Suzanne Tew-Washburn and Dawn Browning were presented with the 2005 RSA Commissioner's Award for Excellence in Education and Training at the recent National Council on Rehabilitation Education Conference held in Washington, D.C. Each year the commissioner of Rehabilitation Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education, presents the award to an individual in recognition of his or her "outstanding achievement and distinction in the training of qualified rehabilitation personnel."

Tew-Washburn is a non-tenure track faculty member and Browning is an academic program assistant for the College of Education's Department of Rehabilitation and Special Education. The two were honored for their work with Academic Certificate Program in Community Employment Services—a program Tew-Washburn directed from 1999-2004.

"This award is particularly exciting for our students who have earned certification and can now say they graduated from a nationally recognized program," Tew-Washburn said.

She gives "more than half the credit" for the program's success to Browning for her role in creating a Web site and professional network that will keep the program graduates connected and provides a variety of resources for continued professional development.

The program was established through a 5-year, $750,000 federal grant authored by Tew-Washburn. It addressed the learning needs of employed rehabilitation practitioners by combining the benefits of traditional on-campus experiences with state-of-the-art instructional technology. This approach of merging face-to-face interaction and distance education assured accessible and affordable training.

Knowledge and skills were increased for 130 state agency employment personnel from the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

Kelly Linton, a program participant from the Georgia Department of Labor, in a letter of support wrote, "I truly believe after 27 years with the state Vocational Rehabilitation Program in Georgia, this was by far the best training I have had to date."