The Strategic Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE) announced 41 Excellence Awards recipients from across 15 member institutions for the 2022-2023 school year.

Academic officers at each university selected one recipient based on their institution’s criteria for the Faculty Excellence Award, the Staff Excellence Award, and the new Campus Impact Award.

Air Force Institute of Technology award winners were Dr. Edward "Tony" White, Christina Wells-Norris, and Dr. Alice "Betsy" Grimes.

The full list of this year's award winners and their supporting information is available here - https://www.soche.org/soche-excellence-awards-2022-2023/

Formed in 1967, Strategic Ohio Council for Higher Education is a consortium of 22 colleges and universities located throughout Ohio. SOCHE is the regional leader for higher collaboration, engaging with colleges, universities, and industry to transform the economy through the education and employment of nearly 200,000 students in southwest Ohio. See more at www.soche.org

Dr. Tony White received the 2022-2023 SOCHE Faculty Excellence Award in recognition of demonstrated excellence in teaching, service, and/or scholarship.

White is a professor of statistics within AFIT’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management and was named the AFIT Mathematics and Statistics Department Instructor of the Quarter for the 2023 winter quarter (#1/12). He had a phenomenal score of 4.83/5.0 on the question “Considering both the limitations and possibilities of the subject matter and the course, how would you rate the overall effectiveness of this instructor?” He also had a top result of 4.78/5.0 for overall average score on an entire series of eight questions on same survey. White served as thesis advisor to two cost analysis master’s students who graduated in March 2023.

Student feedback on White’s instruction: “[This class] was my most valuable class as it pertains to the amount of information I learned and can apply to my thesis.” “Dr. White’s class was a tough one, but I learned a lot. When I was struggling at the beginning of the quarter, Dr. White sat down with me for about an hour to go over different study strategies for success in his class. Once I implemented his guidance, everything started clicking.”

Christina Wells-Norris received the 2022-2023 SOCHE Staff Excellence Award in recognition of demonstrated excellence in student success, service, and/or assessment.

Wells-Norris is the lead registrar for AFIT’s Air Force Nuclear College. A component of AFIT’s School of Strategic Force Studies, the Nuclear College is located at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. She led the college to set penultimate records, graduating 1,492 Airmen via 32 in-residence and mobile education team courses, facilitating nuclear mission professional development, and surpassing AF/A10 production requirements by 17%. She created vital student management solutions when in-place information systems failed. Her facility manager and security assistant accomplishments were invaluable to improving the college’s classroom environment and cybersecurity capabilities, leading $347,000 in upgrades to deliver first-class education to international and DoD students.

Additionally, Wells-Norris and her registrar team earned their highest student critique scores (100%) in the Air Force Nuclear College's 18-year history for the in-residence Advanced Nuclear Concepts Course, hosting a maxed class of 33 Airmen and Sailors.

Dr. Alice "Betsy" Grimes received the 2022-2023 SOCHE Campus Impact Award in recognition of performance that made a positive impact on the school or campus, as a whole. This category was open to faculty, staff, or administrators.

Grimes is the director of AFIT’s Center for Innovation in Education which she single-handedly established in 2021 as a quality improvement initiative identified during the Institute’s reaccreditation process through the Higher Learning Commission. A dynamic and unwavering leader, Grimes secured over $450,000 for two contractors, procured equipment to enhance the student learning environment and facilitated bed-down of the Center in the D’Azzo Research Library. She also executed a holistic approach to personal and professional development of faculty, staff and students across the entire Institute.