Cincinnati State celebrates faculty excellence with awards
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 17, 2015
CONTACT
Robert White
Media Relations/Communications Coordinator
(513) 569-4775 (office)
(859) 468-6640 (cell)
robert.white@cincinnatistate.edu
Cincinnati State celebrates faculty excellence with awards
Dr. Heather Hatchett, the chair of Cincinnati State’s Psychology Department, and Melinda Piles, a
Health & Fitness Technologies instructor, were presented the college’s top annual award for faculty
excellence during a ceremony this week.
Dr. Hatchett, a resident of Independence, Ky., and Piles, who lives in Mt. Lookout, were chosen by
their colleagues to receive the House/Bruckmann Award for Faculty Excellence, awarded each year
at Cincinnati State to celebrate classroom teaching as well as service to students, the college and
the larger community. The award is named for Clifford House, the first president of Cincinnati State,
and Alice Bruckmann, a member of its original Board of Trustees.
Both Piles and Dr. Hatchett have been teaching at Cincinnati State since 2010.
Heather Hatchett was educated at the State University of New York at Oswego, where she
earned a BA in 1992, and at the University of Mississippi, where she earned a MA in 1996
and her Ph.D. in 2000.
In addition to teaching a variety of entry and upper-level courses – they range from First
Year Experience 110 and Introduction to Psychology to Child Development, Adolescent
Psychology and Adult Psychology – Dr. Hatchett has embraced a variety of community and
campus responsibilities. Notably, she serves as co-chair of Cincinnati State’s Behavioral
Intervention Committee, which has established processes and guidelines for intervention
when students exhibit behaviors that prompt concern their own safety or that of others. Dr.
Hatchett also established a campus outreach program for the River City Correctional Center
in Camp Washington, working with soon-to-be-released inmates in an effort to reduce
recidivism.
She is also a faculty co-advisor to the Psychology Club, which over the past year has
brought outside experts to campus for talks on topics ranging from neurosurgery to the
effects of psychotropic drugs on adolescents. She is also a member of the Faculty Culture
and Communication Committee and the Title IX faculty workgroup, and volunteers as a
reader for the Greater Cincinnati Academic League and the FIRST Lego League.
Melinda Piles, a member of the first generation of her family to attend college, earned her
BA from the University of Kentucky in 1985 and her M. Ed from the University of Cincinnati
in 1991. She is a certified Exercise Physiologist with the American College of Sports
Medicine (ACSM), an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer and a National Academy of Sports
Medicine Corrective Exercise Specialist.
She worked at UC and owned her own small business before coming to Cincinnati State,
where she teaches, among other courses, Personal Training I and II, Resistance Training,
Exercise Physiology, Fitness Training, Foundations to Health and Wellness, and Corrective
Exercise. She also supervises the Health and Fitness Training Internship and the Personal
Training Practicum.
At Cincinnati State Piles serves as advisor for Health and Fitness Training Club and is an
active member of the Faculty Senate. In her classrooms and labs, she is known for using
technology and tailoring her classes to motivate specific students.
Dr. Hatchett and Piles will be recognized at Cincinnati State’s Commencement Ceremony May 3.
ABOUT CINCINNATI STATE
Cincinnati State (www.cincinnatistate.edu) enrolls about 10,600 students and offers more than 130
associate degree and certificate programs in business technologies, health and public safety,
engineering technologies, humanities and sciences and information technologies. Cincinnati State
has one of the most comprehensive co-op programs among two-year colleges in the U.S.
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