Wolston honored as LeadMN’s 2018 Instructor of the Year

LeadMN, the Minnesota State two-year college student association, has announced that its Instructor of the Year for 2017-18 is Maran Wolston, Minneapolis College philosophy faculty.

Maran received the award on Saturday, April 21, at LeadMN’s annual Spring Assembly.

In nominating Maran for the award, Minneapolis College Student Senate President Charles Karter cited her commitment to making education more affordable and accessible, including through chairing Minneapolis College’s Traditional Alternative Educational Materials Committee and serving as project manager for the Minnesota State Captioning Workgroup.

Although Maran is currently on sabbatical, Charles noted, “that hasn’t stopped her from coming in multiple days of the week for meetings, and to meet with me every Friday for at least 2 hours.

"We’ve been working on her sabbatical project, which is to explore the possibility of, and build a model, by which Minneapolis College could offer students a pathway to complete a liberal arts AA degree without having to pay for a textbook throughout the whole process.

"It’s simply a matter of time before Maran achieves this goal. She’s a machine that learns the pathways needed to implement change, and lays them brick by brick.”
Through this collaboration, Charles has provided critical student input to Maran’s sabbatical project, which in turn is aligned with the goals outlined in a November 2017 Minneapolis College Student Senate resolution supporting the expanded use of open educational resources (OERs) at Minneapolis College.

In his nomination, Charles also credited Maran for active involvement on numerous other Minneapolis College committees and work groups, including the college’s Project Management Team, Academic Technology Team, and ITS Advisory Committee and Web Steering Committee, as well as serving as a consultant in the Center for Teaching and Learning and as a past member and current president-elect of the MSCF Shared Governance Council.

Congratulations to Maran on receiving this statewide honor from students!