Leadership & Teaching Awards

Michelle Iskra

Louisa Spaventa

Dr. Anne-Marie Thomas

Awards & Publications

• Anne-Marie Thomas was promoted to Associate Dean of the Honors Program (2025)
• Lindsay Lawley-Rerecich was promoted to Associate Dean of Dual Credit (2025)
• Amy Ashton Cunningham was accepted to Mount Vernon’s 2025 Summer Residential Program: The Worlds of Martha Washington and the Women of the 18th Century (2024)
• Susan Meigs was awarded a $21,000 Innovation Grant by TLED for 2024-2025. As grant leader, Susan assembled a team of faculty across the disciplines to explore the intersection of writing and AI
• Amy Ashton Cunnigham was awarded a Spring 2025 Eco Conference Grant to attend the Texas Regional Alliance for Campus Sustainability (TRACS) Summit at Texas State University (2024)
• Ursula Parker received the​ ACC Chancellor’s Leadership Award (2024)
• Michelle Iskra received an ACC and NISOD Teaching Excellence award (2024)
• Laura Trellue received the ACC eFaculty of the Year Award (2024)
• Amber Luttig-Buonodono had her comedic, Shakespeare-inspired play, Puck, in Epilogue, join the Brighton Fringe Festival in the United Kingdom, starring veteran stage actor Alice Bloomer and directed by award-winning theatre maker Emily Carding (2024)
• Meagan Hoff was the Schedule Chair for the College Reading and Learning Association’s Annual conference in Minneapolis (2024)
• Dr. Wendy Elle (CLS Department Chair) received the​ ACC Faculty Leader of the Year Award (2024). (video)
• Louisa Spaventa was selected to receive the​ ACC Teaching Excellence Award (2024). (video)
• David Rice published Five Things I’ve Learned  (MyFiveThings.com, May 7, 2024)
• Eli Ryder published “Which Horror Villain You Are (According to Your Favorite Taylor Swift Song” (The Lineup, 30 January 2024).
• Aimee Mackovic’s memoir about her triple-transplant journey, Contains Recycled Parts, was published by Two Sisters Press in December 2023. It can be ordered at bookshop.org or Amazon or email her at [email protected].
• Jen Hamilton Hernandez published “Small Town, Big Pride: A Wave of LGBTQ Celebrations Comes to Central Texas” (Texas Monthly, June 2022), “Come for the Pinball, Stay for the Nostalgia” (Texas Monthly, August 2022), “This Coming-of-Middle-Age Memoir Is Required Reading for Moms” (Texas Monthly, October 2022), Austin’s Broken Spoke Dance Hall Finally Gets Its Texas Historical Marker” (Texas Highways, April 2023), “Queer Country, Deep in the Heart of Texas” (Saddle Mountain Post, June 2023), “San Antonio Museum of Art Taps Into the Alamo City’s Brewery History” (Texas Highways, July 2023), and “Tammy Wynette, Fully Considered” (Saddle Mountain Post, December 2023).
• Dr. Carl Palm published The Great California Story: Portrait of a Place That Is One of a Kind, a book about the things that make California unique–unique in the way it was settled and developed, unique in its urban and natural landscapes, unique in its role as a leader and innovator in American life. (Northcross Books; 2nd edition – November 2023)
• Dr. Carl Palm published This Day in California History, a book that profiles 366 different people, places, and events that played a part in California’s amazing and colorful history. (Northcross Books – November 2023)
• Tonya Suther published “Play, Red-Naped, Play.” 2 River View. Summer Issue June 2023 “Two Trees.” 2 River View. Summer Issue June 2023 “Again.” ISSUED. May 2023 “Soup’s Off.” ISSUED. May 2023 “Which Breed Do I Resemble?” ISSUED. May 2023 “What They Said.” Zocalo Public Square Nov. 18, 2022.
• Tonya Suther published “Play, Red-Naped, Play” & “Two Trees” (2 River View, Summer Issue, June 2023), “Again,” “Soup’s Off,” and “Which Breed Do I Resemble?” (ISSUED, May 2023), and “What They Said” (Zocalo Public Square, November 2022).
• Stephanie Frausto presented “Making Critical Literacy Evident” at The National Organization for Student Success (NOSS) conference in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 3, 2023. As a result of her excellent scholarship and presentation, she was selected to be the new Co-Chair of the INRW Task Force for NOSS.
• Chris Berni was selected to receive the 2023 NISOD Teaching Excellence Award. (video)
• Colin Shanafelt was selected to receive the 2023 NISOD Teaching Excellence Award. (video)
• Theo Yurevitch’s “Talisman Magic.” South Carolina Review vol. 55.1 (Fall 2022): pp. 89-99.
• Ryan Shane Lopez. “One Noble Neighbor.” Deep Overstock, no. 18, Oct. 2022. (Link)
• Ryan Shane Lopez. “Four Nights Found.” Carmina Magazine, 17 Sept. 2022. (Link).
• Ryan Shane Lopez published “One Noble Neighbor” (Deep Overstock, no. 18, October 2022), “Four Nights Found” (Carmina Magazine, 17 Sept. 2022), “Sound of Life.” (Lavender Bones, July 2022), God-With-Us’ Adventures in Churchland, Ch. 4: “The Miraculous Theft of Identity” & Ch. 7: “The Solving of Climate Change” (The Bookends Review, April 2022).
• Ryan Shane Lopez published “Four Nights Found,” a blended retelling of Hansel & Gretel and The Parable of the Sower in Carmina Magazine (September 2022). He also published “Sound of Life,” a personal reflection on grieving a miscarriage in Lavender Bones (July 2022).
• Ryan Shane Lopez. “Sound of Life.” Lavender Bones, 31 Jul. 2022. (Link).
• Ryan Shane Lopez. “God-With-Us’ Adventures in Churchland, Ch. 4: The Miraculous Theft of Identity & Ch. 7: The Solving of Climate Change.” The Bookends Review, 29 Apr. 2022. (Link).
• Tonya Suther was also a Wilder Series Poetry Book Prize finalist for Regal Gutting (Two Silvias Press 2022)
• Lydia Cdebaca-Cruz won the ACC Teaching Excellence Award (2021-2022)
• Christopher Morgan won the NISOD Teaching Excellence Award (2022 & 2021)
• Arun Jon, Wendy Lym, and Chris Berni presented a talk called “How our Department Got its Groove Back: Revitalization and Transformation” on March 1, 2022, at the League for Innovation in the Community College Virtual Conference.
• Prudence Arceneaux, featured in the ACCTV show Voices Under Equity hosted by Larry Davis, ACC Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer.
• Thomas Derr won the NISOD Teaching Excellence Award (2022)
• Dr. Brinda Roy presented a professional development course titled “Global Faculty Learning Communities: Bringing the World into Your Courses” at ACC’s Spring Professional Development Day (2022). She also presented “The Stories We Tell: Lessons Learned from Globalizing English 1302” at Vanderbilt University’s Global Studies Symposium in International Education at Minority Serving Institutions and Community Colleges (2021). Finally, Dr. Roy was featured in the TLED series Teaching & Learning Champions in a piece titled “Lessons Learned From Pandemic Teaching: Failing, Pivoting, and Resilient Pedagogy” (2022).
• Luke Dylan Ramsey published a short story titled “The Oracle of Personal Experience” in the literary journal A Thin Slice of Anxiety (October 2021). He also published short fiction pieces titled “Sometimes Feel Like I Am Drowning” and “Vineyard, Doubled” in New American Legends literary magazine. His poems “Dead Laughter” and “Believer Not Believer” appeared in Terror House Magazine (April & May 2021). Finally, his novel Burn Everything Down is forthcoming in 2022 from Terror House Press.
• Chris Berni was awarded a TLED Level III Fellowship for a research project titled “Assessing the Liberal Arts Gateway” (2021-2023).
• Dr. Dania Dwyer presented at the 2021 MLA Annual Convention on the panel, “Just in Time: Caregiving, COVID-19, and Precarity in the Academy.” The title of her talk was “The Crisis of Care in Academia: Of Breathing Through Precarity in a COVID-19 World.”
• Joe O’Connell was awarded a sabbatical in 2021 to complete a book of creative nonfiction titled The Contortionists. He’s working through the Book Project, a program of the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver.
• Lydia CdeBaca-Cruz was awarded the Emma S. Barrientos Award of Excellence in the Arts Educator Category (September 17, 2021).
• Alex Watkins published a chapter in the collection Linguistic Justice on Campus: Pedagogy and Advocacy (November 30, 2021).
• Dr. Anne-Marie Thomas was selected to receive the 2019 NISOD Teaching Excellence Award. (video)
• Arun Jon was selected to receive the 2018 NISOD Teaching Excellence Award.
• Heidi Juel, in 2017 received a Digital Fellowship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
• Wendy Elle was the Texas Observer Short Story Contest winner in October 2017 for her short story “Muriel.”
• Judith Austin-Mills, Adjunct Faculty member, publishes her first historical novel, How Far Tomorrow. It was released by Plain View Press in October. The narrative is set during the Texas Revolution. She will be reading from her work at BookWoman on January 15, 2012.
• Colin Shanafelt published What Gods Would Be Theirs? (novel), One Thing Right (children’s book), and Literary Analysis & Essay Writing Guide (textbook). Gatsby’s Light Publications (2011)
• Elyse Fenton had her poetry manuscript, “Clamor,” selected by DA Powell as the winner of Cleveland State University First Book Award, and will be published in Spring of 2010.
• Anne-Marie Thomas, an ACC English professor, has co-authored a textbook on science fiction. Thomas, who leads the community college’s honors program, came up with the idea while teaching a course with an emphasis on contemporary science fiction. “I could not assign a science fiction textbook because there simply weren’t any in existence,” Thomas said. “There are a number of anthologies that feature short fiction, but I wanted to provide a survey of the development of science fiction as a cultural form as well as an introduction to the basic critical approaches that have been used to illuminate the genre.” She took a yearlong sabbatical to write “The Science Fiction Handbook” with M. Keith Booker of the University of Arkansas. Austin American-Statesman, 5-1-09
• Ronald Sukenick, American Book Review Innovative Fiction Prize Sponsored by FC2 Announcing the winner of the 2008 Ronald Sukenick/ABR Innovative Fiction Prize is Amelia Gray’s Museum of the Weird
• Arun John was a co-recipient with two other faculty from Philosophy and Government of a capacity-building grant of $50,000 from Wake Forest University’s Program for Leadership and Character’s Educating Character Initiative
• Dania Dwyer was Creative Activity Designer for the Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning Book Club through the Faculty Center for Learning Innovation (FCLI), which goes along with Chapter 11: Writing with AI
• Jason Eisenmenger published “Gate” in April with Hiraeth Publishing
• C. Prudence Arceneaux published Proprioception, a poetry collection that tastes of a feral urgency to time, to presence, a need
• Hannah Barton published “Ghosts Are Part of the Future: Holographic Hauntings Through Premediated Environmental Concerns” in Broadening Horizon: Essays on Environment, Culture, Identity and Myth in the Game Franchise
• Tonya Suther read her poem “Why Would I Ever Throw It Out?” at Arizona State University’s virtual reading of military-inspired literature ISSUED: Stories of Service, Vol. 2
• Stephanie Frausto, National Organization for Student Success (NOSS) Writing Chair, led a network meeting involving over 100 members to plan for next year’s conference in New York
• Dr. Anne-Marie Thomas, CLS Professor and Associate Dean, Honors Program, has had an epic accomplishment of gaining a sizable endowment for their scholarship fund. The Moody Foundation has awarded the Honors Program $25,000 for their scholarship fund. They only established the fund last year through the ACC Foundation and were able to raise enough money to award two modest scholarships, but Moody’s generous grant allowed the Honors Program to award a larger number of scholarships for the next three to five years.
• Jenifer Hamilton Hernandez writes about food, travel, the arts, and lifestyle topics as a contributor to numerous publications, including Texas Monthly, Austin Monthly, San Antonio Magazine, Texas Highways, Edible Austin, CultureMap Austin, and CultureMap San Antonio. Most recently, she has written for Austin Monthly about an independent radio station that emerged from a live music venue in Taylor, TX during pandemic closures, about the state’s best stadium foods for TexasMonthly.com, and, also for TexasMonthly.com, about her grandmother’s wedding dress finding a second life on the internet. You can find more of her writing at jenhamiltontx.com.
• Joe O’Connell’s documentary film Rondo and Bob–about Texas Chain Saw Massacre art director Robert Burns and his obsession with actor Rondo Hatton aka the Creeper–is on the film festival circuit. It screens Oct. 14 in Sitges, Spain, at what is considered the Cannes of horror film fests. More about the film at rondoandbob.com. It’s also screened at Horrible Realities in California, Saints and Sinners in Florida (Best of Fest), Midwest Horror (Best Feature) in Iowa, Hot Springs Horror in Arkansas, Cinema Wasteland in Ohio, Houston Horror (shortlisted for Best Feature) and Texas Frightmare Weekend in Dallas. (It’s not a horror film but really a love story!)
• Frank Cronin is presenting at the Texas Regional for Campus Sustainability (TRACS). His presentation presentation “Solutions to Light Pollution: The Darkness at the End of the Tunnel” focuses on definitions of light pollution, its dangers, and solutions, with heavy emphasis on solutions.
• Tiff Holland, ACC English Adjunct Faculty member wins the Rose Metal Press chapbook award for her book Betty Superman.
• Joe O’Connell, who teaches creative writing and English at ACC, took part in a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” July 11 marked half a century since the publication of the book that is required reading in schools across the country. Along with a number of local writers, O’Connell participated in an anniversary event at BookPeople July 11th, reading passages from the book and talking about what it meant to him. O’Connell reflected upon the impact of “To Kill a Mockingbird” in an essay he read on KUT radio. Click here to listen.
• Mary Dallas, ACC adjunct professor, has works combining poetry and visual art on display/sale at Authenticity Gallery in downtown Austin starting May 1. In March she was the presenter and a featured poet at the monthly Borderlands Poetry Reading at Barnes and Noble on Brodie Lane.
• Jose Flores served on the advisory board for the new MyCompLab published by Prentice Hall. In addition, Jose has revised the Literary Visions, 9th edition book/study guide for Roberts and Jacobs Literature: An Introduction to… published by Pearson’s. In these 2 projects, front matter credit is given not only to Jose but to Austin Community College.