2008 Hayward Award Winners

Area A: Travis Parker, Physical Education, Cosumnes River College

Travis Parker is an instructor of Physical Education and coach of the track and soccer teams at Cosumnes River College. Aside from his roles as teacher and coach, his Academic Senate president shares that Parker is a mentor, tutor, and community activist. Parker hails from humble beginnings - his parents were sharecroppers, and had only 12 years of education between the two of them. He now volunteers his time with an organization he co-founded and co-directs called the Alpha Academy, which targets African-American male high school students and their parents. He has also worked with an organization which seeks to help African American students in high school span the bridge to college. We must give our students direction by teaching them that success is not a destination but a process, wrote Travis Parker. Parker himself feels that educators must be visionaries, guides, and motivators.

Area B: Jonathan Brennan, English, Mission College

Jonathan Brennan has set a personal goal of increasing statewide retention rates by 25%, and has started this quest on his own campus, developing learning communities which combine basic skills courses with student success strategies, which helped increase his own courses' retention rate by 22%. Brennan believes that addressing diversity is the foundation of student success, and incorporates this mentality in his classroom by utilizing texts which promote diversity discovery. Additionally, he carries this out campus-wide by organizing events on campus that expose students to diverse cultural practices. Of his commitment to diversity, his colleague wrote, In the classroom, his work demonstrates a commitment to diversity and an understanding of the needs of multicultural students that goes far beyond the ordinary. It is Brennan's stringent commitment to increasing retention rates both on a campus and statewide level in conjunction with his tireless efforts to reach his students through addressing and embracing diversity that compel the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges to recognize Brennan as a 2008 Hayward Award winner.

Area C: Christine Schultz, Political Science, Santa Monica College

Christine Schultz, professor of Political Science at Santa Monica College, has been selected as one of the four recipients of the 2008 Hayward Award. Schultz's professional passions are students and the classroom. She is so passionate, in fact, that she has accumulated 238 days of unused sick leave, and has never opted to take a sabbatical. Schultz's passion translates into one of the highest retention rates in the college, with over 90% of her students passing, and over 75% of them achieving an A or a B. Schultz doesn't grade lackadaisically to achieve these statistics - rather, she has developed a complex grading system which involves offering 42 separate assignments over the course of a 16 week semester from which students may choose assignments which best fit their particular talents and interests. Additionally, Schultz spent 20 years developing and growing the campus transfer alliance program at Santa Monica College, actively recruiting students who would be least likely to consider going to college from surrounding high schools, let alone joining an honors club, and maintaining contact with them even after they had enrolled. While Schultz reluctantly left her position as advisor when she became department chair, but she continues to serve in an advisory capacity, and as a teacher in the program.

Area D: Joyce Bishop, Psychology, Golden West College

Joyce Bishop, a Psychology professor from Golden West College, was selected as one of the four recipients for the Hayward Award. Bishop is noted on her campus for her commitment to her students, and especially for her willingness to tailor her teaching to her students' learning styles. Her colleague to wrote of her, &I can say, unequivocally, that any student I have come in contact with who has been in this individual's classroom has nothing but praise for her and gratitude for having had the benefit of her instruction. In addition to Bishop's passionate application of learning techniques, she volunteers at Pathways, a non-profit organization she founded with her husband 17 years ago. At Pathways, Bishop serves women who are from abusive backgrounds, have been indigent, or are poor by federal or state standards, among other things. Bishop's indefatigable devotion to these marginalized students permeates her existence on and off campus, and it is with this in mind that Joyce Bishop has been selected to receive the 2008 Hayward Award.