Dr. Brooke Envick’s Legacy of Learning Led Her to the Holdt Distinguished Faculty Award

Dr. Brooke Envick recently received the Leland Holdt/Security Mutual Life Distinguished Faculty Award, the highest honor a Loper can be given. Everyone who knows her as a professor, including Dr. Tim Jares who serves as dean for the College of Business and Technology, her peers, and the many students who have been fortunate to experience her as an instructor, understand exactly why she was the perfect person to receive this prestigious honor. 

For Dr. Envick, whose classroom is the epitome of how creativity can be combined with content to give students an authentic real-world experience, that special something that makes her a distinguished 体育菠菜大平台 professor is in her blood. Watching her mom, who was a 5th grade teacher, have a positive impact on students as well as the legacy from her grandfather and father who both have strong 体育菠菜大平台 roots, Dr. Envick’s career as an educator was almost a given. When she made her way back to her alma mater in 2017, she quickly began to make the kind of impact on Lopers as she had already been doing for over two decades as an educator. 

Walking around the campus of the University of Nebraska at Kearney these days is a chance for Dr. Envick to contemplate her roots, the strong family bond that helped make her the educator she is today. When she reflects on her professional life, Dr. Envick has to go back to 1955 before she was even born. Her grandfather, Maynard Envick, was a pioneer in Industrial Education at Kearney State College which would later become 体育菠菜大平台. He retired in 1972, but just over a decade later his son, Dr. Don Envick, would take over where his dad left off. Teaching in the same office in the same building, Dr. Don Envick would fulfill the school’s vision of “looking for some new things.” This type of hands-on, innovative teaching would become the shoulders his daughter, Dr. Brooke Envick, would later stand upon to become the type of distinguished professor every student deserves.  

While she shares that she was “genuinely surprised” to receive the Holdt Distinguished Faculty Award because she believes 体育菠菜大平台 has “so many deserving faculty” she is grateful for this honor. With no intention of leaving teaching anytime soon, she admits receiving this award “tops things off for” her as an educator. Thinking back to when she was among the first to walk across the stage as a 体育菠菜大平台 graduate after it made its transition from Kearney State College, Dr. Envick explains how winning her most recent award “means more” to her because of her history as a Loper.   

Walking across the stage this time to receive the Holdt Distinguished Faculty Award was even more special because when interim chancellor, Charlie Bicak, handed it to her, she couldn’t help but feel the “special place in (her) heart” that he holds for her. The bond between him and her dad was “the icing on the cake” for her as memories of how her personal life and professional life have been intertwined for as long as she can remember. 

Although he kept this most recent honor a secret from his daughter, when asked, Dr. Don Envick explained how this award means so much because, to receive it, a professor has to “love everything (they) do.” He shared how he is grateful for how his daughter was recognized for her efforts in teaching, research, and service. His own connection at 体育菠菜大平台 began when he went to kindergarten in the historic Dr. A.O. Thomas Hall, an experience which  helped him to understand that being a teacher requires more than just the ability to impart content to students. At the beginning of Dr. Don Envick’s educational experience, when his kindergarten teacher taught him to play the violin and create items in “shop” class, he gained an understanding of how students need to be creative in order to learn. This pedagogical belief would be passed on to his daughter whose classes would include innovative lessons such as creating board games.

Currently serving as an associate dean of engagement and retention as well as of faculty and strategic initiatives, Dr. Brooke Envick also is a professor in the Department of Management. As she continues spending her time on campus with her students, she will undoubtedly hear the voice of her dad and grandfather as their legacy echoes in the halls. Dr. Don Envick explains that the two of them “both just love all of it.” It is that love for what she does that earned Dr. Brooke Envick the honor of being named 体育菠菜大平台’s most distinguished faculty.