Awards and Recognition
Call for Nominations
The Service Learning Academy will open the nomination process for our 2020 Outstanding Faculty and Student Service Learning Awards soon. Future applicants interested in applying should view our Call for Nominations page for requirements and deadlines. Please contact Kirsten Case if you have any questions.
Service Learning Awards
Each year, the Service Learning Academy recognizes one UNO faculty member who exemplifies excellence in the practice of service learning in his or her work, and an undergraduate and graduate student who has excelled in the understanding/integration of course objectives through the collaboration, planning and implementation of a community service learning course project. Awards carry monetary honorariums, and are presented at the end of the academic semester at the Faculty Honors Convocation and Student Honors Convocation, respectively.
Faculty Service Learning Award
The Faculty Service Learning Award recognizes a UNO faculty member with three years or more experience with service learning, who has been supportive of service learning and who has a thorough understanding and appreciation of community issues.
2019 Outstanding Faculty Recipient
Cecilia Tocaimaza-Hatch, Ph.DAssistant Professor, Foreign Languages
Student Service Learning Award
The Service Learning Award recognizes students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate service learning courses who demonstrate a thorough understanding of reflective practice techniques in coursework, provides service for a community agency in an outstanding manner, establishes and maintains an excellent relationship with the community agency, and embraces the philosophy of service learning and community service. For any questions, please contact Kirsten Case at kcase2@unomaha.edu.
2019 Outstanding Student Recipient
Kabao Lor
Graduate Student
Speech-Language Pathology
Undergraduate Student
Architectural Engineering
Faculty Fellows
The UNO Service Learning Academy (SLA) Faculty Fellows program is a critical component in the University's efforts to accomplish its strategic plan and metropolitan mission. The program has been designed to empower service learning faculty to cultivate an interest in service learning in their fellow faculty members.
Full-time faculty members from all UNO colleges that have taught 3 semesters of service learning instruction are encouraged to apply. Priority will be given to applicants who have completed Service Learning 101, the Service Learning Seminar and/or other service learning training. For more information please contact the Service Learning Academy.
The application for our 2020 UNO Service Learning Academy Faculty Fellows will be available in Spring 2020.
2019 Faculty Fellows
Ramazan Kilinc, Ph.D.Associate Professor, Political Science
Director of the Islamic Studies Program
Ramazan Kilinc an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Islamic Studies Program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He teaches courses on comparative politics and international relations of the Middle East. He received his Ph.D. (2008) from Arizona State University and M.A. (2001) and B.A. (1999) from Bilkent University, Turkey. He previously taught in James Madison College at Michigan State University. He is the author of Alien Citizens: State and Religious Minorities in Turkey and France (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and a co-author of Generating Generosity in Catholicism and Islam: Beliefs, Institutions and Public Goods Provision (Cambridge University Press, 2018). His most recent articles appeared in Comparative Politics, Political Science Quarterly, Politics and Religion, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Turkish Studies.
Peter Szto, Ph.D.Professor
Grace Abbott School of Social Work
Dr. Szto is Professor of Social Work at the Grace Abbott School of Social Work, at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Before teaching, he worked for 12-years in various inpatient and community mental health settings in Michigan and Philadelphia. His current research and area of publication focus on documentary photography as a tool of social research, social welfare development in China, and international social work. His documentary/research projects include a visual study of China's mass internal migration from rural to urban areas and stigma and persons with a severe and persistent mental illness in rural Iowa. Since 1996, he has brought over 120 social work students on travel courses to China. He has earned degrees from Calvin College, Michigan State University, Westminster Theological Seminary, and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Szto was born and raised in New York City to Chinese refugee/immigrant parents.
2018 Faculty Fellows
Rose Strasser, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Director, Neuroscience and Behavior Graduate Program
Dr. Strasser is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology. She is also the Director of the Neuroscience and Behavior Graduate Program. Her primary areas of interests include how changes in the environment, including early hormonal environment, influence brain organization and behavior. She is interested in comparing differences both within and between species to further understand the role hormones play in a variety of social behaviors, as well as learning and cognition.
Dr. Strasser is interested in applied animal behavior research involving companion animal in a shelter environment or animals housed in a zoological park. This interests her both as a behavioral scientist seeking interesting comparative questions and also as an instructor who wishes to include community engagement in her teaching practices.
Dr. Strasser earned her B.A. in Psychobiology and Psychology with a minor in Environmental Studies from Hiram College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University in Psychology.
Sachin Pawaskar, Ph.D.
Senior Research Technology Fellow
Information Systems & Quantitative Analysis
Dr. Pawaskar is a Senior Research Technology Fellow in the Department of Information Systems & Quantitative Analysis. His primary areas of research and creative interest include sustainability, energy awareness, big data analytics, and cloud computing. His teaching interests include big data analytics, cloud computing, business intelligence, data structures, algorithms, and object-oriented programming.
Dr. Pawaskar earned his M.S. in Computer Science from University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) in 2001, an MBA from University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) in 2004, and a Ph.D. in Information Technology from University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) in 2013.