Edison Faculty Honored with Excellence in Teaching Awards

Edison Community College Professors Rachael Detraz (left)
and Sarah Hein honored with Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award from SOCHE.

Edison Community College faculty members Rachel Detraz and Sarah Hein recently received the 2014 Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award from the Southwestern Ohio Council for High Education (SOCHE). Detraz and Hein were honored at Faculty Excellence banquet on Friday, November 14, 2014 at Wright State University.

Each year SOCHE hosts a faculty awards banquet honoring excellence in teaching at member institutions. Edison nominated award winners based on the institution’s criteria, with special consideration of demonstrated excellence and awards received throughout the past academic year. Edison faculty members joined colleagues from ten of SOCHE’s twenty member institutions honored at the banquet including those from the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wittenberg University, Wright State University and others.

“The SOCHE Excellence in Teaching Awards are one of the great ways that we can honor our faculty for the work that they do in the classroom every day,” said Naomi Louis, Dean of Arts and Sciences. “Both Rachael and Sarah have shown their commitment to the students and to providing an excellent learning experience. We are fortunate to have them as a part of our faculty at Edison and we are delighted they have received this award.”

Rachael Detraz, Associate Professor of Biology, has a great passion for teaching biology and relates well to her students. She challenges them to dig deeper than the surface and to find what is relevant to their lives. In addition to instructing, Detraz is actively involved in updating and maintaining Edison’s online biology courses and seeks to provide students with a rewarding and valuable online experience. As the coordinator of biology and chemistry, she provides a commitment to excellence in teaching from others as well.

Sarah Hein, Associate Professor of Sociology, shows great enthusiasm toward her students and her specialty area of sociology. She has an amazing ability to encourage students to investigate topics of interest and to participate in valuable discussions, fostering significant growth by the end of the class. Hein is always looking for opportunities for her students to experience the world, bringing speakers to campus who have been in historic social situations and describing first-hand what it was like to be there.

Formed in 1967, SOCHE is a regional consortium of 20 colleges and universities in southwest Ohio. SOCHE is the collaborative infrastructure for higher education, helping colleges and universities transform their communities and economies through the education, employment, and engagement of more than 120,000 students in southwest Ohio. For more information about SOCHE visit www.soche.org.