Turner College Faculty Earn Nominations for 2023 CSU Awards

A number of Turner College faculty were recently informed by the College’s awards committee that they have earned nominations for a 2023 CSU Faculty Award.  Among these is assistant professor of economics Fady Mansour (PhD, Middle Tennessee State University), who was nominated for the 2023 CSU Faculty Research and Scholarship Award.  Mansour’s research portfolio includes publications in several top journals, including Applied Economics and Empirical Economics.  His primary research focus has been health economics.  Within this sub-field, Mansour has examined the impacts of automatic enrollment and “grandfathering” under the Affordable Care Act on health insurance take-up rates.  These studies appear in the Journal of Insurance Issues and the Journal of Economics and Finance.  Lastly, his research in labor economics focuses on the importance of employment during adolescence and the relationship between economic insecurity and fertility.  His work in these areas is published in the Australian Journal of Labour Economics and the Journal of Family and Economic Issues.

The Turner College’s nominee for the 2023 CSU Excellence in Teaching Award is professor of finance Brett Cotten (PhD, Florida State University).  Cotten has been twice nominated for the Educator of the Year Award (2018 and 2020), CSU’s highest faculty honor for teaching.  In April of 2020, Cotten received a “Great Teaching Note” from the CSU Faculty Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in recognition for his pedagogical endeavors.  Student evaluation scores on the quality of his teaching typically range from 4.5 to 5.0 (out of 5.0).  Turner College finance students appreciate the effort Cotten puts into teaching, including his development of (1) a trading simulation in which students manage an investment portfolio, (2) out-of-class exercises related to capital budgeting tools, and (3) a senior project related to security analysis and portfolio management.

Rania Hodhod (PhD, University of York), associate professor of computer science, is the Turner College’s nominee for the 2023 CSU Excellence in Service Award.  Between the summer of 2020 and the fall of 2021, Hodhod secured 20 virtual and seven on-site internships for junior and senior computer science students with IRS and local businesses.  Relatedly, that same year she developed an internship program with Teikyo University for computer science students.  From 2018-2020, Hodhod served as Acting Learning Scholar for the USG Chancellor.  During this time she completed an MOU between CSU and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transportation in Egypt.  In September of this year, Hodhod was awarded the Edwin and Florette Rothschild Chair.  As holder of the Chair, she will focus primarily on online learning excellence in the Turner College.

The Turner College’s nominee for the 2023 CSU Teaching Innovation Award is assistant professor of marketing Becca Jones (PhD, University of Memphis).  Between 2019 and 2022, students in Jones’ sport and event marketing course engaged in and created a marketing promotional plan to assist with the Annual Tennis Tournament held at CSU.  Students in this course also teamed up with the Fort Benning Chapter of Team River Runner to locate grant funding to help create, market, and produce an event on the Chattahoochee River called “Warriors on the Water.”  The students came up with the name of the event, designed the logo and t-shirts, made the grant applications accessible to the organization, and promoted and produced the event alongside Whitewater Express.  Lastly, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she invited sales industry professionals to visit her virtual classes to speak about their careers in sales and how the pandemic has impacted their jobs.

Lastly, Tesa Leonce (PhD, University of Wyoming), associate professor of economics, is the Turner College’s nominee for the 2023 Chappell Graduate Award.  Leonce has served as a graduate faculty member at three institutions, including her prior tenure at Eastern Illinois University.  In this role she seeks to encourage critical thinking among students, equip them with evidence-based analytical tools as they become effective problem-solvers, and energize students regarding their field of study and the multidimensional career prospects which lie ahead.  To this end, MBA students in her managerial economics course complete a  “Corporate Expert Project” that provides them with a platform to develop and showcase critical thinking, thorough analytical skills, dynamic oratory abilities, as well as creative and effective writing as they tackle various case studies.  The objective of the project is to identify a challenge faced by a firm in their role as economic consultants and to use their knowledge of managerial decision making and economics to provide solutions and recommendations to the company’s board of directors.  Examples of these projects include in-depth studies on various established small, mid, and large companies including Wal-Mart, Google, Target, Tesla, Toys-R-Us, Starbucks, McDonalds, and Netflix.  Perhaps the most impactful examples are those where students decide to study their own personal or family business which they are genuinely interested in improving.