Presidential Awards fund projects at UNG

University of North Georgia President Michael Shannon has announced the recipients of the 2024-25 Presidential Awards.

The awards total $195,000 of support for 17 faculty and staff projects.

Since 2013, the President’s Office of UNG has invested almost $3 million in faculty and staff professional development through the Presidential Awards program. This program offers three awards — semester, innovation and summer — to provide extraordinary institutional support for faculty and staff to pursue new and innovative ideas that support UNG in fulfilling its mission.

“We are extremely proud of these faculty and staff and the way their projects will serve both our students and our region,” Shannon said. “Their efforts are valuable contributions to strengthening our mission as the most innovative, dynamic, legacy-making university in America.”

Semester Awards

• Dr. Adam Frey (Music): The Power of Practice – An Advanced Multi-Lingual Music Performance Textbook.
• Dr. Mohammad Mohebbi (Computer Science and Information Systems): Establishing The University of North Georgia’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
• Dr. Esther Morgan-Ellis (Music): Mediated Participatory Musicking.
• Dr. Stephanie Rountree (English): Record, Document, Archive: Constructing the South Out of Region.
• Dr. Carly Womack-Wynne (Education):  Proposal Narrative for Book Project: Built to Thrive – What Teachers Need to Lead.

Innovation Awards

• Dr. Michael Polascik (Physical Therapy), Adam Daum (Athletics), Zachary Wallace (Athletics), Dr. Don Walsh (Physical Therapy): Blood flow restriction training (BFR) training effects on back squat strength and vertical jump height performance in UNG military cadets while using lesser training loads.
• Dr. BJ Robinson (UNG Press), Corey Parson (UNG Press), Ariana Adams (UNG Press):  AI Best Practices in Audiobook Production: Converting Open Access Textbooks to Audiobook Format Via AI.
• Dr. Ning Wang (Economics and Finance): Student Success in Investment Fund Management: Best Practices of Experiential Learning, Regional Engagement, and Leadership Development in Student Investment Club.
• Kelly West (Biology): The Appalachian Studies Center: A Sense of Belonging.
• Dr. Ruohan Wu (Economics and Finance): Assessing the Cost of Living in North Georgia: A Student-Leading Project with Extramural Partnership.
• Dr. Lu Xu (Management and Marketing): Sustainable Supply Chain Management: An Integrated Organizational Model with Digital Transformation.

Summer Awards

• John Bragelman (Mathematics): Culturally Sustaining Mathematics Pedagogy – Embedding Math Tasks in the Past and Present of North Georgia.
• Dr. Michael Gove (Economics and Finance): Wage Dispersion and Team Performance: Lessons Learned from Major League Soccer.
• Dr. Michael Ryan (Economics and Finance): Comprehensive Classroom Experiments across Microeconomics.
• Dr. Danielle Sachdeva (Elementary and Special Education): A Critical Content Analysis of Indian American Immigrants in Contemporary Children’s Literature.
• Dr. Andrew Taylor (Biology): The Watershed Jumpers Project: Unraveling the Complex History of Fish Faunal Exchange in Dahlonega’s Watersheds.
• Dr. Ruohan Wu (Economics and Finance): ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Performance of Firms under Global Competition: A Comparison between the United States and China.

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