Faculty Awards Announced at IVCC

OGLESBY – A LaSalle and a Peru educator both are being recognized with awards from IVCC. They will be honored at the college’s employee recognition event ‪April 13‬ and both have been nominated for Illinois Community College Trustee Association awards.

Amanda Cook Fesperman of La Salle is the 2018 recipient of Illinois Valley Community College’s Stephen Charry Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence and business technology instructor Chris Jauch of Peru is the recipient of the Outstanding Part-time Faculty Award.
A three-time nominee for the award, Cook Fesperman was nominated this year by Lisa Chounard, an adult student who had been away from school for nearly 30 years when she enrolled in Cook Fesperman’s political science course.
“Professor Fesperman encouraged me to work hard, and not be afraid of failure. She encouraged me to enter writing contests, and never once gave up on me,” said Chounard who went on to win writing awards and be inducted into Phi Theta Kappa.
“None of these accomplishments would have been possible without her believing in me,” said Chounard.
Over her 17-year career at IVCC, Cook Fesperman has coordinated countless lectures, activities and programs on humanitarian and current events topics and for 16 years has chaired IVCC’s diversity committee. As such, she has worked to nurture diversity on campus by developing programs that celebrate multi-culturalism in our community and world.
Jauch, a business technology instructor, earned IVCC’s 2018 Outstanding Part-time Faculty Member Award. One of two nominations for Jauch came from Nicholas Needs, President of the Student Government Association and a student in Jauch’s Introduction to Business Computers course.
“His never-failing positive attitude paired with the extraordinary amount of care he expresses to each of his students makes him a truly unique instructor,” Needs said of Jauch. “It is clear, Mr. Jauch truly cares for each of his students.”
In his 10 years at IVCC, Jauch has served as co-coordinator of business technology and is a member of the Enrollment Task Force. He is a retired Peru Police Lieutenant and a retired U.S. Army Reserve Command Sergeant Major.
Jauch’s extensive professional and volunteer affiliations include Peru Rotary (past president), Illinois Valley Association of Chiefs of Police (past president), St. Joseph’s Catholic Church lector, choir member and treasurer for the Holy Name Society, and a former Stage 212 board member.