Recognition and Awards

The Eliza Hickok Kesler Outstanding Service Award was announced at Commencement. Created in 1999 to honor superior, long-term service to Coe, the Outstanding Service Award is given most years at Coe’s graduation. The award is named for Eliza Hickok Kesler ’31 , known to generations of the Coe family as Roby, whose lifetime of distinguished service to the college is unparalleled.

This year’s Kesler Award was bestowed upon Academic Technologist Lisa Stroschine. Stroschine has had a profound influence on the quality of academic instruction at Coe, planning online exercises, developing online instructional platforms, assisting with student portfolios and taking on extra projects for the college and her colleagues.

Also honored at Commencement was the Charles J. Lynch Outstanding Teacher Award recipient, Assistant Professor of Accounting Amy Perry. The annual recipient is selected by the graduating class and recognizes quality of teaching, concern for students as individuals and scholarship and memorializes the values and service of C.J. Lynch ’26 . Lynch was a prominent Cedar Rapids attorney whose dedication to Coe was reflected, among other ways, by 43 years of service on the Board of Trustees of the college. Above all, C.J. Lynch valued inspirational teaching and sound scholarship.

There were also four faculty members recognized for achieving emeritus status:

• Dr. Heide Bursch, Associate Professor of Nursing

• Lucy Goodson, Associate Professor of Art

• Dr. Marty St. Clair, Professor of Chemistry

• Peter Thompson, Professor of Art