Ivy Tech Community College Honors Faculty Member

“Donna Zimmerman, Associate Professor, Automation & Robotics Technology (AART), has been selected as the 2017 recipient of the annualPresident’s Award for Excellence in Instruction for Ivy Tech Community College Southwest,” said Ivy Tech Southwest Chancellor Jonathan Weinzapfel. Ivy Tech Community College has selected 14 full-time faculty members across the state to receive the award. In a tradition that began in 1983, one full-time faculty member will then be selected to receive the Founder’s Award, previously the Glenn W. Sample Award for Excellence in Instruction, the College’s highest honor for faculty.

Zimmerman began at Ivy Tech as an adjunct faculty member 12 years ago, and now has nearly 10 years of full-time teaching with the college. She has led the Advanced Automation and Robotics program for the past five years.

She has been the recipient of numerous other awards and honors including most recently the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development Excellence Award. Donna also received an Award for Excellence from Indiana Career and Technical Education for the AART Service Learning Program in 2016. Other awards include: Ivy Tech Community Engagement Award, 21st Annual Celebration of Leadership Award for the AART program’s service learning component, Ivy Tech Academy for Instructional Excellence in 2009 and was also nominated for the President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction, 2008 and2009.

“Zimmerman is known for her innovative approaches to education,” Weinzapfel said. She has presented a proposed virtual trainer design to a national audience in Lexington, Ky., as well as in San Antonio, Texas. She has given brown bag presentations on lean manufacturing and soft skills and has written about the “I-Learn Generation,” as well as been mentioned in the book “Library Robotics: Library programs to teach Technology Literacy and Reading.”

She teaches service learning to four classes and engages them in many opportunities. Some of the more recent activities include modifying a wheelchair, along with the robotics, welding and automotive programs, and Toyota, and Easter Seals Rehabilitation, so that a disabled student can stand to work on cars in the Automotive Technology Program; has adapted toys for use by the disabled; and collaborated on an autonomous lawnmower with Pike Central High School.