Honors and Awards
Graduate Research Awards from the Indiana Council for Continuing Education (ICCE)
L-R: CICS Student James Hixson, John Beeson (President of ICCE), and CICS Student Steven Dalcher.
“As the only professional association of adult and continuing educators in the state of Indiana, it is imperative for ICCE to support the work of graduate students doing important and innovative work in the field. That’s why we’re delighted to financially support the research of two excellent Ball State University graduate students, Steven Dalcher and James Hixson. The results of their research will enable adult and continuing educators across the state to better serve the unique learning needs of our military veterans and those who work with our aging population.” John Beeson, President, ICCE
Richard Bellaver was granted the Ball State University Advisor of the Year award on August 21, 2009, by President Jo Ann Gora. This accolade was long coming as Bellaver has been an advisor for more than 1,000 students during his time as the associate director from 1993 to 2009. He is highly respected by his peers and the students both past and present that he has assisted.
On the same day, the College of Communication, Information, and Media awarded Bellaver a plaque for his outstanding community service. The award is for Community Connections and his diligence is providing food for the homebound as president of the Muncie Meals on Wheels. The value of donations to subsidize meals increased 200% while Bellaver was president.
Other faculty achievements:
Ron Kovac with Bill Bush (graduate assistant for the CICS program) presented a Webinar to more than 200 people on Virtual Private Networks. The Webinar, sponsored by Cisco Systems, was offered worldwide and dealt with the practical uses and technical operations of VPNs.
Ron Kovac acted as technical expert for the creation of courseware dealing with Advanced Routing and Switching. The sponsor for the development was Pearson Press and ITT (the nationwide delivery vehicle for courseware of this type).
Ron Kovac attended the Association for College and University Telecommunications Associates (ACUTA) in Atlanta (April of 2009). An active board member, he chaired two sessions and presented a paper on The Viability of Meta-Data Analysis and was given a recognition award for 10 years of service to ACUTA.
Ron Kovac and Kirsten Smith created and chaired the Cisco Certified Annual Retreat – CCAR 2009, attracts educators, vendors and administrators from colleges, and high schools in Indiana and neighboring states. The full day session had three tracks of programs and was sponsored by Cisco Systems.
Ron Kovac presented at the IARIA conference (a subpart of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) in Valencia, Spain. The topic of the presentations dealt with strategic planning and metrics for engineering programs. The trip was funded by Cisco Learning Institute.
Ron Kovac participated in a “stimulus package funding” meeting in Phoenix Arizona during March of 2009. The meetings, comprised of 15 diverse (worldly) participants, put like minds together to strategize on tapping into the soon to be available funding coming from the federal government for economic stimulus.
Among other distinctions:
CICS was named Graduate Program of the Year by the International Telecommunication, Education, and Research Association for 2007-2008.
Ray Steele, distinguished professor, received the Distinguished Service Award from the International Telecommunication, Education, and Research Association for 2007-2008.
Ron Kovac earned the Cisco Networking Academy Excellence in Teaching Award for 2007-2008.
Ron Kovac, Cisco Networking Academy has announced 2008 ‘4R’ Award recipients for outstanding achievements in networking. Douglas Coats, Pike High School; Essaid Bouktache and William Robinson at Purdue University Calumet received recognition on June 19, 2008. All of the recipients are under Ball State University and Ron Kovac’s umbrella.
CICS won the Computerworld Laureate Award when Steve Jones received the award for Ball State University and CICS on June 2, 2008, at an awards banquet in Washington, DC. “Each year, the Computerworld Honors Program seeks to recognize organizations, from a variety of sectors, for their ongoing efforts to utilize technology in order to benefit society,” said Ron Milton, chairman of the board of trustees for the Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation and executive vice president of Computerworld. “We are proud to provide a platform to publicly acknowledge these contributions. Each Laureate selected for this honor understands the importance of using one’s resources and technical prowess to benefit one’s fellow man,” said Bob Carrigan, chairman of the Computerworld Honors Program 2008 committee and president, IDG Communications.
This year the Center for Information and Communication Sciences was awarded a Laureate for the study, Disaster Recovery. The Delaware County Information Services and Public Safety Systems in Muncie, Indiana, are responsible for maintaining the county and city’s computer and communication systems. These systems include police, fire, medical dispatch, court, health, prosecution, corrections, family support, and emergency management as well as interdepartmental communications. The current backup and recovery system is inadequate to recover from or provide continuity during a natural disaster or man-made event. In the event of a catastrophe, Delaware County’s Information System (DCIS) would debilitate the emergency response structure (acute) and the other systems (chronic). Ball State’s CICS and others have provided a solution for the DCIS and Public Safety Systems’ business continuity issues. They analyzed the situation and provided multiple options for preventing a total collapse and cessation of operations.