Dr. Kathy Singfield
Dr. Kathy Singfield, faculty member in the Department of Chemistry, has been awarded the Dr. Geraldine Thomas Educational Leadership Award.
In 2007, the Quality of Teaching Committee (now the Senate Committee on Learning and Teaching) established an Educational Leadership Award to recognize the long-term commitment of faculty who develop, enhance, and promote the quality of teaching at Saint Mary’s and beyond. The Committee gratefully acknowledges the support of the Saint Mary’s University Faculty Union for this Award. The Award is named for Dr. Geraldine Thomas, national teaching award winner and founding member of the Quality of Teaching Committee. Throughout her academic career, Dr. Thomas supported efforts to improve teaching and learning within the University, the Atlantic region, and nationally.
As both an educator and an administrator, Dr. Kathy Singfield has made an outstanding contribution to student success at Saint Mary’s University. Since joining the Department of Chemistry in 1997, through her work as Department Chair, and as Associate Dean of Science – Curriculum, Dr. Singfield has been guided by a single passion: to help shape and manage the experiences through which Saint Mary’s students prepare for their own life-long learning in careers, further study, and as engaged citizens.
From classroom to community, Dr. Singfield has demonstrated remarkable leadership and mentorship of both her fellow faculty and students. In the Department of Chemistry, she championed the implementation of active learning strategies, creating over fifty popular YouTube instructional videos for first-year chemistry student lab and coursework. As Chair of Saint Mary’s Department of Chemistry in 2009, she was instrumental in the development of the unit’s first strategic five-year plan.
Drawing from her commitment to staying abreast of high-impact education practices, Dr. Singfield has made significant contributions to the success of new students at Saint Mary’s. Within the Faculty of Science, she initiated and managed a science faculty-student mentor program that ran for over a decade until, under her leadership, it evolved into the PEER One Mentorship program in 2013. In recent years, Dr. Singfield has led academic orientation for all science students.
At the university-wide level, her colleagues credit her for her tremendous leadership of the Committee on Academic Planning, which spearheaded many of the initiatives that will form the core of Saint Mary’s comprehensive new first-year student experience. Following this, the conceptual framework she introduced through her role on the Community and Student Engagement (CASE) Committee, will further guide the development of this new programming.
A true scientist, Dr. Singfield believes that “change involves decision making that is supported by evidence.” Consequently, she is deeply committed to the employment of high-impact practices and developments in teaching and learning, and higher education development. She believes strongly in sharing this information with her colleagues across disciplines, because, as she is wont to say, “It is always about the students.”