OU Online Professors Receive Honors

Professor Bryan Bloom, who teaches as part of the Construction Business master’s degree program, was presented the Provost’s Award for Outstanding Engaged Teaching, which recognizes faculty who utilize innovative teaching techniques that promote community collaboration and high-quality, engaged learning. As a faculty member in the Haskell and Irene Lemon Construction Science Division of the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture, Bloom earned the award for his work with the Design+Build program, which partnered with Engaged Learning Oklahoma to engage OU and K-12 students in building an off-grid greenhouse at an Oklahoma City school that enabled year-round gardening.

Margaret Shaffer, Ph.D., who teaches as part of the Business Administration bachelor’s degree program, received the David L. Boren Award for Outstanding Global Engagement. Shaffer, chair of international business in the Michael F. Price College of Business, received the award for organizing and leading numerous study abroad trips for Price College students across the globe, including China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Taiwan, Japan and Israel, providing students with transformational experiences and providing them with a broader world view of international business.

Brenda Lloyd-Jones, Ph.D., and Julie Miller-Cribbs, Ph.D., along with a team of other OU professors, received the Research Award for Excellence in Transdisciplinary, Convergent Research for their work on improving the professional and personal well-being of Head Start teachers in Oklahoma. The project has led to over $2 million in extramural funding and nearly $2 million in grants to design and implement a holistic and interdisciplinary intervention to promote Head Start staff well-being, competence and retention.

Lloyd-Jones, an associate professor in the department of human relations, teaches as part of OU Online’s Master of Human Relations program. Her scholarship focuses on the representation and experiences of women of color in senior-level leadership and mentoring approaches to support, retain and advance women.

Miller-Cribbs, director of the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work and Oklahoma Medicaid endowed professor in mental health, teaches as part of OU Online’s Master of Social Work program. Her current research amplifies factors pertaining to vulnerability, strengths and functioning in the areas of diversity, health and community life.

June Abbas, Ph.D., who teaches as part of the Library and Information Studies master’s degree program, was awarded the Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professorship. Abbas, who teaches in the School of Library and Information Studies in Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, currently serves as interim director of the college’s Date Scholarship Program and as editor-in-chief of the library and information science research journal, Elsevier.