M. Susie Whittington Receives NACTA 2025 Distinguished Educator Award

On behalf of the NACTA Executive Committee, we would like to congratulate M. Susie Whittington on receiving the NACTA 2025 Distinguished Educator Award at the 71st Annual NACTA Conference in June.

M. Susie Whittington, The Ohio State University

NACTA Distinguished Educator Award    
This award is meant to recognize meritorious service to NACTA and to higher education through teaching, educational research, and/or administration. Those eligible must be current or retired NACTA members and have ten or more years of service to higher education. M. Susie Whittington was nominated and supported by several NACTA members, coworkers, students and friends.

Dr. M. Susie Whittington holds the honorific title, Distinguished Professor, in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, at The Ohio State University, where she served the university as Executive Director of Academic Enrichment and the Second-year Transformational Experience Program (STEP). She was the first woman Fellow inducted into the American Association for Agricultural Education, to whom she delivered the esteemed Invited Distinguished Lecture in 2023.

For more than 25 years, she taught Methods of Teaching, and created a university gen ed course, Toward Cultural Proficiency. She teaches Advanced Methods of Teaching. Susie directed award- winning research, “Improving the Cognitive Capacity of Students”. She is the junior author of Methods of Teaching Agriculture and Toward Cultural Proficiency. She is the lead editor for The Art and Science of Teaching Agriculture: Four Keys to Dynamic Learning.

Susie earned the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Teaching Excellence Award, as well as the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture’s (NACTA) Teaching Award of Excellence, and OSU’s Plimpton and Pomerene Teaching Awards. From OSU’s Alumni Association, she received The Josephine Sitterle Failer Award for Outstanding Service to Students where she is a co-advisor to the university-wide, Ohio Staters, Inc. Susie was bestowed the prestigious Murray Brown Leadership Award from NACTA, and their highest honor, The Distinguished Educator Award.

Dr. Whittington was a co-creator of the proposal to establish OSU’s Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning and co-led an international project to establish The Center for Teaching and Learning at Edgarton University, Kenya.

It is with sincere appreciation and gratitude for her continued efforts and outstanding service that we bestow this award to our dear friend and colleague, M. Susie Whittington. Congratulations, and thank you for all that you do for NACTA and higher education.