Jay Baldwin selected for Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Donaldson Award for Excellence in Student Engagement

Jun. 16—TIFTON — Jay Baldwin has been selected for the W. Bruce and Rosalyn Ray Donaldson Award for Excellence in Student Engagement at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.

An associate professor in the School of Arts and Sciences, Baldwin earned a bachelor of arts degree in Mass Communication from Fort Lewis College, a master of arts degree in Communication and Leadership Studies from Gonzaga University, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of Arkansas.

In only its fifth year of presentation at ABAC, this relatively new award celebrates faculty members who excel in mentoring students through interdisciplinary collaborations, innovative projects, internship opportunities, undergraduate research, or other academic enrichment experiences that engage students actively in the learning process.

To be eligible for consideration for this award, a faculty member must be in a full-time tenured or in a tenure-track position with two or more years of continuous service to the college.

Nomination letters for this year's recipient say that he "has been mentoring students and engaging them outside the classroom almost since he arrived on campus, well before it became a separate requirement for promotion and tenure. He has taken seriously the directive to engage students in mentored research and is committed to creating events outside the classroom that broaden both their outlook and their intellect."

The words "engaged learning" might bring to mind a lab setting and experiments, an outdoor setting and hands-on activities as an intern, or a life-changing study-abroad experience. This year's recipient has created a virtual lab for "Media, Society, and Cultural Science," through which students have worked to build a digital database of historical police training materials, selecting, scanning, and recording metadata for more than 300 documents for digital preservation, completing the dusty, classic research work of preserving primary source materials.

Another example of Baldwin's commitment to engaging students in the material comes in the form of an optional film viewing in his home for one class.

As a former student noted, "I thought we would simply get together for potluck desserts while we watched an old cop movie. Instead, he paused the movie at least 15 times to explain a theory from class in action. We could never have done such an in-depth analysis in the limited class time. He took our class from a passive media audience to an active, critical one — a skill that serves us far outside the classroom, especially in the era of 'fake news.'"

In 2017, Baldwin received a $10,000 grant to organize and host the Free Speech & Democracy Conference. This was a two-day event with multiple guest lecturers and a film screening that nearly 600 students took part in, engaging in such topics as First Amendment jurisprudence, philosophical groundings for free expression, and notions of tolerance and inclusion.

Multiple students who have taken Baldwin's classes have participated in the annual ABAC Student Engagement Programs Symposium, and several have been selected to present their research projects at the National Council for Undergraduate Research conference.