The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign today announced the recipients of two campus-wide awards: the Campus Awards for Excellence in Instruction and the Chancellor's Staff Excellence Awards. Faculty and staff from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences were well represented in both categories, reflecting ACES' dedication to the highest quality teaching and service.

Winners of the Campus Awards for Excellence in Instruction

Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring

Nathan Schroeder, a professor of crop sciences is one of two recipients of this award, presented to tenure-system or specialized faculty members at Illinois who have taught on the Urbana-Champaign campus for at least five years. Schroeder employs a thoughtful, holistic, proactive approach that combines and integrates student-driven professional development and research plans, regularly scheduled and unscheduled meetings, graduate program service, training in current mentoring practices and a commitment to creating pathways that broaden participation and access, including for graduate students who are not directly working in his program.

The Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising 

This award recognizes advisors’ impact on undergraduate students and their intellectual development through academic advising relationships. Hospitality management (FSHN) program director and advisor Jill Craft spends endless hours advising students through the science courses that they have to get through to reach the creative, human-centered hospitality management courses. Craft dedicates her time to mentoring students so they have a solid foundation and are fully prepared for addressing the challenges of a career in the hospitality industry.

Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

Faculty, specialized faculty and teaching assistants are eligible for this award. Crop sciences professor Juan Arbelaez redesigned and provides ongoing improvements to the Introduction to Crop Sciences course. In addition to creating opportunities for experiential learning, he designs group lab activities, so students build collaboration and communication skills. 

Excellence in Online Teaching

Faculty members who have taught at least three credit-bearing online courses over the past five years are eligible for this award. Agricultural and consumer economics clinical professor Craig Lemoine strives to create high-quality scalable education. His framework of creating modular digital assets has innovated the personal finance content offered to students across campus. He has identified and worked with national personal finance, agriculture economics and wealth management experts to build and streamline online course delivery.

Winners of the 2025 Chancellor's Staff Excellence Award

Clerical Administrative Support

Jamie Evans, an administrative aide in animal sciences, wears many hats extending beyond her official administrative support role for the department head and select faculty members. Her extensive knowledge and her competent execution make her an invaluable resource for faculty, staff and students.

She is the go-to person for many of the critical issues related to the efficient running of the department, especially fielding questions that come up daily from students, faculty and staff. Evans serves as a linchpin in the administrative framework and — in all her responsibilities —displays an unusual level of initiative and creativity that significantly enhances the standing of the department.

What truly sets Evans apart is her kindness, compassion and exceptional interpersonal skills. She works exceptionally well with all individuals, fostering a collaborative and positive work environment.

Research

Crop sciences research agronomist Darin Joos leads the state of Illinois variety testing program, which evaluates the performance of commercial varieties of major crops grown in the state as a service to farmers and the seed industry. Joos maintains trials at 14 locations for corn, wheat and soybean, requiring weeks of travel and extensive time commitments during spring, summer and fall.

Joos also devotes significant time to serving individual researchers engaged in research at the Crop Sciences Research and Education Center, which he currently manages. He assists professors, researchers, students and representatives in Extension and industry with their field research needs. He is responsible for obtaining, maintaining and coordinating all the equipment and materials as well as keeping the buildings at the farms in good order.

Under his leadership, the research farm staff has developed a productive culture of communication and collaboration that has improved service for faculty researchers using the farm. It has also improved job satisfaction among the farm staff, helping to bolster retention and collegiality.

Student Services

College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental Sciences assistant dean of academic affairs Brianna Gregg consistently expands on her responsibilities and executes all her tasks at a high level.

Her work never falls short of being thorough, thoughtful and comprehensive. Her wide array of responsibilities ranges from oversight of the ACES academic advising team to coordinating New Student Convocation, from supporting the timely processing of forms and petitions to serving as an expert to departmental leadership on program change proposals. Her expansive network of colleagues and friends ensure that problems or tasks that fall outside her area of expertise never remain undone for long; she is able to bring in experts from across campus to provide the guidance and approval needed to keep the ball rolling on projects and workflows that influence the experience of students and the activities of faculty and staff.

Gregg’s work with outreach, scholarship administration and admissions regularly places her in spaces with the broader Illinois state public. She presents the transformative research and teaching occurring in ACES with enthusiasm and depth of understanding, passionately conveying how the university is changing lives and improving the state of Illinois.

Congratulations to all of the ACES winners.