Awards/Scholarships

Scholarship List

Carol Dochen Professional Development Award

Deadline: 9-8-2023

CASP Scholarship Awards are available to members who are currently working or researching in the fields of developmental education and/or learning support.

Carol Dochen served as the director of the Student Learning Assistance Center (SLAC) at Texas State University. She actively participates in state, regional, and national professional organizations for both developmental education and prelaw advising as a mentor, presenter, author, and consultant. She was awarded the Mariel M. Muir Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2019, the Texas State University System Regent’s Staff Excellence Award in 2020, and the First-Year Student Advocate Award from the National Resource Center at the First Year Experience (FYE) conference in 2020. She has been employed at TXST since 1974. Carol served as TADE Past President, 1982–1984, and served as CASP Historian.

The award winner will receive a check as well as recognition at the CASP conference and on the CASP website. The award amount varies from year to year.

CASP Best Program of the Year Award

Deadline: 9-8-2023

CASP is pleased to present an award to a distinguished Texas Best Program who is in the fields of developmental education and/or learning support. All current CASP members, may nominate any current Texas college or university program. 

Gladys R. Shaw Professional Development Award

Deadline: 9-8-2023

Current members of TX-NOSS or TX-CRLA may apply for up to $500 to support their travel to professional development opportunities related to learning assistance and/or developmental education. 
 
This award is named in honor of Gladys R. Shaw, who was Director of the Student Support Services Program at the University of Texas at El Paso for many years. Shaw was a champion in the field of developmental education and traced her passion back to her own personal experience. “I was a first-generation-college, low-income farm girl myself who earned a scholarship that went with the valedictorian designation for my high school graduating class,” she described when the award was created in 2008. Because she married her
high school sweetheart before graduation, she was unable to accept the award. That did not stop her from pursuing her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Although Shaw worked in the business world, she found her passion in developmental education, and her excellent work was honored with many recognitions including being named CLADEA Fellow. She served as TADE President and Treasurer, and was also subsequently Treasurer of both CRLA and NADE, and CASP Conference Treasurer in 2009. Shaw wrote and co-authored many books, chapters, journal articles and other publications which enriched the field of developmental education, but she also mentored many educators not only in Texas but across the country.
 
In addition to a check, the award winner will receive recognition at the CASP conference and on the CASP website.

Developmental Educator of the Year Award

Deadline: 9-8-2023

CASP is pleased to present an award to a distinguished Texas faculty or staff member who is either currently working or researching in the fields of developmental education and/or learning support. All current TxCRLA or TxNOSS members may nominate any current TxCRLA or TxNOSS member.  

The award winner will receive a plaque as well as recognition at the CASP conference and on the CASP website.

Claire-Ellen Weinstein Award

Deadline: 9-8-2023

This award is given annually to a full-time Texas graduate student doing research in the field of developmental education or learning assistance. The award covers the registration cost for the annual CASP Conference in the year in which it is awarded.
 
The scholarship was named in 2011 for Dr. Claire Ellen Weinstein, who was a professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas in Austin. Weinstein was a member of CASP since the beginning of the organization, and CASP attendees benefited from her presentations and workshops for many years. Her
Model of Strategic Learning was extremely useful for teachers of all levels as they developed educational programs and diagnostic assessments in schools, colleges, and business/government settings. She wrote over 100 publications, including an assessment called the Learning And Study Skills Inventory (LASSI), which is used in more than 65% of the colleges and universities in the country. Her learning strategies course at the University of Texas at Austin won recognition because of its highly successful intervention and retention-to-graduation of at-risk students.
 
In addition to a free registration for the CASP Conference, the award winner will receive recognition at the conference and on the CASP website.

CASP Lifetime Achievement Award

Deadline: 9-8-2023

The CASP Lifetime Achievement Award is designed to recognize an individual for outstanding contributions to the field of developmental education and/or to the field of learning assistance and to TxCRLA and/or TxNOSS. 

The award winner will receive a plaque as well as recognition at the CASP conference and on the CASP website.

Award winners must meet the following qualifications:

(1) The applicant must have at least 20 years of service in developmental education and/or learning assistance.
(2) The applicant must have been a member of TxCRLA and/or TxNOSS for at least ten years and have made significant contributions to either or both of the organizations.
(3) Current TxCRLA or TxNOSS Board Members are ineligible for this award.

Ann B. Faulkner Professional Development Award

Deadline: 9-8-2023

Current members of TX-NOSS or TX-CRLA may apply for up to $500, which can be used for professional development or research related to learning assistance and/or developmental education. Winners have used the award for graduate study, attendance at professional conferences, or attendance at longer institutes such as TIDE or the Kellogg Institute.
 
This award was established in 1994. Previous winners include M.E. McWilliams, Director of the Academic Assistance and Resource Center of Stephen F. Austin State University. She attended TIDE with the aim of building math online lab and other technology projects in 2008. Executive Director of the First Year Experience at Angelo State University’s Sara Weertz used her scholarship to attend the national CRLA conference in
2007. The Writing/Languages Coordinator of the University of Texas Tutoring and Learning Center Virginia Heidemann used her scholarship to pursue her doctoral studies in 2006.
 
In addition to a check, the award winner will receive recognition at the CASP conference and on the CASP website.

Previous Award Winners

Giovanna Lorenzi Pinto, M.A.

The Carol Dochen Professional Development Award

Giovanna is currently a doctoral student in the Developmental Education Program at Texas State University. She is an international student, having earned a Master of Science in Agribusiness, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Administration from Sao Paulo State University in Brazil.

Her research interests include motivational factors that affect rural students’ decisions to enter postsecondary education. She is a doctoral research assistant in a grant funded learning frameworks project and is also an instructional assistant in a first-year experience course.

Texas State University's Common Experience

CASP Best program of the year

The Common Experience partners with each division of Texas State University to engage the entire university community in a conversation around a single theme. This year’s theme is Systemic Thinking, which encourages events focused on helping students navigate systems that may not have been created with their best interests in mind.

During the fall and spring semesters, the program offers an array of diverse events that support student development, including film screenings, philosophy dialogues, panel discussions, exhibitions, conferences, and performances in music, theater and dance. Among these is the LBJ Distinguished Lecture Series, named for Texas State’s most famous alumnus, Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the United States. The series fulfills his 1973 promise to bring important leaders to the university to share their philosophies, perspectives, and experiences. Recent speakers of this series have been Michelle Obama, Common, Maya Angelou, Dr. Temple Grandin, and Laurie Hernandez. 

Dr. Walter "Wally" Barnes

casp lifetime achievement award

Dr. Walter Barnes—better known to many CASP attendees as Wally. From 2003–2017, he directed the Reading Center and the Developmental Reading Program at Sam Houston State University, while also teaching reading from 2007–2015 as an adjunct professor for the department of Urban Education at the University of Houston Downtown. He also served from 2019–2020 as the director of the Academic Success Center for Sam Houston State University’s Woodlands Center.

Dr. Barnes has been an active CASP member by volunteering his time and efforts serving on endless committee assignments, chairing and participating in special interest groups, reviewing conference proposals, presenting conference sessions, serving as conference site chair, and hosting special events such as hospitality room events and raffle scholarship prize giveaways for both our state and national organizations.

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