The Office of the Provost announced that Dr. Alycia Hund is the recipient of the Outstanding University Service Award, and Dr. Brea Banks and Dr. Anna Smith are the recipients of the Service Initiative Award.
Outstanding University Service Award — Dr. Alycia Hund
Hund is a professor in the Department of Psychology. She has been involved with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) since her arrival at ISU as a departmental representative. She has since served on the IRB Executive Committee and co-chaired a task force working to update university policies and procedures. Hund established the Children’s Research Laboratory database which has facilitated 75 research projects for numerous principal investigators and opportunities for undergraduate and graduate research. Hund served as chair of the Council on General Education from 2009-2011. A strong believer in shared governance, she has served on the Academic Senate and on the Academic Affairs Committee and the Planning and Finance Committee. She also participated in the Provost’s Task Force on General Education. She served on the Provost’s Protection of Minors Committee in 2013-2014. She was elected to the Department Faculty Status Committee and served from 2009-2011 and 2019-2021. She began serving as a Civic Engagement Ambassador through the Center for Civic Engagement in November 2019, helping to connect faculty, staff, and students with resources and opportunities for engagement.
Hund has served as graduate coordinator in the Cognitive and Behavioral Sciences Masters Sequence and as undergraduate coordinator in Psychology. She oversees the Psychology Resource Center with duties including the training, supervision, and scheduling of graduate assistants. Much of her work is focused on student success and infusing diversity and inclusion into coursework.
Joining Illinois State in 2003, Hund has been very involved in peer-review activities, having reviewed 325 manuscripts. From 2011-2014, she served as the cognitive/development specialist on the Program Committee for the Midwestern Psychological Association, reviewing over 100 conference submissions each year. She also served as program moderator for the 2015 annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association. She has served on the editorial board for the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology and the Journal of Environmental Psychology.
Service Initiative Award — Dr. Brea M. Banks
Banks is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. Banks’ primary research area is microaggression. Within her psychology teaching responsibilities, Dr. Banks intentionally infuses social justice issues into class meetings and clinical supervision sessions. She approaches teaching, committee responsibilities, and workshop facilitation with an appreciation for each person’s unique life history and experience and recognizes individuals for where they are on their unique journey.
Banks attended Illinois State University as an undergraduate student athlete. She joined the Department of Psychology as a faculty member in 2017. She has served on numerous departmental committees, advises two registered student organizations, and is co-director of the African American Studies Program. She has supervised numerous student research projects including three theses and five dissertations.
Banks serves as a section editor for the Journal of Underrepresented Minority Progress. She has served on conference planning committees for the National Association of School Psychologists and the Illinois Intern/Intern-Supervisor Conference, as well as ISU’s Culturally Responsive Campus Community Conference. She has given many talks, including several as part of the Provost Office’s microaggression workshop initiative.
Service Initiative Award — Dr. Anna Smith
Smith is an assistant professor in the School of Teaching and Learning, joining the University in 2016. An expert on technology in education, Smith has co-developed two professional development series for fellow faculty members on new technologies and related pedagogical choices.
Responding to student requests in 2017, Smith led efforts to develop and maintain the school’s social media presence. In 2019-2020, Smith served as an English Scholars Mentor for first-generation students with a focus on technologies. In spring 2020, she developed a remote learning lesson plan template for student teachers across school programs. She also provided virtual professional development hours for school and university faculty. Smith instigated and co-developed Connecting the DOTS for Equitable Remote Learning, which is a website and 10-part webinar series project that supported over 900 educators and parents in fall of 2020. She serves on the College Technology Committee and the University Institutional Review Board. Smith has led sessions at the university-wide teaching symposium in 2018 and 2020 focused on blended and hybrid instruction.
Active in professional organizations, Smith has been a conference reviewer since 2016 for the American Educational Research Association and the Literacy Research Association conferences. Since 2016, she has served on two editorial review boards and conducted multiple journal reviews. She is also serving as an elected executive board member for both the Writing and Literacies SIG of the American Educational Research Association, as well as the National Council of Research on Language and Literacy.
