Announcing the winners of the 2023 CHSS Faculty Excellence Awards

Excellence in Teaching Award (Tenured Faculty): Sherria Taylor

Sherria D. Taylor, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Child & Adolescent Development, has been awarded the CHSS Excellence in Teaching Award for Tenured Faculty for the exemplary quality and impact of her achievements in pedagogy.

Taylor holds a doctoral degree in Family Studies from Loma Linda University with a concentration in Systems-Organizational Consultation and has been involved in research funded by HUD and the Family Process Institute related to family resilience and family support services among low-income families. As the former executive director and current director of program development and evaluation for the nonprofit agency Access for Community & Cultural Education Programs & Trainings (ACCEPT) in Reno, Nevada, she has been successful in securing over 1.5 million dollars in grant funding for community programming. Taylor and colleagues have produced peer-reviewed publications and reports that seek to change the odds stacked against BIPOC communities rather than asking BIPOC communities to beat them. Her research interests include family, community and cultural resilience and survivance through a lens of Indigenous and Womanist theories, mental health, compassionate inquiry as substance abuse prevention, family life education, social justice pedagogy and the buffering effects of spirituality.

Excellence in Teaching Award (Lecturer Faculty): Martin Dixon

Martin Dixon, M.Sc., lecturer in the Department of Kinesiology, has been awarded the CHSS Excellence in Teaching Award for Lecturer Faculty for the exemplary quality and impact of his achievements in pedagogy.

Dixon specializes in sport coaching, motor learning, and research methods. His teaching is underpinned by his coaching experience across a range of elite youth and college environments, including applying the principles of skill acquisition to the classroom. Dixon’s pedagogy is also informed by his current Ph.D. research into sport coaches’ reflection and cognitive appraisals of stress.

Excellence in Service Award: Sonja Lenz-Rashid

Sonja Lenz-Rashid, Ph.D., LCSW, has been awarded the CHSS Excellence in Service Award for her dedication to service activities that impact student success and enhance the SF State community.

Lenz-Rashid is a professor in the School of Social Work and a co-founder, faculty research evaluator and clinical supervisor for the SF State Guardian Scholars Program (GSP). Launched in 2005, the GSP serves more than 100 current and former foster care youth on campus annually and has an annual budget of over $1.3 million. The program boasts a 70 percent graduation rate, a 95 percent retention rate, and an 80 percent overall persistence rate. Lenz-Rashid works countless hours on the Guardian Scholars Program each year and has studied the outcomes of, and best practice models for, former foster care youth at the national, state and Bay Area levels. Her research and publications have provided valuable feedback to child welfare administrators, legislators, and program developers on how best to serve these disenfranchised young people using evidence-based practice. She has more than 25 years of experience serving vulnerable youth in the San Francisco Bay Area and has been at SF State since 2003.

Excellence in Scholarship Award: Julie Chronister

Julie Chronister, Ph.D., has been awarded the CHSS Excellence in Scholarship award for her support of student-initiated research that evolves beyond the requirements for a degree.

Chronister is a professor in the Department of Counseling and a faculty member in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2004. Her scholarship focuses on the meaning and measurement of social support for those living with psychiatric disabilities; the experiences of family members, caregivers and case managers living or working with persons with disabilities; the psychosocial factors that protect against internalized stigma and promote quality of life and mental health recovery among persons with psychiatric disabilities; and most recently, the lived experiences of disabled people during COVID-19 and the influence of social support, coping and empowerment on their experience.

Chronister has been the chair of two dissertation committees — one focused on Disability Identity and the other focused on the lived experiences of counselors of color. Chronister has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and books and has received various federal research and training grants from NIMH, HRSA, and RSA. She was recently awarded a $1.9 million grant to train counselors to work in integrated behavioral health in primary care. Chronister is co-editor of two books, has presented at numerous national conferences and is on the editorial board of several top-tier peer-reviewed journals.