Skip to content

A University in Motion. Apply now!

Warhawk Champions

AUM Above and Beyond

See the recognized Warhawk Champions below and recognize someone yourself by completing the form below.

Warhawks soar that is what we do. We soar in the best of times and the most difficult with heads held high. Today Auburn University at Montgomery’s tenacity and perseverance continues to stand out in a sea of good deeds, thoughtful acts and service that goes above and beyond. Whether faculty, staff, student or community, AUM seeks to bring a light on the best of what we have in such uncertain times. Everyday creates opportunities for the people of AUM to make a differences that ripple through communities and lives. Now is the time to thank those who are champions of these actions.

Have you experienced an action or person that has impacted you or others during this time? AUM seeks to recognize those who have stepped up and lifted, built, created or touched others. Post your recognitions of these heroes and allow us to take a few moments to recognize them publicly.

Complete the below form and let’s take a moment to celebrate the goodness of our talented and dedicated faculty, staff, and students.


Dr. Heather Witcher

Dr. Witcher is a new faculty member in the Department of English and Philosophy. In addition to converting her courses online, she volunteered to assist the department by producing a video collage to honor students who wouldn’t be able to receive certificates and other honors at our annual awards banquet.

Graduate Admissions

Ashley did an outstanding job helping to coordinate the Graduate Preview this month, the first one done via Zoom. She processes the graduate applications efficiently, answers questions from Graduate Program directors quickly, and has done a lot to make the process of admitting students work effectively during the pandemic. She works hard and has helped to ensure steady graduate enrollment during the summer and fall semester despite pandemic.

Tara Woods

Tara is doing a great job of helping students register, doing overrides, answering questions and computer assistance, providing assistance to the department chair and advisor, making changes to the schedule caused by the coronavirus, etc. She works hard for many hours each day, even weekends, to make sure that everything is running smoothly in the department during the pandemic.

Christin Lejeune

Christin has done a wonderful job of advising students despite not being able to see them in person. She cares a lot about her advisees. She has reached out to her students who were failing a course this semester and those who have not yet registered for the summer or fall semester. Christin is very dedicated to her students and has helped them a great deal during the pandemic. She also had communicated well with advisors who work with juniors and seniors.

Office of University Marketing

Keri, Pepper, Drew, Aaron and James have been an amazing beam of light to the Office of Admissions and the entire University, their assistance with the Virtual Graduate Preview Night, our admissions marketing pieces, and generating leads has been phenomenal. I’m glad to have their resources and it means so much that they have been ready and willing with solutions that push AUM forward.

Haley Dyer

Great teacher! Let’s many students turn in work and old assignments to better their grade

Eric Sterling

Eric Sterling serves AUM in myriad way during good times and bad, but I wanted to particularly note his efforts as an academic advisor during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has amazed me with his tireless effort, efficiency, and caring touch in maintaining contact with his advisees in the MLA Program and English major despite social distancing restrictions.

Ann Gulley

She is the person who pretty much got all of the tutoring services all online in the matter of one week. She is a powerhouse of a member of the AUM Community. She is a person who really cares about her students and the people that work for her.

Dr. Susan Willis

Dr. Willis has never taught online before. She Emails us (her class) regularly to make sure we are all doing OK with the new platform and making it through. She asks us ways that she can improve our experience and is very open to all suggestions. Dr. Willis is retiring after this semester (I’m not sure she wants us to know that), but that has not affected her absolute care for each and every one of us. I am very proud to be in a department that has professors like her.

Bill Broadway

Bill has played a major role in the transition to online learning at AUM. He increased the ability of several systems at AUM to handle the surge going to online in a very short period of time. He and his team have put in a significant amount of afterhours support around the clock to minimize downtime necessary to our systems. Bill and his team also assisted many users in switching over to online education and remote work.

Melissa Reck

In the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology, Melissa Reck has gone above and beyond to ensure that our faculty and our students have everything we need to be successful in this online environment. Not only is she available whenever we call, text, email, or shout really loudly, but she has also made several trips to campus to ensure that our plants are watered and that hard copy documents are scanned as needed.

This is the Melissa I know and appreciate every day. Even during our “normal” day-to-day activities, Melissa is always willing and available to assist wherever needed. Therefore, it is no surprise that she has continued creating Argos reports for our Associate Dean, providing daily updates of our summer and fall numbers for me, and fulfilling multiple daily requests from thirteen faculty members.

Melissa is more than a team player, she is a team champion. She has great foresight and plans in advance for the likelihood that things could go wrong. There are not enough great things that I can say about Melissa, but please know that she is truly a jewel, one that we cannot function without.

Dr. Paul Hard

It is my pleasure to write this letter of recommendation for Dr. Paul Hard, as my department has endeavored to chart a path during this unprecedented time, Paul has demonstrated tireless effort, dedication and commitment to his students, and leadership among his colleagues. It has been a joy to work alongside Paul for the past 3 years here at Auburn University at Montgomery in the Counselor, Leadership, and Special Education Department.

Paul demonstrates vast knowledge about the counseling field, and has used this knowledge to skillfully address a multitude of issues that have come up regarding internship placements, testing, and licensure. As our state dismissed public schools for the remainder of the academic year and severely altered the operations of community mental health centers, Paul worked diligently with our students to find alternative methods to complete their programs. He has a passion for students that is contagious and they are drawn to his energetic personality. Even during these stressful times, he has continued to build a sense of community among our counseling students, provide engaging online content, and seek to grow his program. He generously shares his ideas for engaging students with his colleagues, always with an interest in the success of all in his department as we transition to remote operations.

I highly recommend Dr. Paul Hard. His disposition and work ethic is admired by all, and he will represent Auburn University at Montgomery well through this distinction.

Office of Digital Learning

As AUM moved instruction online in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, Office of Digital Learning played a major role in the transition from face to face to online without losing continuity and/or quality. The steps taken to ensure continuity in the professional learning programs, effectiveness of teacher content knowledge, improvement of teacher pedagogical skills for online, and enhancement of student learning are commendable. Faculty can access various resources in the “Faculty Instruction Continuity Guide” in Share Point.

Below are few testimonials that the office received from faculty members:

1st Professor: “They have ALWAYS gone out of their way to be helpful and support the faculty member as well as the student but during this time when the stress is high and many faculty are scrambling, they are remaining constant in their attitude to ALWAYS helping, responding quickly (at all times of the day), and making sure that they provide the very best service in a friendly and helpful manner.”

2nd Professor: “I never had any online training, never taught an online course and never wanted to do any teaching other than face-to-face. Half way through I converted 3 classes, one with 49 students to online. Carolyn’s “keep it simple” and focus on the students approach allowed me (a non-online believer) to succeed. She was also quick to answer any and all questions.  She was great under fire.”

3rd Professor: “Thank you so much, Carolyn, for this reminder. We so appreciate your department.”

4th Professor: “Thank you for all the support, Carolyn!“

5th Professor: “Carolyn, many thanks for what you and your team provide for us!! You are awesome!!”​

Chris Kelley:  AUM Mail Room

Since day 1 of this disruption, Chris Kelley,  in the spirit of the US mail system, has gone above and beyond in keeping the mailroom running without disruption.

Housing & Residence Life Team

The University Community has endured many changes in the last few months. Often times the changes have been daily, if not more frequent. Environments that produce rapid changes often creates uncertainty. One significant change the campus had to face was working with our students in discerning their housing needs. The Housing and Residence Life team, under the direction of Iyisha Hampton, have worked tirelessly to meet our students needs while implementing safe working habits.

Dining Services Staff

The AUM Dining Services team has continued to provide dining options for students during these unprecedented times. For the safety of our community, the Cafe transitioned from a traditional dining hall to a convenience store. Offering a variety of dry goods, paper products, and frozen entrees, the dining staff continues to operate service five days per week. The staff engages our students, faculty, and staff with a welcoming smile and encouraging optimism.

Amoung “B” Sidaboud, Stephen Butts, Adam Holley (Client Services Team), Chris Van Fleet (Help Desk); Terrell Davis

These guys have been on campus every day trying to ensure that others don’t have to. They have been handing out laptops, cell phones and providing telephone and in-person support to faculty, staff and students.

Terrell, Stephene and Amoung have worked tirelessly to make sure that our faculty and staff has a smooth transition to an online/remote environment. They have prepared many laptops, assisted with unique software requests, and made sure that faculty and staff receive ongoing excellent support. As many of us, they have worked many many hours and have provided onsite support. Their goal has been to provide everyone support to make the transition as easy as possible.

College of Business Advising Office (Joy Strong – Director; Denise Wade – Admin.; LeAnn Reeves and Breanna Gentry (Advisors)

The College of Business Advising Office has worked tiredlessly to support the mission of the College of Business. This four member department has done an excellent job transitioning all their services online to support our students. In addition, the staff has taken on the new responsibility of advising our MBA, MHA, and MSMIS students. This includes working with College of Business Administrators as we enhance the delivery options of graduate programs and improves processes.

Elizabeth Burrows and Angela Fowler

Liz and Angela are lecturers in composition in my department. Most of our composition courses are taught by adjuncts and graduate teaching assistants who have never taught online, so the transition was a major challenge for this group of faculty. Angela and Liz made an extensive repository of training videos and other teaching materials for their colleagues to use to move their courses online. They also made themselves available for consultation.

Elizabeth Burrows

Liz (Elizabeth) has gone above and beyond on behalf of her colleagues in the English Department and Composition Program. She has been consistent in her mentoring of individual GTAs and adjuncts making this transition work. She also spearheaded the effort to produce and share multiple videos and resources for not only instructors but also students. She did all this without prompting and shared graciously and with encouragement for all. The best part: she’s like this ALL the time!

These two spent their spring break not only preparing their own classes for the sudden transition to online-only instruction, but they compiled materials and worked with their colleagues to help them make the sudden transition during this difficult time as well. They went above and beyond the call of duty.

Dr. Aaron Cobb

Aaron Cobb is an experienced online teacher in my department. Our other philosophy professor has no online teaching experience. Aaron put in a great deal of work helping this faculty member put his courses online.

AUM Composition Faculty

Many English composition courses are taught by adjuncts and graduate assistants who have little or no experience teaching online. Moreover, as part-time faculty, these teachers have fewer resources than full-time colleagues. Their efforts in seamlessly transitioning to online instruction deserve applause.

Dr. Lilian Mina

Lilian runs the English Composition department. She manages the youngest and most inexperienced teaching staff at AUM. No doubt she had to allay their fears, assign them roles, and act on their behalf. She marshaled her resources, matched veteran teachers with rookie GTAs and continued the composition program with barely a bump. Her actions reflect credit upon herself and the university.

Lakeshia Dillard and Lindsay Kennington

Lindsay and Keshia have worked tirelessly to ensure that payroll is accurate and that no one misses a penny. This has meant days of manual spreadsheet validations and calculations to ensure that nothing is missed through system outages, internet issues and reports failing to print. Their efforts are evident in our bank accounts and we appreciate all they are doing to ensure we are paid accurately and on time!

Human Resources

I have been utterly amazed by the efforts of the human resources team to ensure that we do not miss a beat with supporting employees and their needs through this transition. From wellness checks calls, filling out forms for those without access at home, (2) hour conversations with employees alone and just needing a voice on the other end. This, all while continuing daily operations while caring for children, parents, dogs and cats at home. Thank you HR Team!

Shelly Taliaferro

Shelly has taken the lead in helping almost every faculty that is struggling with online learning. She meets with them personally and has sometimes been added to their Blackboard course to assist with assignments and assessments. Shelly has also been instrumental in converting our freshman laboratories into meaningful online experiences, an exceedingly difficult task.

AUM Library

I want to give kudos to my library team for all the creative ways they have helped expand and enhance our library services. And I especially want to thank them for helping to keep the physical library open for as long as we were able to for our students, faculty, and staff. I look forward to exploring new options for library services and cannot wait to see what they come up with next!

Melinda Kramer

Melinda is the rock behind every data request and report. For years she has served behind the scenes to provide the AUM community with information to help us make academic and programming decisions in the best interest of our students. Thank you, Melinda, for all you have done and do!

Recognize a Champion

Complete the below form and let’s take a moment to celebrate the goodness of our talented and dedicated faculty, staff, and students.

Get In Touch

Want More Info About AUM?

Call Today

334-244-3000

Fax

334-244-3795

Email

[email protected]

Office Hours

8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday – Friday

Send AUM Admissions a Message

Back To Top