Congratulations to three more outstanding Roadrunner Shoutout winners

Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Roadrunner Shoutout series highlights the excellent and important work happening at all levels of the University. Each person nominated exemplifies MSU Denver’s core values of community, access, diversity, respect and excellence (CADRE). Winners are recognized at the monthly President’s Cabinet meeting.  

 

Faculty winner 

Leslie Boyd, associate professor of Jewelry and Metals, Art 

Nominated by Matt Jenkins, professor, Art 

“Leslie Boyd is our Studio Art Program coordinator — she leads the faculty, curriculum, advising and planning in our program. Her classes have a reputation for being rigorous, and students learn a lot. She maintains a wonderful studio that students adore and respect as a safe and inclusive art space and classroom. I wanted to nominate Professor Boyd because she is taking six students and two alumni to participate in Munich Jewelry Week in Munich, Germany. This event is one of the most prestigious in the jewelry-metals and contemporary-art field. Our students will have their art shown on an international stage and network and interact with the international art community. This is one of the coolest things that a faculty member in the Art Department has done recently, and I think Professor Boyd deserves a big ol’ shoutout! 

“Additionally, Professor Boyd started our first DEI committee in the Art Department and has led the way in improving our hiring practices and curriculum. She has taught our Socially Engaged Art class, is on the union steering committee and has a reputation with students, faculty and staff for being easy to talk to. She builds trust and inclusiveness every day with the way she runs the jewelry-metals studio, and I think this is having a clear impact on the quality of student art and research.” 

 

Staff winner 

Teiriana Ibarra, event-planning specialist, Social Work 

Nominated by Caitlin Plamp, assistant director of Admissions, Strategic Enrollment and Data Management 

“Teiriana has made an incredible impact on the students in the Department of Social Work. She has made sure that our end-of-year events celebrating our bachelor’s-degree-program students and our Master of Social Work Program pinning-and-hooding ceremony went off flawlessly. At the time of this nomination, Teiriana was hard at work planning the Department of Social Work Fall Assembly, consistently keeping an eye on the needs of our online students to make sure they feel fully involved and welcomed into our department, while also planning a simultaneous in-person event. She has brought a wealth of innovation and new ideas for how we can continually make all of our events better. Teiriana is a rock star, and we are so lucky to have her! 

“Teiriana has consistently had an eye for access in our event planning. At our end-of-year events, she ensured we had both simultaneous Spanish and ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation for the first time in our event history. We are a department with fully online programs, and Teiriana is always thinking about how our online students can access and be full participants in our events. In everything she does, Teiriana is thinking about how our students, faculty and staff can fully access our events and is always open to feedback about how we can do better.” 

 

Student-employee winner  

Analycia Gonzales, teaching assistant and Elementary Education major 

Nominated by Deborah Horan, professor, Elementary Education 

“Analycia Gonzales is a teaching assistant for the Developing a Differentiated Learning Environment course, which focuses on designing and fostering an identity-safe learning space. In this role, Analycia demonstrates great teaching and innovation

“She uses her knowledge of instructional technology to support students’ engagement with learning while simultaneously modeling and ensuring accessibility. For example, Analycia proposed utilizing the t Castify tool to create various how-to demonstrations for tools in Canvas. Students begin the course by creating self-introductory, one-minute Yuja videos with closed captioning as a means of building classroom community before meeting in person. Analycia created demonstrations of how to create videos, post them in Discussion Boards and reply to peers in threads.  

“Analycia also works in an after-school elementary program in which she manages a team of other after-school educators. She proposed beginning each in-person class with a mindfulness exercise to model and engage students in methods they can use with elementary children to mediate stress, build relationships and recognize their strengths.  

“I am impressed by Analycia’s confidence and professionalism during her first semester as a teaching assistant and how she models effective teaching practices.”