OU Faculty Awards
Professor Rockey Robbins
Three Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education faculty members were honored at the OU Faculty Tribute awards ceremony, held virtually in April. Rockey Robbins and Mirelse Velázquez were awarded Presidential Professorships, while Ji Hong received the Henry Daniel Rinsland Memorial Award for Excellence in Educational Research.
Robbins received the President’s Associates Second Century Professorship. He is a Choctaw-Cherokee professor of professional counseling in the Department of Educational Psychology. He excels in all areas of academic responsibility – research, teaching and service – which he combines meaningfully and seamlessly, each aspect richly informing the others.
Robbins is an internationally recognized expert on Native American issues and counseling psychology, particularly relating to culturally appropriate psychological assessment, developing American Indian treatment models and techniques based on traditional American Indian ideas and practices, Native American spirituality and psychology, and group interventions.
His scholarly work is described by colleagues as “the best in his domain,” and he is in high demand as a keynote speaker, having delivered nearly 50 keynote addresses at national conferences, tribal complexes, reservations and universities such as Dartmouth, Columbia and Boston University.
Robbins’ teaching and mentoring has powerfully and positively impacted many students’ lives, especially students from marginalized groups. He is devoted to supporting Indian students on campus, and to developing and supporting mentoring systems to support them.
He has developed partnerships specifically with the Wichita, Creek, Cherokee and Chickasaw, among other tribes, and with the Oklahoma Gambling Addiction Agency. Through these partnerships, he has provided Counseling Psychology students work and financial opportunities as counselors, as well as research and other practicum and internship opportunities.
Robbins has received a multitude of awards for his scholarly work, teaching and service, including the Jon E. Pedersen Mentoring and Advising award (2019) and the Leadership/Citizenship Award (2016), both from the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education; the Robert D. Lemon Social Justice Award from the Department of OU Women’s and Gender Studies (2015); and the first Citation for Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion award from the Oklahoma Psychological Association, to name a few.
Associate Professor Mirelsie Velázquez
Velázquez received the Rainbolt Family Endowed Education Presidential Professorship. Velazquez is an associate professor and graduate program liaison in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Her scholarship, integrated within and across teaching, research and service, and anchored by and lived through principles of justice and equity, advances the aspirational ideals and virtues of the Rainbolt Family Endowed Presidential Professorship, wrote her colleagues in her letter of nomination.
“By scholarship, we refer to how professor Velázquez engages knowledge and knowing across different spaces and contexts – classrooms, school communities, intellectual traditions, university life, and other social contexts,” they wrote. “The common thread connecting these engagements is a commitment to transforming dehumanizing social orders that deny individuals and classes of people innate and universal freedom, dignity and justice. Professor Velázquez’s line of inquiry into historical accounts of insurgent practices within communities and across time and space exemplifies her scholarly approach to justice work.”
Velázquez engages students in knowledge and knowing in and outside of classrooms. Her pedagogical engagement exposes students to frameworks, questions and experiences that enable them to understand how structural conditions in society, communities and schools reinforce inequitable and unjust social orders.
Velázquez is active in Women’s and Gender Studies, the Center for Social Justice, and Latinx student groups. Nationally, she works extensively to provide access and opportunities for graduate students of color through the McNair Research Program and through her leadership in the History of Education Society.
She is completing a book tentatively titled Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977 (University of Illinois Press). It offers an historical account of Puerto Ricans in Chicago in the post-War years, centering the community's activism around schooling concerns within a larger conversation of the city. Her work most recently has appeared in the journals Latino Studies, Centro and Gender and Education.
Professor Ji Hong
Hong is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, having served on the faculty since 2007. She has demonstrated excellence in educational research in a single, long-impact project over time.
Her research investigates an important area in teacher professional development: teacher identity and development for both in-service teachers and preservice teachers. In Oklahoma and other areas where there is a high shortage of teachers and a lack of teacher professional development, her research is particularly noteworthy and meaningful.
Along the line of teacher professional development, she has engaged in a systematic program of studies that were built upon one another exploring various issues and constructs, including teacher's motivation, resilience, attrition and identity development over time.
The Henry Daniel Rinsland Memorial Award for Excellence in Educational Research was established to recognize faculty who either play a central role in the accomplishment of an outstanding educational research project or demonstrate a distinguished record in educational research over time.