Philip E. Sharpe, Jr. Community Engagement Award
The Western Washington University Philip E. Sharpe Community Engagement Award, named in honor of former WWU Board of Trustee member and active community volunteer Phil Sharpe, is given annually to a faculty or staff member (or group of Western employees) involved in outstanding community service, including outreach and engagement activities that benefit the well-being of the community at large or individual(s) in the community.
Examples of service:
- Participates in volunteer work, service organizations, or community advisory boards
- Organizes forums or community programs
- Volunteers for local non-profits or service organizations
Selection Criteria
- Current Western faculty, professional, or classified staff
- Minimum one year of WWU employment (this criteria is not applicable to a group nomination)
- The work they do is not a primary function of their position at Western
Award/Recognition
Award Adminstration
Nomination Process
2024
Kristi Tyran - Management
Professor Kristi Lewis Tyran teaches management and leadership in the College of Business and Economics. After earning her B.S. in psychology and MBA from the University of Washington, she worked as a vice president in the banking industry before earning her Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University of California, Irvine.
At Western since 2001, Kristi has received multiple awards for her research, including in the areas of leadership and emotion in organizations and international service learning. She received the Chase Franklin Teaching Award in 2005 and 2015 and was honored to be selected as the 2012 CBE Distinguished Teaching Fellow. She has taught four faculty-led international service-learning courses in Kenya and Rwanda.
Over the past 35 years she has volunteered with and served on a variety of community non-profit boards of directors. In Bellingham these include Womencare, the Bellingham Cooperative School, and Cedar Tree Montessori. In 2006 she was elected to the Board of Directors of WECU, a non-profit financial cooperative serving over 150,000 members. In her 18 years of service to WECU, she has held a variety of board leadership roles, most recently as board chair.
Past Awardees
1 awardee(s) for this year
2023 Awardees
Community Consortium for Cultural Recognition - WWU and Off-campus Partners
The Community Consortium for Cultural Recognition, led by WWU staff and faculty, coordinate a diverse offering of cultural recognitions and events open to the entire community. These events have been created, funded, and executed in partnership with key community organizations including Whatcom Community College, Bellingham Technical College, Northwest Indian College, Bellingham Public Schools, Peace Health, the city of Bellingham, Swinomish Education Department, and Skagit Valley College.
The partnership started in 2020 in the wake of the national reckoning on systemic racism and police brutality following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. The consortium’s first project in 2021 was a virtual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Commemoration event featuring Ijeoma Oluo, a WWU alumna and New York Times best-selling author of “So you Want to Talk About Race.” Nearly 1,000 students and community members attended the event.
Since then, the consortium has collaborated to celebrate two more MLK Day events, two Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrations and Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month. In total, more than 5,000 guests have attended these events to date both virtually and in person. Every event includes a web page hosted by WWU that is shared throughout the community and beyond on our social media channels. These web pages promote the events and educate the community of their significance. They also include online resources to encourage deeper understanding and continued learning.
MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY CONSORTIUM:
Bellingham Technical College: Danielle Humphreys, Hannah Simonetti; Bellingham Public Schools: Janis Velasquez-Farmer; Children of the Setting Sun Productions: Free Borsey; City of Bellingham: Deborah Bineza, Janice Keller; Community: Cynthia Zaferatos; Northwest Indian College: Victoria Retasket; Peace Health: Naiyahnikai Gorman, Vincent Green; Swinomish Indian Tribal Community: Michael Vendiola; Western Washington University: Laural Ballew, Frederick Collins, Travis Eller, Nia Gipson, Jacqueline Hughes, Brandon Joseph, Jean Lee, Chris Roselli, Grey Webster, Amy Salinas Westmoreland; Whatcom Community College: Keenan Kaemingk, Tanya Zaragoza-Rosas