John Baldwin
John Baldwin and Bob Carroll are the recipients of the Outstanding University Teacher Award. They will be honored Thursday, February 16, at the Founders Day Convocation in the Bone Student Center.
Baldwin, a professor of culture and communication, communication theory, and qualitative research methods in the School of Communication at Illinois State University, will receive the 2016 Outstanding University Teacher Award, Tenured. He holds a master’s degree in communication from Abilene Christian University and a doctorate from Arizona State University. Since coming to Illinois State in 1994, Baldwin has given more than 250 guest lectures for classes, school organizations, not-for-profit organizations, cultural groups, and businesses. He has lectured in several countries but is a specialist in South American cultures and countries, speaking Spanish and Portuguese conversationally.
Baldwin is, as some of his friends say, “embraceably nerdy,” spending his spare time learning new languages and dreaming of his next cross-cultural trip. He has published textbooks, chapters, and journal articles on topics including the definition of culture, intercultural communication, prejudice and intolerance, and cross-cultural transitions. He served as the School’s founding advisor of the honors student organization; he is directing the School’s study-abroad trip to Panama in the spring of 2017; and he teaches at all levels of instruction, with courses often including a primary research component.
Baldwin has sponsored 125 undergraduate and graduate students who have taken their papers to local, regional, national, and international symposia or conferences, with many receiving awards. He has served on 140 graduate theses or final projects, chairing 80 of them. His teaching encourages students to draw understanding from diverse methodological and disciplinary perspectives as they become active citizens, seeking to build a world where we better appreciate one another’s similarities and differences in terms of both global and local diversity.
Bob Carroll
Carroll, an administrative-professional lecturer and the production coordinator at TV-10 News, will receive the 2016 Outstanding University Teacher Award, Non-Tenured. Carroll began teaching at Illinois State in 2007, after more than a decade of professional experience in the fields of journalism and television production.
Carroll was one of the first to complete a documentary film thesis when he earned a master’s degree from Illinois State’s School of Communication in 2015. The documentary, God’s Eye News: The Use of Drones in Journalism, is an example of Carroll’s interest in exploring the challenges of alternative television production techniques and the effects those techniques can have on viewers’ perceptions.
Carroll encourages his students to try things they never thought they could accomplish, because he believes that some of the biggest successes come from the most spectacular failures.
