The STAR Symposium Committee, led by Beth McMahon (Northland Community College) and Robin O’Callaghan (formerly Winona State University), received an “Overall-in-All” Excellence Award at the 2018 Minnesota eLearning Summit. The “overall-in-all” designation was awarded because reviewers felt this proposal exemplified excellence in all three award categories: innovation, collaboration, and impact.
The STAR Symposium is a virtual one-day conference hosted annually by the Minnesota Online Quality Initiative (MOQI) that celebrates excellence in teaching and learning by providing an avenue for individuals to share best practices, ideas, and resources with colleagues within and outside of Minnesota. Lacking resources to provide a face-to-face conference, the MOQI Coordinators assembled a team to design and deliver the STAR Symposium as a low-cost, virtual, interactive one-day conference.
A radical departure from a traditional conference, this required creativity and imagination to build an infrastructure, market and sell the value of the new idea, and provide supports to presenters and participants to ensure a high-quality, user-friendly, engaging experience. After only three years, the very successful Symposium has expanded beyond system borders to include national and international presenters and participants.
The award was given to the following individuals to recognize their contributions, creativity and innovation, exceptional collaboration, and extraordinary impact on teaching and learning:
Elizabeth McMahon, Northland Community and Technical College
Robin O’Callaghan, Winona State University
Angie Anderson, Anoka-Ramsey Community College
Miki Huntington, Minneapolis Community College
Carla Johanson, Distance Minnesota Support Center
Kimberly Johnson, Minnesota State System Office
Carrie Miller, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Mary O’Brien, Winona State University
Rita Rahoi-Gilchrest, Winona State University
Dorinda Sorvig, Northland Community and Technical College
Darcy Turner, University of St. Thomas
Roseann Wolak, Saint Cloud State University
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