COLLEGE PARK, MD (March, 2016) Each spring, the Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education bestows two honors to recognize the work of its alumni and affiliates: the Thomas Magoon Distinguished Alumni Award and the William Bud Thomas Jr. Award. This Feburary, Dr. Julie Owen was presented with the Magoon Award at the annual Maryland Student Affairs Conference held on campus. Dr. Marybeth Drechsler Sharp received the Thomas Award at the annual conference of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, held this March in Indianapolis.
Given in honor of the professor emeritus and longtime director of the University of Maryland Counseling Center, the Thomas Magoon Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes graduates working in higher education who exemplify Dr. Magoon’s spirit of scholarship and practice.
Dr. Julie Owen, this year’s recipient, is an associate professor of Leadership and Integrative Studies at George Mason University’s New Century College. She earned her Ph.D. in counseling, with a concentration in leadership and civic engagement, at the University of Maryland in 2008. She is renowned for her role as co-PI for the Multi-institutional Study of Leadership and as one of the scholars who developed the Leadership Identity Development Model.
“In the true spirit of the award, Julie has been an exemplar of a true scholar practitioner in our field, translating research to practice and considering how what we see in the field can inform the questions we should be asking and the ways we cultivate deeper thinking about and engagement in leadership among college students,” Dr. Kimberly Griffin said at the ceremony during the Maryland Student Affairs Conference.
Established in 2003, the William L. “Bud” Thomas Jr. Award honors outstanding higher education professionals who mentor graduate students in the Student Affairs concentration. Recipients may be graduate assistant supervisors, internship supervisors, association mentors, or others, but do not include full-time faculty and need not be alumni of the College.
Dr. Drechsler Sharp, the recipient of the Thomas Award, is the executive director of the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education. The University of Maryland awarded her Ph.D. in College Student Personnel Administration in 2012. As affiliate faculty in the Student Affairs concentration, she has provided mentorship, guidance, and support to several master’s and doctoral students, encouraging them to learn the importance of association work for professional development and advancement of the profession.
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