The Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, announced its annual awards during a celebration held on April 27. The awards recognize outstanding faculty and staff accomplishments.
This year the Superior Customer Responsiveness Award went to Juliana Troxler of the economics department for her positive attitude and ability to meet the needs of multiple groups. One nominator wrote of Troxler, “Juliana has consistently proven to be among the very best staff I’ve ever encountered.”
The Tim Williams Staff Award for Professionalism was given to Shelia Wolford, a budget director in the Financial Information Office. A number of nominators noted that Wolford’s value and expertise extend beyond her command of the college’s budget including management issues and general UT policies.
The Office of Marketing and Public Relations received the Innovation and Creativity Award for their work redesigning the college’s website. The team includes Tanya Brown, Charlie Cantrell, Gerhard Schneibel, Sara Whitt and Katie Williams. Since their relaunch of the website, sessions increased 139 percent, users increased by 40 percent and mobile traffic increased 98 percent.
Celeste Carruthers, an assistant professor of the economics department, received the Vallet Family Outstanding Researcher Award. Carruthers has published three papers since 2015 and two others have been accepted for publication.
This year the Richard C. Reizenstein award for outstanding commitment to students was presented to Alex Zablah, an associate professor and director of the marketing doctoral program. One of Zablah’s nominating students wrote of him, “He is one of those people you hate to email late because you know you will get a thorough response within minutes, regardless of the hour.”
Neeraj Bharadwaj, also an associate professor in the marketing department, was awarded the Allen H. Keally Excellence in Teaching Award for his enthusiasm in the classroom. His students called his teaching style highly engaging. “My favorite thing about him is how his passion for marketing is extremely infectious,” said one.
Christian Vossler, an economics professor, was awarded the Martin and Carol Robinson Excellence in Teaching, Research and Service Award. This award recognizes the college’s best ‘all around’ faculty, and Vossler’s research productivity, work with doctoral economics students and editorial service were all commended.
The Bank of America Faculty Leadership Award went to Jim Wansley for his many years of service in the finance department and teaching across several executive MBA programs.
This year’s Richard D. Sanders Award for Leadership in Executive Education was presented to Chuck Noon for his high standards in leadership and teaching. Several students nominating Noon mentioned the quality of education in his class and his ability to engage adult learners.
The Diversity and Inclusion Award was presented to the Department of Accounting and Information Management for their work on the AIM Academy.
This year, the Haslam deans awarded a special Volunteer Spirit Award to Laura Cole, a faculty member of the finance department and director of the Master’s Investment Learning Center. The deans noted that although Cole has received multiple strong nominations in other categories over the last few years, she has always declined them because she served as part of the awards selection committee. This award recognized Cole’s dedication to her students inside and outside the classroom.
In addition to the awards presented Thursday night, several faculty and staff members were honored for their service during separate awards ceremonies held in recent months.
In the MBA Program Awards, the Outstanding First Year Faculty Award was presented to Angel Norman and the Outstanding Second Year Faculty Award was presented to Lloyd Rinehart. David Ecklund received the Students’ Appreciation Award for the second year in a row.
The Master of Science in Business Analytics awards recognized Russell Zaretzki for Outstanding Commitment to Students and Michel Ballings for Excellence in Teaching. Timothy Munyon received the Master of Science in Human Resource Management’s Outstanding Faculty Award.
During the executive education awards, Jennifer Hicks, Peggy Jarrett, Mitch Addis and Tom Brown were recognized with staff awards for outstanding service, outstanding results, outstanding innovation and outstanding teamwork and collaboration respectively. Pat Postma received the George Miller Award for Lifetime Achievement in Executive Education.
Jim Wansley, Michael McIntyre, Don Lighter and Chuck Noon received the outstanding faculty awards for the Aerospace and Defense MBA, Executive MBA for Strategic Leadership, Executive MBA for Healthcare Leadership and the Physician Executive MBA respectively. Mandyam Srinivasan received the outstanding faculty awards for both the Professional MBA and Executive MBA for Global Supply Chain. Bruce Behn received the Physician Executive MBA Outstanding Teaching Award.
