Spring 2021 ITP Faculty, Staff and Student Awards

Eric Perez | May 12, 2021

This year, the USC Viterbi Information Technology Program wanted to recognize excellent faculty, staff, and course teaching assistants who have worked hard to embody the ITP mission of providing technology education for all.
Image

Both Jeffrey Miller (Director, ITP) and Nitin Kale (Associate Director, ITP) led the award ceremony this year. The award winners were announced on May 7, 2021, and awardees included ITP faculty, staff and even students who have most embodied ITP's fundamental mission of "providing technology education for all". This mission is what guides ITP to provide high-quality technical education to both Viterbi and non-Viterbi students, allowing ITP to continuously improve and grow as a program each year. Awardees are given an award certificate, and are honored on ITP's Awards page, as well as being honored on ITP's Awards plaque, which will be on display in ITP's new RRB building location.


Faculty/Staff Awards

ITP faculty work tirelessly not only to provide USC students will high quality instruction, but also to serve ITP through volunteering in a variety of committees that help ITP accomplish its various goals. From hiring new full-time and part-time instructors, to managing promotions for current faculty, ITP wants to acknowledge the hard work and dedication offered by its faculty.

 

 

Director's Award for Faculty

Kendra Walther

Senior Lecturer of Information Technology

The Director's Award for Faculty recognizes the faculty member who most embodies the ITP mission of “providing technology education for all” through excellent teaching and service to ITP and all its constituents. Students frequently mention Kendras effective teaching style and ability to inspire her students. In addition, Kendra's passion for equality and accessibility is clearly shown in her work. Her involvement with the Teach Access Virtual Study Away program has allowed over 80 students from 9 universities to learn about accessibility issues. She is currently a CET Fellow at USC, has spoken on social justice and ethics, and has organized SIGCSE sessions on different teaching faculty issues. 

Student quote - “Kendra is one of the sweetest instructors I've ever had at USC. She's not only a great teacher but a wonderful person. I had such a wonderful time this semester and I will miss her and this class!”

 

Director's Award for Staff

Annie Le

Assistant Director, Advising & Recruitment

This year, the ITP Directors award for staff was awarded to one of ITP's Academic Advisors, Annie Le. Annie is currently transitioning from her previous role as ITP's Academic Scheduler and Events Coordinator, to ITP's newest Assistant Director of Advising and Recruitment. Annie has provided critical and extremely successful support during the COVID pandemic, and has streamlined many processes that ultimately contributed to ITPs recent growth. She is an extremely valuable part of ITP and a great fit for this year's Directors Award for Staff.

 

 

Associate Director's Award for Service

Mike Lee

Senior Lecturer of Information Technology and Industrial and Systems 


The Associate Director's Award for Service recognizes the faculty member who exhibits excellence in service to ITP through initiative, timeliness, and thoroughness. This year the award has been given to Mike Lee, who has enthusiastically volunteered to serve on six committees and chaired three of them this year. His chairship of the awards committee has been extremely successful with ITP faculty receiving Viterbi awards two years in a row.

 

 

Associate Director's Award for Teaching

Robert Parke

Senior Lecturer of Information Technology and Art and Design

This award recognizes the full-time faculty member who exhibits excellence in ITP teaching through innovation, energy, and effectiveness. Rob has been praised for his incredible teaching ability, and his ability to describe complex and complicated concepts to students in a simple and intuitive way.

Student Quote - “Professor Parke is one of the best professors I've had in college and at USC in general. He is very good at explaining abstract and difficult topics. He is one of the reasons I've grown to love coding so much”

 

 

Associate Director's Award for Part-Time Teaching

Kimberly Rubal

Part-Time Lecturer of Information Technology

The Associate Director's Award for Part-Time Teaching recognizes the part-time faculty member who exhibits excellence in ITP teaching through innovation, energy, and effectiveness. This year it has been given to Kimberly Rubal, who has received a tremendous amount of feedback from students and fellow faculty members alike.

Student Quote - “Professor Rubal has really shown me what great teaching is. She was a great professor to have for my first coding class and it was really evident that she wanted all of her students to succeed.” 


Student Awards

The first awards announced were for the course teaching assistants who have worked hard to support ITP faculty and students over USC's first fully online academic year. Without ITP's stellar teaching assistants, ITP would have a lot more trouble accommodating students remotely. Their support truly allows the program to be more accessible to students all over campus.

Associate Director's Awards for Course Teaching Assistant Awardees:

 

Mehr Sethi, ITP-115

CTA since Fall 2017


"Mehr has been an exceptional teaching assistant in ITP 115. She has been a teaching assistant for 9 semesters, and she has served as head teaching assistant for the past two years. In addition to being responsible, highly competent, and wonderful with students, she has proven an indispensable partner in managing the course." - Award Nominator

 

Amulya Katti, ITP-449

CTA since Spring 2020

"Amulya has been a wonderful TA and leader for our course. She is dependent, proactive, and communicates effectively and respectfully with the students." - Award Nominator


Paige Godvin
, ITP-125

CTA since Fall 2019

"As someone who is a non-engineer, she began first as a CTA in ITP 125, then quickly filled the role of head CTA with major responsibilities for coordinating all CTA schedules, open labs for the cybersecurity lab, grading distributions and testing all labs and updating instructions as necessary throughout each semester (because hacker tools regularly do not function as advertised). Despite all of her responsibilities, Paige will not hesitate to help out an individual student no matter what the struggle." - Award Nominator

Published on May 12th, 2021

Last updated on August 29th, 2021