A large group of faculty, staff, students, university administration, alumni, and community members gathered to surprise and pay tribute to Ohio State Marion Professor of History, Dr. Margaret Sumner with The Ohio State University Alumni Award for Distinguished teaching during her history 2610 class in Morrill Hall late Monday morning.
Presented during spring semester across all Ohio State campuses, the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching annually recognizes a maximum of ten faculty members university-wide for their teaching excellence. Ohio State Marion boasts more winners of the university’s most prestigious faculty award than any other regional campus. Last year, Professor of Psychology, Nikole Patson was a recipient of the award. In addition to Dr. Sumner, Professor Ryan Yoder was awarded later that day.
Ohio State Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, Helen Malone, who made the trip from the Columbus campus to present the award, shared the news of Sumner’s award to a round of thunderous applause from the class and 30-40+ guests in the classroom. “Welcome to your entire Marion clan here,” said Malone. “It is my distinct pleasure to announce this morning that Margaret has been awarded one of our Alumni Awards for Distinguished Teaching by a Professor, so congratulations.”
“This award is intended to recognize our faculty who are amazing teachers and you are that. We are grateful for the fact that you show up every day to be here for your students, to teach your students, to be present for your students, and ready to help them in whatever way is necessary. That is not an easy job to do and one that you do with great distinction,” added Malone.
Ohio State Marion Dean & Director, Jennifer Schlueter was next to speak and noted the ground swell of support in the room and broad cross section of people whose lives have been impacted by Sumner’s teaching and research.
“Look at this room Margaret. We have folks here who are from the community, who are partners from across the nation, who are your students, who are our alums, who are our colleagues, because the kind of teaching that you do at the intersection of public history and the classroom, of service learning and research, is so impactful. You’ve changed all these people’s lives,” said Schlueter.
Ohio State Department of History Chair Scott Levi, who also made the trip to Marion from Columbus added to what was a special morning for Sumner and all involved.
“Never has this been more richly deserved,” said Levi, while giving a nod to the students that echo her teaching excellence.
“Within the history department, we take great pride in hiring great researchers but also want to make certain that we are hiring great teachers, with Margaret, we have both,” said Levi.
Levi went on to share more about Sumner’s work in the community with the Marion Women’s Club.
Marion Women’s Club President Valerie Wigton past presidents and other members of the Women’s Club were in attendance to show their appreciation of Sumner’s work with the club archives.
“We want to thank you for saying yes to our club when we reached out to you wondering what we should do with our archives. All this information that we had discovered, you helped us take those archives and learn from them and share them with Ohio State Marion students and other people around the community and around the state,” said Wigton.
“You have taught effectively here at Ohio State Marion, but you have been a teacher for us,” Wigton added.
Sumner took a moment to thank those attending the surprise announcement.
“I am absolutely overwhelmed. This crowd is insane. I love it. I love it. I absolutely love getting responses from people about how exciting, fun, and educational history can be. It is important and essential to the nation and how the nation interprets itself,” said Sumner.
Students, faculty, and alumni may nominate faculty; and a committee of students, previous recipients, and alumni choose the recipients. Recipients are recognized with a $5,000 honorarium made possible by gifts from The Ohio State University Alumni Association, University Advancement, and the Office of Academic Affairs. In addition, the Office of Academic Affairs awards an increase of $1,200 to each recipient’s base salary. Members are also inducted into the Academy of Teaching. Full-time Ohio State faculty members on all campuses with the rank of instructor through full professor in the clinical or tenure track who, in the past three years, have taught undergraduate and/or graduate/professional students are eligible for this award. Previous recipients of this award are not eligible.