The Dean’s Excellence Award in Service to the college is awarded to a faculty or staff member who has gone above and beyond the call in service to the College of Social Sciences in the past year. The individual who receives this award works incredibly hard for the good of the college, their department and the university. The winner receives a cash award and certificate. This year’s winner is Kim Fordham, director of the Idaho Child Welfare Research & Training Center (ICWRTC). She is an administrative exempt employee whose dedication to the field of social work is truly outstanding.

Fordham joined EWU in 1999 as a faculty field coordinator for ICWRTC. In 2002 she became a Title IV-E foster/pre-adopt training program coordinator, and in 2008 took over as associate director for the center. In 2013 she was promoted to director. She has significant experience providing services to recruit and support foster families over the past 17 years and has been the lead or co-lead on many successful contracts bringing in more than $15 million dollars over the past 10 years.

Fordham has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in social work practice and provides program development in various areas including recruitment of foster parents, PRIDE and Independent Living. She also serves as the liaison between ICWRTC, EWU, and Family and Children’s services in Idaho and Washington. She recently gave a presentation for EWU’s Board of Trustees regarding the center’s work. She demonstrated once again her dedication and passion that she has for the work she does. Fordham is also an EWU alum with an MSW degree from the School of Social Work.

June 15th, 2012 the College of Social Sciences celebrated liberal arts education in the Social Sciences and Human Services and how it enriches our minds and our lives. We paused to honor those who have fully engaged their education with openness, zeal and a thirst for knowledge. We honored those who have achieved academic honors, those who played a central part in their success and those who have given so generously of their time and resources to bring out the best in our students, our faculty and our university.

The winner of this year’s Dean’s Excellence Award in Service is Kayleen Islam-Zwart, a newly promoted Associate Dean and Chair of the Psychology department.

The Dean’s Excellence Award in Service to the College is awarded to a faculty or staff member who has gone above and beyond the call in service to the college in the past year.  They work incredibly hard and do it for the good of the college and their departments and the university. The winner receives a cash award of $500 and Dean Shield’s eternal gratitude.

This year’s recipient not only Chairs her department with competency, efficiency, and finesse, but she Directs the departmental program at Bellevue College and is the Principal Investigator of a large two-year NSF grant.

She is Chair of the Department of Psychology, Director of the Psychology @ Bellevue program, Principle Investigator of the NSF ADVANCE grant and newly minted Associate Dean. It is these outstanding service leadership qualities that made her a stand-out when I was choosing new Associate Deans for the college just over two months ago. Her service to the college and the university was cemented well before joining the college staff, but she brings that same collaborative and can-do spirit to the work in the college and we are grateful that she has taken us on as her newest professional challenge.

It seems Kayleen is always in the vanguard, whether it is developing and implementing online courses, leading program assessment efforts or Chairing university-wide committees. She has a keen eye for making existing systems run smoother and better while also inventing new systems altogether! She is confident and humble and I am sure I am embarrassing her to death right now but I have a little bit more to say.

Kayleen is a forward-thinking leader who was one of the original architects of the Psychology@Bellevue program that she now directs. Under her leadership, this program has grown from a starting class of 20 in 2008 to over 100 majors in 2012.

A clinical psychologist by training, she has an active research lab and has served as a mentor to scores of MacNair scholars and undergraduate and graduate researchers. Her students present their work at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research, regional APA conferences and EWU’s Creative Works Symposium and as we have seen today, she is a regular pick by Chertok Honor students as their most influential professor.

Kayleen is an outstanding ambassador for her department and for the university. She generally takes on any reasonable task asked of her and sees it as a challenge and not a burden. The college is indebted to her for all these efforts that go above and beyond the call of her job description.