Faculty Distinguished Service Award - Current Winner

Heather Trommer-Beardslee 

2024 Faculty Distinguished Service Award Winner 

Since joining CMU in 2011, Associate Professor of Dance, Heather Trommer-Beardslee, has a consistent history of dedication to serving the CMU community by engaging in sustained collaborative interdisciplinary efforts and continuously working to engage students in meaningful community outreach endeavors. For many years, she has partnered with the Isabella County Commission on Aging and Crestwood Village Assisted Living facility to teach dance classes to participants and residents. She regularly works outside of class structures to bridge the gaps between disciplines and collaborate with students and faculty across campus. One example includes working with Biology faculty to teach cellular division through dance. This is all in addition to her rigorous committee service.

In 2023 – 2024 alone, she has actively served on: the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC), Undergraduate Board of Appeals, College of Art and Media (CAM) Strategic Planning Committee, as a Centralis Review Adjudicator, as the Theater and Dance Personnel Committee Chair, the Theatre and Dance Department Curriculum Committee, Music Theatre Tenure-track Search Committee, Music Theatre Interdisciplinary Council, and chaired two Peer-Review Teaching Committees.  Last but not least, she serves as a selected member of the National Dance Education Organization’s Research Committee and as a reviewer for the Journal of Dance Education.