IDA Presents the 2022 Pursuit of Excellence Awards

20 Oct IDA Presents the 2022 Pursuit of Excellence Awards

On October 20 the IDA presented two IUSD Teaching Conference awards to two outstanding IUSD faculty. The IDA presents the awards each year in recognition of IUSD instructors who have a continuous record of quality teaching, scholarly activity, and excellence in service. The awards were presented by 2022-23 IDA President Dr. Jill Burns.

Dr. Wei-Shao Lin

The 2022 IDA Teacher of the Year awardee is Dr. Wei-Shao Lin. Dr. Lin has played a significant role in educating predoctoral and advanced education students. In 2021, he was awarded 3 different teaching grants totaling over $100,000. Recognizing the need to proactively intervene to improve student success, Dr. Lin implemented a plan to monitor progress towards graduation to identify at-risk D4 students. He has played an instrumental role in his department though the successful development of the Virtual Prosthodontics Assessment of Competency for each prosthodontic discipline.

Dr. Lin also developed an online module, Prosthodontics Integrated Clinical Curriculum Tool (PICCT), which is a faculty calibration module for all prosthodontic and general clinical faculty that provides a living online resource to train and update clinical faculty regarding the IUSD Prosthodontics curriculum, demonstrating his commitment to the students and the faculty within IUSD. His excellence in teaching was recognized this year when he was awarded a Trustees’ Teaching Award and promoted to Professor based on his scholarship of teaching, service, and research. Dr. Lin is a prolific mentor of graduate students, participating on graduate students’ master’s Thesis committees. Several of his residents received national awards for their research efforts under his tutelage.

Since being named Interim Department Chair for Prosthodontics in 2020, the department has flourished under Dr. Lin’s leadership which lead to him being name the Prosthodontics Department Chair in June of this year.

Dr. LaQuia Vinson

The 2022 IDA Faculty Member of the Year awardee is Dr. LaQuia Vinson. Dr. Vinson received the IDA Faculty member award based on her innovative teaching, her impressive record of mentorship of students’ research, and her contributions to the Indiana University’s School of Dentistry’s constitution and bylaws and appeals committees in addition to serving on her specialty’s national committee on children with special health care needs. She successfully navigated the trials associated with a postponed CODA visit and the challenges of a pandemic, which directly resulted in the successful accreditation of her department’s residency program in 2021 and the residents’ completion of the program on time.

Dr. Vinson’s selection for this award may be best described by the words of her nominator who praised her teaching: “Her continued use of technology and curriculum reform have helped to maintain our department as a leader in Pediatric Dentistry.” Furthermore, they stated, “She is dedicated to the mission of the school and university and has made significant contributions to the specialty at the national level.” Dr. Vinson has demonstrated strength in leadership as a teacher and mentor for students.

Congratulations to Dr. Vinson and Dr. Lin on their tremendous achievements and contributions to dental education!