Stephanie Gardiner-Walsh, an assistant professor of Deaf education at Illinois State University, was recently named one of five faculty members who will receive the Teaching Initiative Award at the university’s Founders Day Convocation on Feb. 21.

The Teaching Initiative Award celebrates Illinois State’s pre-tenure professors who have shown considerable promise in teaching early in their academic careers.

Gardiner-Walsh is a former Coaldale native and is a 2002 graduate of Panther Valley High School.

She is also a 2006 graduate of Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina, where she earned a bachelor’s degree; a 2008 graduate from Grand Canyon University, where she earned her master’s degree; earned a Ph.D. from University of North Carolina at Greensboro in May 2015 and started at Illinois State that August.

Gardiner-Walsh, or GDubs to her students, teaches a variety of courses, including Deaf education courses and literacy courses. Her research and teaching interests include deaf education teacher preparation, the “marginalized middle” of deaf education, and the impact of communication access on child development.

She is coordinator for the Sertoma Camp for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina; and is also a member of the board of Hearing Charities of America.

In her time at Illinois State, she has collaborated on the creation of new courses in Deaf education and mentored multiple undergraduate teacher candidates and graduate teachers in independent studies and research projects.

Gardiner-Walsh enjoys the challenge of meeting the needs of millennial learners through the integration of technology, problem-solving skills, reflection and collaborative partnerships.

She is the daughter of Nancy and Rick Ehrenfried of Weatherly and the late William Gardiner.

She and her husband, Tim, have two daughters and live in Normal, Illinois.