpenMath and Desmos platforms. These exercises have been borrowed or adapted by teachers around the world. She also serves as a peer support provider to other MyOpenMath users, and was invited to present on her use of Desmos Activities at a recent Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) workshop of the Mathematical Association of America. In her statistics classes, Gaydos uses open resources to eliminate the need for her students to use commercial software or purchase expensive calculators.

Penn State Lehigh Valley

• Allison Bonner, assistant teaching professor of mathematics, for her belief in providing a positive environment for student learning that includes open and affordable, frustration-free access to all course materials, assignments and assessments whenever possible.

For more information on open education at Penn State, visit oer.psu.edu. If you have questions about open education or are a faculty member interested in adopting OER or creating open pedagogy assignments for your courses, contact the OER team to request a consultation for services.