President’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching 2015 winners announced

The President’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching recognize faculty who are committed to outstanding teaching in both residential and online classrooms. Winners are selected based on peer recommendations, deans’ endorsements, nominee responses to specific prompts, and student letters of support. Several areas of teaching expertise are considered, including innovation, use of instructional technology, faith integration, pedagogy, student support and involvement, assessment, and personal growth. Recipients are formally honored at Commencement and receive monetary gifts.

2014-15 President’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching

George Young, Ph.D., associate professor in the School of Business, has been teaching for 11 years, the past seven at Liberty. Young holds a Ph.D. from Michigan State University (MSU), as well as a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science from Arizona State. At Liberty, Young teaches a number of courses in the Master of Business Administration program, including capstone strategy, marketing promotions, global economic development, and marketing management. Young also volunteers with the Global Business Institute, where he teaches business classes to people that could not otherwise afford college. Young has been awarded the USDA Ph.D. Fellowship in Strategic Management in Agribusiness and received the Cargill Dissertation Fellowship at MSU. He and his wife of 29 years, Laura, have three children: Clayton, Cole, and Cooper.

Tracy Thomas Ellett, M.A., is an instructional mentor and instructor for the College of General Studies. She has been teaching at Liberty for the past eight years. Ellett received a Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Philosophy of Communication from Duquesne University after earning a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from West Virginia University. Ellett teaches numerous courses, including speech communication, strategies for applied college learning, and computer concepts and applications. Ellett has been awarded Faculty Distinction Chair in both 2014 and 2015. She and her husband, James, have two children: Adam and Luke. Ellett and her husband teach second and third-grade Sunday school at their church. Additionally, she coaches the junior First Lego League for New Covenant Schools in Lynchburg.

Hubbard H. Harvey Jr., J.D., an associate professor in the School of Business, has been teaching business law courses at Liberty for five years. Harvey has worked as a Crusade Associate for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and he is currently an endorsed Southern Baptist disaster relief chaplain. Harvey has worked along the East Coast aiding disaster relief efforts, and served as a team leader and chaplain in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Harvey earned a Juris Doctor from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, a Master of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He has also studied at the University of Kent in England, the University of Heidelberg in Germany, and the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Harvey has been married to his wife, Joy, for 21 years.

Stephen Bell, Ph.D., has been teaching for 13 years, the past eight at Liberty. Bell is an associate professor of English in the College of General Studies. He holds a Ph.D. from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, as well as a Master of Arts from the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor of Arts from Wheaton College. Bell received the Outstanding Dissertation Award, as well as the Outstanding Graduate Research Award, in 2014 from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Bell and his wife, Brianne, lead a Bible study at their church.