Four Idaho State University faculty members honored with Outstanding Service Awards

Four Idaho State University faculty members have been chosen to receive 2015 Outstanding Service awards.

They will be honored at a reception held on April 8 and one will be chosen for the 2015 Distinguished Service Award.

The faculty members receiving these awards are Cal Edwards, Caryn Evilia, Cindy Seiger and Cathleen Tarp.

“We are blessed at ISU to have such a service-oriented faculty. ISU’s faculty serve our communities in many ways, and it is a true honor to recognize these outstanding faculty for their contributions,” said ISU Provost Laura Woodworth-Ney.

Cal Edwards has been the coordinator of the law enforcement program in the College of Technology since 1997, and is currently the interim director of Public Safety. He has served as the police chief in Inkom for the past 15 years and is a past coordinator of the state law enforcement academy (POST) in Meridian. He continues to teach courses at POST and teaches courses at BYU Idaho and College of Southern Idaho. He has also served as a county coroner, a firefighter and a paramedic.

Edwards is serving his second term in the Faculty Senate and is past president of Faculty Council. He teaches driving safety courses at the University, and CPR and first-aid certification courses for the campus community and the public.

Edwards is one of five master firearms instructors in the State of Idaho and certifies firearms instructors in law enforcement agencies around the state. He helped establish the firearms curriculum for law enforcement in Idaho and holds several shooting titles. He received the community Hero Award in 2013 from the Boy Scouts of America for his service in training Boy Scouts in first aid and firearms. He teaches self-defense courses to women’s groups and the women and work conferences on campus. In May 2014 his students created a scholarship in his name for a College of Technology student in law enforcement.

Caryn Evilia is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry. Since her hire in 2006, Evilia has focused on science outreach to K-12 students in general and young women in particular, using activities and everyday chemistry to encourage them to consider future careers in science and engineering.

Since 2010, she has been a co-organizer of the Idaho Science and Engineering Festival (ISEF), the first science festival of its kind in Idaho. Featuring informational booths, games, and activities from STEM departments across ISU, as well as involvement from local industry and community science clubs. The ISEF has attracted more than 1,000 K-12 students from across Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Montana to ISU.

Evilia also developed and ran activities and demonstrations for ScienceTrek, an outreach program for third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students organized through the Idaho Museum of Natural History, and regularly performs demonstrations for local elementary and middle school children. She is an active member of the American Chemical Society and the American Society for Microbiology. She participates in Project SEED, an ACS summer program to expose high school students to laboratory research. Most recently, Evilia was a presenter at the ISU Women and Work Conference, where she discussed careers in chemistry with young women and teachers and led them in hands-on activities.

Cindy Seiger is an associate professor in the Department of Physical and Occupational Therapy. She joined the ISU faculty in 2006 as an assistant professor and clinic director of ISU Physical and Occupational Therapy Associates. As clinic director, Seiger increased the opportunities for physical therapy students to participate in community outreach service activities. In 2014, Seiger became the Idaho State Advocate for the Academy of Geriatric Physical Therapy.

Seiger is involved in many outreach programs focused on assisting the older adult with maintaining a healthy lifestyle to remain independent. She is a class leader and master trainer for the Fit and Fall Proof program, a statewide, community-based fall prevention exercise program. Seiger conducts a year-round exercise class at the Pocatello Senior Center, and her students have recorded more than 50 episodes of the FFP program for Pocatello Vision 12 Community Access Television.

Seiger initiated an annual “Humpty Dumpty had a Great Fall: a Falls Prevention Conference.” This nationally recognized, interdisciplinary conference aims to increase awareness on the multiple components to fall prevention. Additionally, she is the current committee chair of the ABC’s of Diabetes Coalition, a partnership between Southeastern Idaho Public Health and five ISU health professions programs.

Cathleen Tarp is an associate professor of Spanish in Global Studies and Languages with a shared appointment in the Department of Physician Assistant Studies. A medievalist by trade, she discovered her love of interpretation and translation while studying early modern Spain at the University of New Mexico. She is continuing her studies in the ISU Master of Public Health program.

At ISU she teaches all levels of Spanish, but focuses on courses for Spanish for the Health Professions, providing language, culture and professional preparation courses in translation and interpretation for a variety of students in many programs. Most recently, Tarp created the ISU Spanish for Health Professions curriculum, which provides ISU students with a unique program of studies and many service learning opportunities.