There is always a bond between students and teachers – some may be bad ones, while others may enrich both parties’ lives.

Ashland University students had the opportunity to nominate a faculty or staff member that they believed exhibited excellent teaching and/or leadership skills that reached outside of the classroom. This is the university’s 25th year running the Academic Mentor Award program, according to a press release issued Feb. 1.

The Academic Mentor Award recognition ceremony was held Jan. 28th in the John C. Myers Convocation Center, where the mentors received engraved silver plates. The mentors who won were: Catherine Geletka, director of residence life; Dr. Andrew Greene, assistant professor of biology; Dr. Michael Hudson, associate professor of geology; Dr. Dan Lehman, trustees’ distinguished professor of English; Dr. Gary Margot, professor of accounting/MIS; Dr. Jacqueline Owens, professional instructor of nursing; Tammy Repp, student accounts representative; and Dr. Michael Reuschling, professor of counseling at Ashland Theological Seminary, according to the press release.

Dr. Dan Lehman has won the mentor award three times before, but not since the 1990s. He was nominated this year by one of his advisees and students, Brittany Potter. Lehman and Potter traveled together on a Faculty-Led Study Abroad tour.

“One of Dr. Lehman’s defining characteristics is his quiet ability to listen to and understand his students, and this has helped fuel my progress at AU,” Potter said. “Overall, however, perhaps it is his dedication to perpetual learning and his ability to spark the fire in others that make him particularly worthy of recognition…I am elated that others agree with me, and I am confident that he will continue to impact others for years to come.”

Lehman not only feels honored at being nominated and winning the mentor award again, but humbly said Potter herself deserves all the credit.

“I think that receiving a Mentor Award is one of the nicest things that can happen to a professor,” Lehman said. “I was lucky enough to take Brittany Potter along on our study tour to South Africa and have enjoyed being her academic advisor and teaching her in a number of classes. The real honor here goes to Brittany for taking the initiative to write the nomination essay and to surprise me with this award.”

The mentor awards not only allowed students to nominate the faculty and staff members that they wished to honor, but also helped some departments heal.

Cynthia DiFrancesco was very excited to have Dr. Jacqueline (Jackie) Owens win the mentor award, but it meant more to her than just an honor for one person.

“This has been a tough year for the Nursing Department after Dr. Patton was killed in the car accident just before school started,” DiFrancesco said. “I didn’t find out until after I had nominated Jackie that she had nominated Dr. Patton when she was a senior in the RN to BSN program…Jackie has a special quality that seems to work with such a diverse group.”

Owens explained how she tries to extend her leadership outside of the classroom.

“It is a humbling experience, and a pleasure, to be honored for doing your job, especially when you know so many others who are also deserving,” Owens said. “Many of the students I teach are middle-aged adults who are balancing full time employment and family responsibilities…I model my out-of-the -classroom leadership after the actions of my own mentors by offering flexibility and accessibility that includes evenings and weekends and intentionally modeling and offering to students scholarly activities appropriate to professional nurses.”

It is Dr. Michael Reuschling’s first time winning a mentor award and he feels grateful and blessed to be able to get to do what he does every day.

“I graduated from the seminary in 1980 and that I returned there as a full-time faculty member in 1997 is to me proof of God’s sense of humor and His great kindness,” Reuschling said. “On any given day, I’m not sure who’s teaching who in the classroom since I have learned so much from my students. I have come to look at our time together as that of co-learners who together explore important issues and then use our “discoveries” to help hurting souls (my students are mostly counseling students).”

Matthew Fullen said that he knew when he heard about the mentor awards that he wanted to nominate Reuschling.

“He has been an academic and professional mentor for three years, demonstrating what it means to be a godly man, an excellent professor and a seasoned counselor,” Fullen said. “When I was notified that Dr. Reuschling had won an award, I was ecstatic. Dr. Reuschling gives his time and energy to his students without any expectation of being acknowledged.”

Many other students took their time to write up letters of nomination for their particular faculty or staff member. The effort they put in to nominating their favorite faculty or staff member is just a little something that they could give back to those who have put so much effort into them.