The USDLA Awards Committee is pleased to announce the winners for the 2024 USDLA annual awards.
Each year, USDLA recognizes innovators and leaders within the distance/digital learning industry as part of our International Award program. These highly coveted awards are presented annually to organizations and individuals who compete across several categories of excellence. The USDLA International Distance Learning Awards are created to acknowledge major accomplishments in distance learning and to highlight those distance learning instructors, programs, and professionals who have achieved and demonstrated extraordinary achievements through the use of online learning techniques, innovation, and video delivery technologies globally.
All awards are presented at our annual national conference. For more than 3 decades, this event has been an opportunity to mingle, discuss technology and learn from an audience broader than our own. Attendees and award winners look forward to the live in-person interactions and historical conference feedback has always focused on those personal relationships made with one another. For our 37th anniversary will be focusing on tracks that are in high demand as we continue to navigate both remote and in-person learning strategies.
“Every year, the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) presents awards in five categories.” says Chuck Sengstock, President of USDLA. “This international awards program recognizes the best of the best in distance learning. The USDLA is proud of this year’s winners and pleased to recognize their accomplishments”.
Each year, the annual award winners are recognized by the Association at the USDLA National Conference Awards ceremony and presented a physical award. To learn more about the 2024 National Conference please visit us at https://usdla.org/2024-national-conference/.
This year, the following institutions were chosen by the review committee to receive awards in their respective categories:
Leadership category
Higher Ed
– Gold: Dr. Don Olcott, HJ & Associates/University of South Africa
– Silver: Michelle Jungbauer, Environmental Barrier, Western Governors University
K-12
-Gold: Peter J. Noonan, Leading with Love: Pandemic Performance & Minimizing Learning Loss in the Pre-K-12, Falls Church City Public Schools
Government
-Gold: James P. Woolsey, President, Defense Acquisition University (DAU), The New DAU: A Customer-driven Learning Platform
Research Category
Higher Ed
– Gold: CIN EdTech Student Survey, WGU Labs
– Silver: Nurturing Cognitive Dexterity in Generative AI Learning Spaces – An Empirical Comparison of Human vs ChatGPT Responses, Dr. Rebecca Blankenship, Florida A&M’s College of Education
– Bonze: Shelly Wyatt, University of Central Florida
Rising Star Category
Higher Ed
– Gold: Rebecca McNutly, University of Central Florida
Teaching/Learning Category
Higher Ed
– Gold: Paula Bramante, Cambridge College / Bay Path University
– Silver: Alexia Cormier Pollock, Dr. Claudia Arcolin, Dr. Lorenzo Brancaleon, Academic Innovation Division, The University of Texas at San Antonio
– Bonze: Jamie Lathan, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
Not for Profit
– Gold: Allyson Mitchell & Tami Moehring, Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration
Corporate
– Gold: Rachel Bolton, Lucy Duncan, Lynnda West, WESCO Distribution Inc.
Trendsetter category
Higher Ed
– Gold: Education Technology, Savannah College of Art and Design
– Silver: Right-sizing the Four-Year Baccalaureate, Western Governors University
– Bronze: Digital Accessibility Coalition, Darren Denham, Assistant Director of Digital Accessibility, Tracy Fairless, Director of eLearning, Center for eLearning & Connected Environments, University of Central Oklahoma
Not for Profit
– Gold: Tiffany Morgan, Iowa Science Phenomena, Iowa PBS
Government
-Gold: Dr. Marina Theodotou and Brenda Sedlacek, DAU’s Extraordinary Web Events Series, Defense Acquisition University (DAU)
-Cheryl Dowd, State Authorization Network (SANS)
Award Questions
- Email Wendy Pate at wpate@usdla.org
2025 Award Submissions