Mid-South Community College Education instructor Lori Payne has been named an Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges’ Outstanding Faculty Member for 2013-14.“I was very surprised and honored that I would be selected for the award,” said Payne, a full-time MSCC faculty member for nine years. “There are so many hard-working, dedicated faculty members at the college, and they all have the students’ best interests at heart.”
“Everyone here is willing to do whatever is necessary to help students be successful, and I’m very fortunate to be a part of that.”
In selecting Payne for the honor, MSCC described her as follows:
“Lori Payne is committed to her students and the mission of Mid-South Community College. She demonstrates a positive attitude and clearly loves what she does. When Mid-South hosts its ‘Future Educators’ Forum’ (established and coordinated by Payne), she makes teaching sound like one of the most wonderful, admirable professions.”
“As an instructor, she is always looking for innovative ways to help her students. She also makes sure they have everything they need to succeed. On several occasions, Lori has collected professional clothing for students preparing for teaching assignments.
She also supports clothing drives on our campus and regularly helps at the Ronald McDonald House.”
Her students describe her as “a thorough and concerned teacher. She expects nothing but excellence, and helps you achieve just that. I love that she is teaching me to be a teacher. Ms. Payne always has real-life stories to back up what she is teaching us.
She’s awesome! With her help, I am going to be an awesome teacher someday.”
While she dabbled in business before becoming a teacher, Payne said she always liked the classroom.
“As a child, I played school all the time,” she recalled. “I would line up all of my dolls and play school. My mom said you would think I had a classroom full of children the way I would ‘teach.’”
It took her several years, however, to decide on teaching as a career.
“When I first started college right after high school, I was a business major,” she said. “That was in the early 80s when earning an MBA was the big thing, and women going into business and breaking out of traditional roles was big. I worked at a bank and did that for several years before I realized that was not what I wanted to do the rest of my life.”
“I quit school for a couple of years and worked full time and realized I needed to go back to school to get a degree. That’s when I returned to get my degree in education in the early 90s. It was all worth it.”
Payne, who earned a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood/Elementary Education and a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education from Arkansas State University, received Arkansas Outstanding Early Childhood Professional recognition in 2007.
She taught adjunct classes at MSCC from 2001 to 2004 and accepted a full-time position in August 2005. Payne worked as a first-grade teacher at Faulk Elementary School in West Memphis for five years and as a fourth-grade for three years. She then became a kindergarten-sixth grade math coach before moving full time to MSCC.
“My main reason for getting my master’s degree was to teach at a college,” she said. “I still loved elementary school, but I truly believe the Lord was leading me to Mid-South Community College.”
“My experience as an elementary school teacher helps me teach my students at MSCC. It’s great to be able to share my stories with students who are going to have their own classrooms someday.”
Payne can’t talk about teaching without expressing her enthusiasm for the profession.
“As teachers, we really are changing lives,” she said. “As cliché as it sounds, we do hold the future. I want that to come across to my students, just how important it is that we do everything we can every day because of the children. I want them to understand how important teaching is, what a responsibility it is.”
“I love my students at MSCC, but I also think about the students that they’re going to teach someday, young people who need them and sometimes come from homes where they may not have had all the things that they need. That’s what keeps me excited and passionate about teaching.”
Payne said she has one of her former first graders in her teacher education classes this semester. “That’s a first.”
A 1986 graduate of Trumann High School, Payne serves on the Student Activities Committee and sponsors the Student Arkansas Education Association chapter at MSCC. She coordinates Mid-South’s Education program and has organized seven Future Educators Forums at the College.
In addition to her classroom work, Payne serves as an Ambassador for the Ronald McDonald House in Memphis and has arranged multiple trips by MSCC basketball teams to cook for patients/parents/families at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
In 2003, while working at Faulk, she earned Marco Polo Educational Website Field Trainer of the Year. She also she earned West Memphis School District Teacher of the Year honors in 2001- 2002 and Regional Teacher of the Year in the 2002 Arkansas Teacher of the Year Program. She was named Faulk Elementary Teacher of the Year in 2000.
The AATYC Outstanding Faculty Member award goes to instructors who exhibit a positive attitude, show commitment to student learning and success, exhibit integrity and professionalism with students and colleagues, employ innovative teaching methods, continue his/her professional development, serve the College, and support the community.
Previous winners include Mary Field, Jason Carmichael, Jason Carr, Logan Oliver, Dr. Trenia Miles, Sanjay Chowdhury, Wilma Thomason, Dr. Topeka Small, Andrea Crutchfield, James Vardaman, Cynthia Armes, Tammy Hovland, Darrell Uselton, D. Steve Nichols, Barbara Simpson, Nancy Rieves, and Gale Allen.
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