2023 AAD Awards

Amanda Lechner
Studio Art
School of Visual Arts

Amanda’s nominators had this to say:

• Amanda is an energetic and dedicated teacher who is both challenging and supportive, while using teaching as a guide to help students to explore their creative process with more depth, rigor, and curiosity.
• Through her approach to curriculum design, Amanda effectively models the experimental ways of working with ideas and the creative processes.
• She does a wonderful job of letting students approach their paintings in ways that make sense to them personally, while also providing them helpful feedback and direction.

Emmett O'Leary
Music
School of Performing Arts

Emmett’s nominators had this to say:

• Students note that Emmett creates a welcoming and inviting atmosphere in the classroom, works to provide thorough and actionable feedback, and they value his expertise as a music educator.
• He is passionate about providing future music educators with practical, effective rehearsal techniques.
• Emmett’s  humor and high energy helps to create a positive and enjoyable atmosphere in the classroom.

Hiromi Okumura
Studio Art
School of Visual Arts

Hiromi’s nominators had this to say:

• Hiromi’s outreach efforts involve creating artwork to help communicate the complex research being done by the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation to the general public at many outreach events throughout the year. 
• What stands out most with her work is her contagious excitement and involvement in learning, and her ability to share that information through guided art projects.
• Hiromi interprets science into an artistic format making it more accessible to the public.

Patrick Finley
Graphic Design
School of Visual Arts

Patrick’s nominators had this to say:

• Patrick started DesignUP, a philanthropic community event where undergraduate design students are mentored by design professionals to create graphic design materials for local nonprofits throughout the New River Valley.
• DesignUP has brought tremendous positive recognition to our college and has been an incredible hands-on community builder.
• DesignUP is an incredible benefit to the broader community in ways that far exceed providing graphic design assistance.

James Jewitt
Art History
School of Visual Arts

James' nominators had this to say:

• James has emerged as a scholar with a consistent and admirable publication record.
• His accomplishments are noteworthy because through his research he manages to draw new conclusions and uncover new knowledge in the world of Italian Renaissance art history, one of the most heavily researched periods of art history.
• James makes exciting and critical discoveries in a field that many might see as already saturated.

Stefan Al
Architecture
School of Architecture

Stefan’s nominators had this to say:

• Stefan’s research aims to improve the quality of life within contemporary cities through well-designed urban density, transit-oriented development, and climate change adaptation projects.
• He has worked in academia at major institutions and in practice on large-scale projects, including the world’s tallest tower.
• Stefan has published eight books, including with The MIT Press and W.W. Norton, as well as five peer-reviewed book chapters.

Dwight Bigler
Music
School of Performing Arts

Dwight’s nominators had this to say:

• Dwight’s recent composition, performance, and recording production of his oratorio, Mosaic For Earth, was a multi-year, multi-faceted research and performance project.
• He not only composed this new work, but he also led most of the choir and orchestra rehearsals, conducted the premiere, produced the audio and video recordings that involved collaboration with authors, artists, designers, and professional guest musicians.
• This work provided VT students with advanced learning experiences not only in musical performance, but also in creative processes, complex problem solving, real-world application of theoretical concepts, and direct community outreach.

Yevgeny Dokshansky
Music
School of Performing Arts

Yevgeny’s nominators had this to say:

• Yevgeny is praised for his outstanding accomplishments as a performer, transcriber, and recording artist, most notably for his two recent CD recordings as a solo and chamber musician.
• His transcriptions and performances provide exposure to Ernest Bloch’s unique voice with which clarinetists may have limited familiarity.
• Far beyond simply placing Bloch’s notes into the clarinet, Yevgeny makes every effort to find clarinet effects analogous to the string techniques in Bloch’s original scoring. 

Andrew Gipe-Lazarou
Architecture
School of Architecture

Andrew’s nominators had this to say:

• Andrew organized and led a successful collaboration with the VA Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired in which students learned to challenge ocular-centered design practices.
• The workshop participants learned building design concepts and explored the use of different materials while using mostly touch and hearing.
• Andrew explains the challenge as understanding how working with the blind and visually impaired can better inform architecture, its social value, and the positive implications it has.

Christopher Campo-Bowen, Scott Hanenberg, Caitlin Martinkus, & Elizabeth McLain

Music
School of Performing Arts

Nominators had this to say:

• The team’s work has resulted in one of the most progressive college-level academic music curricula in the state of Virginia, positioning our students to be more empathetic, open-minded, and culturally knowledgeable members of the VT community and beyond.
• Through these new and redesigned courses, students experience music as a diverse cultural practice and work with faculty who affirm the value of diversity in each class.
• The revised and reimagined curricula shape how students engage with and think about music, including central threads of cultural understanding and humanistic inquiry.

Rob Jacks
Academic Advising
College of Architecture, Arts, and Design

Rob’s nominators had this to say:

• Rob has made significant contributions in the efforts to modernize the college’s advising model to professional advising and moving the college into compliance with university and national advising best practices.
• His willingness to go above and beyond, to support students, faculty and administrators, and to work to solve problems for everyone while being attentive to the need for compliance.
• Rob is an exceptional leader for our departmental advisors, a primary resource for our faculty, and is very often the first contact for our staff when seeking direction for a student-related issue.

Sonya Shelor
Business Operations
School of Visual Arts

Sonya’s nominators had this to say:

• Sonya is an unfailing rock in understanding and managing the finances of the school, and faculty research funds.
• Sonya is exceptionally knowledgeable about procedures and manages to explain both the big picture and the minutiae of our budget in ways that are clear and accessible.
• She’s intuitive, a skilled communicator, and able to balance a wide-range of responsibilities with seeming effortlessness, elegance, and efficiency. 

Jennifer Yates
Business Operations
College of Architecture, Arts, and Design

Jennifer’s nominators had this to say:

• Jennifer takes pride is helping her colleagues accomplish their goals promptly and efficiently by offering clear and friendly communication.
• She truly cares about those around her, treating  everyone with the same welcoming kindness, whether it is a student, faculty, or fellow staff member.
• She provides unwavering thorough, prompt, and accurate fiscal assistance in a most respectful, friendly, professional, patient, helpful, and positive manner.

Deb Sim
Armory Gallery
School of Visual Arts

Deb's nominators had this to say:

• Deb fosters inclusivity, and honors access and intersectionality, holding space for a diversity of artists and art forms which challenge aspects of history, questions of the human condition, and identity.
• Her support for her colleagues and students is unwavering and she is the first to be excited for our students’ successes before and after graduation.
• Deb is an impeccable curator and exhibition designer, a tough but empathetic teacher, a nurturing mentor, and an all-around miraculous problem-solver.

Rosemary Blieszner
Dean
College of Architecture, Arts, and Design

Rosemary's nominators had this to say:

• Rosemary has acted with grace and discretion, served as a role model and is a prime example of how to live our principles of community.
• She is generous with her time and presence, also serving as chair of the Sesquicentennial Steering Committee, in which she led the planning of the university’s celebration of its 150th anniversary.
• There is a unique generosity in Rosemary’s leadership, and she has shown what clear-minded and generous leadership can do for an entire community.
• She consistently exhibits an overflowing measure of optimism.