Kelsey S. Bitting
Elon University

2025 Biggs Award for Excellence in Earth Science Teaching

I am delighted to provide a citation for Dr. Kelsey Bitting as the recipient of the 2025 Biggs Earth Science Teaching Award. Dr. Bitting is recognized on Elon University’s campus as both a leader and champion of innovative and effective teaching. Dr. Bitting has supported faculty across campus to be inclusive and innovative teacher-scholar-mentors in her previous role as Associate Director for the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. She currently holds a full-time faculty role in the Department of Environmental Studies and is looked to as a mentor of teaching excellence by colleagues both within STEM and more broadly in the social sciences and humanities. Kelsey is a kind, clear, and dynamic educator. She leads her courses with an empathetic student-centered approach, motivating her students to stretch their knowledge and believe in their possibilities. She includes diverse pedagogical approaches in all her courses, supporting students to be reflective, enhancing their self-efficacy, and encouraging them to integrate a solution-oriented approach to the collegiate experience and their future careers.

A hallmark of Dr. Bitting’s excellence in teaching is challenging her students to be engaged learners. From non-majors introductory courses to upper-level major courses, she encourages students to ‘think in writing’, explore personal connections to the course content, and take risks in their learning. The following student comment epitomizes Dr. Bitting’s reputation in the classroom: “I loved that most of our classes were hands on learning forcing us to apply information. The teaching style encouraged us to be inquisitive and take responsibility for our learning which I believe helped students like myself retain the information.”

In addition to her excellence in the classroom, Kelsey mentors undergraduate students in research and is a known scholar in teaching and learning. She has several publications in the Teach the Earth Activity Collection, and publications outlets including the Journal of Geoscience Education, Teaching and Learning Inquiry, and the Journal of College Science Teaching.

As a colleague, mentor, and friend of Dr. Bitting, I look forward to watching her continue to excel and impact the future of STEM education.

I am so honored to receive this award and to be recognized in such a special way by our community. From a childhood building forts in the woods, picking blackberries, splashing in our neighborhood stream, and hanging out (quite literally) up a willow tree, I learned that the natural world could be my greatest solace and teacher. However, it wasn’t until my undergraduate education and my Intro to Geology course with Dr. Molly Miller at Vanderbilt University that I discovered a love for geoscience. Under the direction of the faculty there, I fell in love with the elegance of interconnected earth systems and the incredible history of our planet that the rocks, soils, and sediments hold locked away, secrets to be deciphered by those who know how. Dr. Calvin Miller played a key role in shaping me as a future teacher, using Socratic questioning to lead us to an understanding of mineralogy and petrology in a way that made class feel empowering—and a bit like a scientific game of clue!

In graduate school, I was fortunate to find myself in the orbit of faculty like Dr. Martha Withjack and colleagues like (now) Dr. Lauren Neitzke-Adamo, who helped me find formative teaching opportunities throughout my time at Rutgers University, modeled the use of hands-on and inquiry approaches, introduced me to virtual field trips for large classes, and guided me to begin exploring the science of learning as a way of helping undergraduates understand the science of our planet. During a postdoc and visiting assistant professorship in Geology course redesign at the University of Kansas, I came to know and collaborate with Dr. Marsha McCartney, a psychologist who helped broaden my view of the learning sciences and mentored me in social science research techniques I use to this day. Dr. Michael Sweet at Northeastern University provided additional training for me in the learning sciences and helped me envision what mindfulness could look like in the classroom to enhance students’ learning.

Arriving at Elon University with these numerous influences equipped me to be the Assistant Professor that I am today, but my pedagogy blossomed fully in the innovative culture of teaching at this institution. The support I’ve enjoyed, from individual colleagues too numerous to name and centers like the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, the Kernodle Center for Civic Life, and the Office of Sustainability, helps me enhance my teaching every semester. I’m equally thankful for like-minded collaborators like Drs. Jessica Merricks (Elon Biology), Caitlin Callahan (Grand Valley State Geology), Laura Roselle (Elon Political Science), Katherine Ryker (U. of South School of Carolina Earth, Ocean & Environment), Rachel Teasdale (CSU Chico Earth and Environmental Sciences), Jill McSweeney (Elon Education & Wellness), and Evan Small (Elon Education & Wellness) with whom I collaborate to investigate fascinating questions related to teaching and learning in the geosciences and STEM more broadly. Mentors like Dr. Caroline Ketcham, Assistant Dean of the Elon College of Arts & Sciences, Dr. Peter Felten, Assistant Provost of Elon University, and Dr. Deandra Little, Associate Provost of Elon University, as well as the constant support of my husband Jason Rimmer, help me continue to grow my teaching and scholarship into the future.