Hicks wins Northwest’s Grisham Excellence in Teaching award

Northwest Mississippi Community College President, Dr. Gary Lee Spears, far right, presents Courtney Hicks, instructional librarian, second from left, with the Sandy Grisham Excellence in Teaching award for her work on the Senatobia campus. Grisham, second from right, and Sybil Canon, associate vice president of development and special projects, far left, joined Spears for the presentation at the college’s Faculty Meeting on Aug. 10. (Photo by LaJuan Tallo)

Northwest Mississippi Community College Instructional Librarian Courtney Hicks was presented the Sandy Grisham Excellence in Teaching Award at the college’s opening faculty meeting on Aug. 10.

This award is given to an academic faculty member on the Senatobia campus in honor of Sandy Grisham, a retired instructor in the Social Sciences Division. The selection is made by the Academic Division Directors on the Senatobia campus. The award winner receives a check in the amount of $1000 from the Northwest Foundation, which represents earnings on the endowment established by faculty and staff.

Hicks received her bachelor’s degree from Jacksonville State University and her master’s in library information science from The University of Alabama.

“This award is for those who push technology and Courtney involves students and their smart phones by posting answers to Instagram and doing yes/no questions with texts, by participating in embedding in the classroom with other departments, encouraging concise writing through a tweet and working with over 200 students in creating their own Animoto videos,” said Sybil Canon, vice president of development and special projects.

Canon stated that Hicks embeds the library’s services into online courses and takes an active interest in student needs by passing along current and free online web designs and free online portfolios.

“We at the library are beaming with pride over her award. We watch her earn it every day by cheerfully interacting with students. She cannot wait to show them a cool tool that will help them write papers or develop a video that will get them an A. All along, the student is having fun and completely unaware that they just learned something new,” said Maggie Moran, division director of Learning Resources.

Moran stated that one of Hicks’ and her colleague Glenn McDowell’s projects was featured in “Mississippi Libraries” and that she was instrumental in developing the library’s mobile app.