By Carrie Click
Nominated for their nonjudgmental approach to teaching, as well as their ability to inspire students, Dr. Kent Clement and Jacob Mohrmann have been named, respectively, 2016’s full-time and adjunct Faculty of the Year for the campus at Colorado Mountain College Leadville and Buena Vista.
Each year students and faculty at each of Colorado Mountain College’s campuses and its online learning department nominate adjunct and full-time faculty members for Faculty of the Year awards.
Clement is the Leadville campus’s lead faculty member in outdoor recreation leadership. In nominating Clement, students described his ability to connect with and support them – even those students who are a generation in age behind their professor.
“The man is fully gray, and fully digital, as well as very green in his ways,” wrote student Matt Burns. “He is ever adapting to the current times.”
“I am really honored to be chosen Faculty of the Year among so many deserving others,” said Clement. “The outdoor studies students are so resourceful, so good to each other and so interested in making their world a better place. I am glad to know I have helped them on their way.”
Clement received his doctorate in human dimensions in natural resource management from Colorado State University after earning a master’s degree in recreation and park administration from Western Illinois University and a bachelor’s in biology from California State University-Chico. He has been on CMC’s faculty since 1996.
“Kent has changed my whole outlook on life, the environment and the people around me,” Burns wrote. “I am more positive in all of my endeavors, and apply his philosophies to my life every day.”
Adjunct ‘asset to faculty’
Mohrmann, who teaches in the college’s natural resource management program, is the project manager of the Timberline Field Institute and an adjunct faculty member. Besides encouraging every student to succeed, as noted in his nomination, Mohrmann, who joined the college in 2011, is known for his passion about the natural sciences, and especially his expertise in hydrology and geology.
“The adjunct Faculty of the Year award is absolutely humbling and an incredible honor to receive as it signifies that all the hard work and unseen hours put into field, lab and classroom preparation have not gone unnoticed,” Mohrmann said.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Northwest University near Seattle, and a master’s in geology from the University of Montana. He is a licensed professional geologist in the state of Utah.
“Teaching in the natural resource management program for the past five years has been a real privilege,” Mohrmann said. “Many of our students are nontraditional, and several are older than I am. While I was nervous with this at first, I now look at it as quite an honor to be able to teach and work with people who are absolutely dedicated to learning and focused on their goals of working in the outdoors as researchers and scientists.”
“He makes this college shine,” wrote Wayne Arrigo, a nontraditional student who nominated Mohrmann for the adjunct award. “He takes an interest in each student to succeed. CMC should be proud to have Mr. Mohrmann. He is an asset to the faculty of CMC.”