{"id":57348,"date":"2019-10-09T16:24:19","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T23:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=57348"},"modified":"2019-10-14T08:12:45","modified_gmt":"2019-10-14T15:12:45","slug":"brandon-cruickshank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/brandon-cruickshank\/","title":{"rendered":"25-year NAU veteran Brandon Cruickshank named 2019 Homecoming dedicatee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

October 8, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, a group of ASNAU students, local media, Homecoming committee members and faculty gathered in anticipation outside a conference room in the Science and Health Services building on Northern Arizona University\u2019s campus, waiting for the cue to enter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nsilent hand gesture, similar to something you\u2019d see in a police invasion, gave\nthe leaders of the pack the go ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The door burst open, interrupting the faculty meeting, and the parade of people filed into the room where wide-eyed Brandon Cruickshank<\/strong> was handed a large bouquet of blue and gold balloons as he was metaphorically crowned this year\u2019s Homecoming dedicatee. The crowd went wild.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I\u2019m about to cry. I don\u2019t know what to say,” he said as he was handed a button with his face on it. “My face is on a button!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Every year since 1939,\nthe student body chooses an NAU faculty or staff member to be honored during Homecoming.\nHe or she must have been with the university for at least 10 years and\ndemonstrated exceptional service to the university and its students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nyear, the honor went to Cruickshank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cruickshank\nis in his 25th<\/sup> year at NAU. He has served in both academic and\nadministrative leadership roles since joining the faculty in 1995. Among his\nmany contributions to the College of the Environment, Forestry, and Natural\nSciences, he is chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. For his\noutstanding accomplishments in teaching, he served two terms as a President\u2019s\nDistinguished Teaching Fellow (2008, 2015) and has been the recipient of\nnumerous awards including the NAU Teacher-Scholar Award, two Golden Axe\nInfluential Faculty Awards and multiple NAU Louie Awards. For innovations in\nteaching and learning, he has received three NAU e-Learning Awards and two NAU\nPresident\u2019s Innovation Awards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\naddition to his outstanding teaching contributions, Cruickshank has actively\nparticipated in scholarly efforts to improve science teaching and learning.\nMost recently, he received funding from the National Science Foundation as a\nco-investigator on a grant to improve undergraduate STEM education. He also has\nreceived funding from the National Institutes of Health for minority student\ndevelopment programs at NAU and to develop a Bridges to Baccalaureate program\nwith Din\u00e9 College. He has played an active role in supporting supplemental\ninstruction and peer teaching support programs at NAU for large-enrollment\nclasses, and he has served as the first-year learning initiative coordinator\nfor general chemistry since its inception. He is recognized nationally for\nwriting multiple editions of the solutions manual and instructor\u2019s manual to\naccompany Raymond Chang\u2019s \u201cGeneral Chemistry\u201d published by McGraw Hill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their letter nominating Cruickshank for homecoming dedicatee, the students highlighted his enthusiasm for teaching, his great sense of humor (expressed in part through his love of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip) and his ingenuity in the classroom. His recent innovations have included chemistry animations, problem-solving tutorials using a tablet PC and adaptive learning homework systems\u2014to name a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of work, Cruickshank loves to read, play tennis, ride his bicycle and hike the Grand Canyon with friends and family. He also volunteers for the City of Flagstaff to help promote safe roads for bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBrandon personifies NAU\u2019s commitment to student-centered learning and is a true ambassador of the Lumberjack Spirit,\u201d said Marin Robinson<\/strong>, professor of chemistry and biochemistry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cruickshank recalls two of his colleagues, John Wettaw<\/strong> and Wayne Hildebrandt<\/strong>, being named Homecoming dedicatees in years past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\nnever thought that would be me someday,\u201d he said. \u201cI am so honored.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information about the various Homecoming activities, including a dinner honoring Cruickshank on Oct. 23, visit the Homecoming website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carly Banks | NAU Communications
(928) 523-5582 | carly.banks@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 8, 2019 On Tuesday, a group of ASNAU students, local media, Homecoming committee members and faculty gathered in anticipation outside a conference room in the Science and Health Services building on Northern Arizona University\u2019s campus, waiting for the cue to enter. A silent hand gesture, similar to something you\u2019d see in a police invasion,…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":57352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}