By Keenan A. Mount
Brad Winn, who also serves as Superintendent of the Lewis and Clark State Historical Site in Hartford, has been recognized for his work as an adjunct faculty member in the form of a nomination from the ICCTA, Illinois Community College Trustees Association.
Winn has worked with colleges for 24 years, 21 of which have been at Lewis and Clark. “I honestly love being an instructor at our Illinois Community Colleges. I have been teaching all these years because I truly love connecting with my students and helping them to learn,” Winn said in response to the discussion of his career.
The nomination is for the Adjunct Faculty Member Award, which Winn has become nominated for his work teaching history, humanities, computer literacy, and an Honors College course on local, national, and international history surrounding the Mississippi River, known as The HIstory of Riverscapes.
Winn makes it possible for students to meet with experts and visit historical sites through this Honors College class. “There are people out there doing amazing work, and we get to connect them with students. It’s an amazing thing to be part of,” Winn said in reference to The History of RIverscapes course.
Winn has also helped unite SIUE students with L&C students through aiding in the development of a grant for a digital humanities program that spans both Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and Lewis and Clark Community College. This grant also awarded L&C the National Endowment for the Humanities Humanities Connections Implementation Grant.
Amongst all his other accomplished work, Winn works with local children in his College for KIds courses at Lewis and Clark. “They have a blast all week, and many times they don’t even realize they’re learning. It’s an amazing feeling to have a kid who says they think history is boring and be able to change their mind in that way,” WInn said in regards to his College for KIds program.
Jenn Cline, Honors College Coordinator and the colleague who wrote Winn’s nomination, spoke about Bradley Winn and his work as an adjunct faculty member, saying, “Brad has taken his knowledge and connections to the world of museums and historical sites, and made each of those places the classroom,” as well as noting that “The Honors College family and L&C wouldn’t be the same without him.”
In response to this nomination, Bradley is “humbled” and gives praise to the body of adjunct faculty as a whole. “This honor is one that represents the hard work of all of the adjuncts who give of their time often in the evening or at the satellite campuses to ensure that a large range of quality classes may be offered to meet the demands of campus enrollment.”
Bradley defines a good teacher as “one who has an unbridled passion for their subject material and their subsequent willingness or drive to share that enthusiasm with their students,” and strives to represent this ideal in his work as a teacher.
Bradley Winn, as well as other nominees from other community colleges in Illinois, will meet in June for a ceremony that will announce the overall winners for each of the ICCTA Awards.
