Four Lone Star College-CyFair faculty members were honored for consistently demonstrating excellence through their dedication, passion, positive attitude and heart as teachers.

This year’s Faculty Excellence Award winners include Macarena Aguilar and Buck Buchanan, who were 2008 and 2005 award recipients, respectively, Dr. Roberta Short and Jane Stimpson.

Aguilar’s commitment of almost 50 years to teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) began at age 15 tutoring a neighbor, and shortly thereafter, a class of third-graders in a German school.

“Teaching ESOL students is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. There’s nothing else I’d want do,” said this LSC-CyFair founding faculty member, who also volunteers as a site reviewer helping to accredit programs for the Commission of English Language Accreditation. “What keeps me teaching here is still the same as it was on day one: A passion for teaching and the motivation students bring with them to improve their lives and those of their families.”

Buchanan, also a founding faculty member, incorporates years of personal and professional experiences in the classroom, study abroad trips and geoscience projects out in the community.

“It is through travel that I relate my experiences and my geographical perspectives to students in an effort to encourage them to be curious,” said Buchanan. “Framing geography, both as an academic field of study and incorporating travel and tourism to provide a sense of global awareness, captures new curiosity and challenges the conventional views of geography.”

Teaching in environments that provide “experiential learning at its best,” Buchanan’s passion has carried students to the skies via drones, into the depths of the oceans by way of scuba diving, and atop the crater rim of Mount Vesuvias to gaze upon the ruined towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae.

Buchanan is a founding faculty member and a recipient of the prestigious John and Suanne Roueche Excellence Award, a League for Innovation in the Community College. His passion has carried geography students to the skies via drones, into the depths of the oceans by way of scuba diving, and atop the crater rim of Mount Vesuvias to gaze upon the ruined towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae.

Dr. Short began teaching after a 25-year career as a designer, photographer, and writer in the field of corporate and nonprofit communications, and subsequent studies in literature and creative writing.  

“I think of teaching as a unique form of mentoring - less deliberate guidance and more about helping students find voice, locate their interests, and learn more about the world,” said Dr. Short, who joined LSC-CyFair as a founding adjunct faculty member in 2003 and has been a full-time English professor since 2013.

Dr. Short sees each student as an individual - unique and intrinsically valuable. She listens and encourages them to develop and be their best as critical readers, thinkers, and writers. 

“I strive to create a lively, welcoming classroom that celebrates our innate and valuable instinct to communicate,” she said.

Stimpson, a community college librarian for nearly a decade, brought her passion for information literacy instruction to LSC-CyFair in 2015.

“I teach because I love introducing students to all the things the library can help them do and I hope to arm students with the skills they need to become lifelong learners and savvy information consumers,” she said.

She sees librarianship as a commitment to continuously improving and providing excellent service. In addition to reducing library anxiety, she works to dispel common perceptions of librarians.

“It’s important to me to get these ideas out in the open so we can break them down and rebuild the image of librarians in our true role - that of trusted guides standing ready to teach students how to navigate the overwhelming, confusing, and often contradictory world of information,” said Stimpson.

These dedicated faculty members were honored at college and system events this spring.

Late Start spring semester classes at LSC-CyFair are available. For information go to LoneStar.edu/late-start.