Wabash College professor Crystal Benedicks was named an Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition and Cengage Learning.
Benedicks, an Associate Professor of English, was one of 10 recipients nationally to earn the recognition. The award honors educators that exhibit exceptional work in the areas of student learning and development via high-impact practices for first-year student success.
“It’s an amazing honor and it took me utterly by surprise because first-year student success is something that we, as a college, come together around,” said Benedicks. “The particular way this college sings is when people join together to do things. This award goes to so many of the people who have built so many of the programs over the years.”
Benedicks teaches composition and a variety of literature courses. She is also a member of the College’s Teaching and Learning Committee, which fosters innovation across campus for faculty and students alike; heads the Writing Across the Curriculum initiative, which seeks ways to inject excellent writing into all of the curriculum; and is heavily involved with the Wabash Liberal Arts Immersion Program, the pathway for first-generation and under-represented student populations to ease the transition to and improve their entire collegiate experience.
“We are fortunate at Wabash to have faculty who are committed teachers and scholars but also leaders,” said Scott E. Feller, Dean of the College and Professor of Chemistry. “Crystal provides important leadership in writing, in the work of the teaching and learning committee, and in the implementation of the Wabash Liberal Arts Immersion Program.”
Administered by the University of South Carolina, the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition will recognize this year’s honorees in February at the 38th Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience in Las Vegas. In addition to a first-year student advocate reception, Benedicks and the nine other winners will participate in an advocate’s session, where they will share best practices, instructional methodologies, and stories of student success on campus, as well as take part in a question-and-answer session about the challenges of teaching and college success.