By Hannah Manandhar Zwahlen, reporter

This year, the Faculty of the Year award was received by College Composition and Reading Professor Emily Forand, who has taught at Pikes Peak Community College for six years.

Not only is she a professor, she is also the President of the Colorado Association for Development Education (CoADE), CCR Department Co-Chair, and is support for student-run literary journal Parley.

Forand says she is grateful to receive the Faculty of the Year award but wishes all faculty and staff could be honored for their work and contribution to PPCC. She considers many of the other faculty members to be role-models, and is thankful for their influences.

In her thank-you letter, Forand thanks Carrie Spencer as the one who inspired her to become a better teacher, Katherine Sturdevant as one who helped her develop diversity as the central value of her teaching, and Dana Zimbleman who challenged her to look at things from a different perspective. She thanks many more talented faculty for helping her along her journey.

Forand said, “I am serious about the wonderful role models I have here at the college.”

Although PPCC’s faculty and staff are big influences for Forand, she said that learning and connecting with people, as well as literature, inspire her also.

Besides teaching, Forand’s interests include raising her two children, reading absolutely everything, and caring deeply about the open-access nature of PPCC and those who are considered underprepared learners.

“I wasn’t originally heading for higher education after I barely passed high school (long story), so I am interested in how and why people choose to go to college,” she said.

Jeff Morrison, one of Forand’s students explained at a CoADE conference earlier this fall about how he was having a hard time memorizing information for school. He thanked Forand at the conference for how she helped him memorize info through a developmental program she led.

When it comes to Forand’s students, she gives them respect, and she shows them she is always in their corner.

She said, “For my students who don’t have someone championing their learning, I offer to be that person.”

Her students and PPCC colleagues agree that Forand has an enthusiasm for her discipline, and they trust her and her teaching methods with their future academic success.

Forand will receive her Faculty of the Year Award at this year’s employee holiday party.