{"id":410,"date":"2024-02-05T10:16:51","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T16:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/free\/?page_id=410"},"modified":"2026-10-12T16:01:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:01:02","slug":"faculty-of-the-month","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/free\/faculty-of-the-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty of the Month"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">October 2026 Winner<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity aqua-hr\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-size: 22px; color: var(--true-blue); text-transform: uppercase;\">Keith Pulles<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"282\" height=\"354\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/free\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/82\/2026\/10\/fotm-keith-pulles.png\" alt=\"Keith Pulles posing with his Faculty of the Month certificate\" class=\"wp-image-951\" style=\"width:228px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/free\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/82\/2026\/10\/fotm-keith-pulles.png 282w, https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/free\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/82\/2026\/10\/fotm-keith-pulles-239x300.png 239w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 282px) 100vw, 282px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congratulations to Keith Pulles, the October Faculty of the Month. Keith has been teaching at 麻豆社 for 12 years, including 1 year as an adjunct and 11 years as a full-time faculty member. He holds a B.S. in Biology from Crown College and a M.N.S. in Biology from Southeast Missouri State University.&nbsp; Keith teaches in the Biology Department, where he teaches courses in General Zoology, General Ecology, and General Biology. He has also served as chair of the Curriculum Council for several years and has been a tremendous help to faculty in making changes to their curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Keith is a favorite among students and consistently goes above and beyond for them. A tutor in the learning center remarked: \u201cIn the 10 years I have been tutoring, I have not heard one student complain about him.\u201d&nbsp; Students love his passion for teaching and his enthusiasm for biology and ecology. He strives for meaningful one-on-one interaction with students and regularly holds Zoom conferences with online students to ensure they understand the material. He patiently works with students to improve their work and to increase their understanding of the material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Outside the classroom, Keith pursues a wide range of hobbies and interests. He is an avid nature photographer, and maintains a blog called&nbsp;<em>Hiking Adventures.&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;He has a collection of over 10,000 photographs of birds, reptiles, mammals, flowers, and trees. His extensive collection of wildlife includes amazing photos of snakes, frogs, and most recently, river otters.&nbsp; &nbsp;Keith wrote his master\u2019s thesis on birds (ornithology) and he loves birds more than any other subject in biology. He can identify every bird species in Missouri and loves seeing and hearing them in the wild. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Keith has also taught himself how to play the piano and the guitar. He loves the Minnesota Vikings and the St. Louis Blues. He also enjoys traveling and has visited all 48 contiguous states. &nbsp;His favorite snacks are cherries, goldfish crackers, dark chocolate, and orange juice. He has written and illustrated custom lab manuals for Biology and Ecology. He also introduced a new course on zoology, which he created for 麻豆社.&nbsp; For Keith, the best part of teaching is hearing students tell him how much they learned in his class and how much they enjoyed the learning process.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congratulations, Keith, for being our faculty of the month, and for all the hard work and dedication you show toward students at 麻豆社.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Previous Winners<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>September 2026<\/strong><br>Dr. Beth Rozema<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>April 2026<\/strong><br>Dr. Clarissa Brown<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>March 2026<\/strong><br>Dr. Wendy Pecka<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>February 2026<\/strong><br>Shaun Roberson<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>November 2025<\/strong><br>Megan VanBibber<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>October 2025<\/strong><br>Trista Elias<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>September 2025<\/strong><br>Josh Stroup<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>April 2025<\/strong><br>Joannie Blakely<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>March 2025<\/strong><br>Dr. Rachel Howard<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>February 2025<\/strong><br>Nathan Esbeck<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>November 2024<\/strong><br>Julie Chirban<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>October 2024<\/strong><br>Dr. Parvadha Acosta<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>September 2024<\/strong><br>Aaron Bounds<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>April 2024<\/strong><br>Bobby Bland<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>March 2024<\/strong><br>Judy Bieker<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>February 2024<\/strong><br>Dr. Reg Brigham<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>October 2026 Winner Keith Pulles Congratulations to Keith Pulles, the October Faculty of the Month. Keith has been teaching at 麻豆社 for 12 years, including 1 year as an adjunct and 11 years as a full-time faculty member. He holds a B.S. in Biology from Crown College and a M.N.S. in Biology from Southeast Missouri [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-410","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Faculty of the Month - Faculty Resources for Educational Excellence<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/free\/faculty-of-the-month\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Faculty of the Month - Faculty Resources for Educational Excellence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"October 2026 Winner Keith Pulles Congratulations to Keith Pulles, the October Faculty of the Month. Keith has been teaching at 麻豆社 for 12 years, including 1 year as an adjunct and 11 years as a full-time faculty member. 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