Two College of Education professors honored with 2024 Graduate Education Champion Award

Two College of Education faculty members have been recognized for their commitment to enhancing the University of Florida graduate student experience. Kent Crippen, Ph.D., and Corinne Huggins-Manley, Ph.D., received the University of Florida Graduate School’s yearly Graduate Education Champion Award (GECA) for 2024 after being nominated by current UF graduate students.

According to the UF Graduate School’s Office of Graduate Student Support and Engagement, GECA award winners are honored for their remarkable efforts and contributions toward creating an enriching and supportive environment for graduate students, fostering excellence in teaching and learning, and promoting a collaborative culture within the campus community.

Huggins-Manley, a professor of research and evaluation methodology, was delightfully surprised when the award was announced in March. Her students, both former and current advisees, had organized the nomination in secret, and she was touched that they would go out of their way to nominate her. They expressed generous and heartfelt praise, referring to the professor as a dear friend and “an angel in the world,” with one student writing, “Dr. Manley is my academic mother. She… lights up our research life when we walk through the dark.” 

Nominators explained that Huggins-Manley, who also serves as the School of Human Development and Organizational Studies in Education’s (HDOSE) director, cultivates a supportive atmosphere where students are empowered to actively engage with the academic community. She is known to guide her students through each step of the research process and is deeply committed to their personal and professional success. As one nomination letter describes, “her CV speaks volumes, showcasing numerous publications featuring her students, a testament to her commitment to students’ growth and development.”

The HDOSE director views mentorship through a mutually beneficial lens, with her students constantly inspiring her to elevate her professional development.

“The students push me,” Huggins-Manley shares. “They want to work with AI, with new methods, with other innovations in our field – so we as faculty have no choice but to keep up to date and ensure we learn enough to guide them. They keep us on our toes to continue elevating our own work!”

Crippen, a professor of STEM education, says mentorship has led him to identify and refine more collaborative traits within himself as he develops them within others. He sees the mentorship process as not simply helping students but “building a group of colleagues” whom he can look forward to working with now and in the future.

The STEM education professor particularly appreciates the award as an acknowledgment that his mentorship style holds value for students, saying “I appreciate that it resonates with them – that it’s more than just, ‘What courses do I take? What job do I get?’ That there are these other intangible aspects we provide that impact people’s lives.”

Some of those intangibles, he implies, are what bring students to the university in the first place. While many associate the concept of the “Gator standard” with decades of tradition surrounding UF’s athletic programs, Crippen asserts that this standard applies to the entire UF community – faculty, staff, and students alike.

“The Gator standard is what is inferred behind people’s response to ‘Go Gators!’” says Crippen. “My mentorship approach is trying to foster a community of people based on their interests and their view of themselves, but also in relation to this shared standard that we try to make as explicit as possible in order to live up to that multidimensional expectation.”

According to the students who nominated him, Crippen’s approach is working. One student wrote that they spoke to countless others who felt that the STEM professor had profoundly impacted their lives. Nominators noted his passion for collaboration in research, support and encouragement for his students, and ability to create “an inclusive classroom where… everyone’s ideas are respected and valued.”

Both award-winning faculty members are credited with nurturing confidence and resiliency as they guide students through rigorous graduate curricula, and several former students now have robust academic careers of their own. For Crippen and Huggins-Manley, research experience, work-life balance, and collaborative relationships are foundational for a successful graduate student experience.

“People come here for a reason,” Crippen explains. “It’s their personal interests coupled with the institution and what it represents. It’s the expectation for who we are and the work we can do together.”