At the Opening General Session for the 2015 STC Summit in Columbus, President Kit Brown-Hoekstra named her recipient of the President’s Award. The President’s Award honors one or more persons or institutions that have made distinguished contributions to the profession or the Society.
This year’s honoree is Phylise Banner.
Her citation reads: For your dedication to our profession and to STC; for your creativity, visionary thinking, teaching, and speaking abilities; and for all the work that you have done over the years helping STC build its online educational programs, Virtual Summit, and conferences.
Currently the Director of Online Teaching and Learning at Union Graduate College, Phylise Banner is an accomplished and creative training executive with expertise in instructional strategies and professional development solutions.
Throughout her career, Phylise has worked closely with faculty, staff, students, and IT managers to design, develop, and deliver technology-based solutions across departments and disciplines. She regularly embraces opportunities to experiment with emerging technologies in order to best serve adult students at a distance, and to create communities of lifelong learners.
Along with her current achievements in training, professional development, adult learning, and distance education, she has over 18 years of experience in information visualization, with special expertise in the visual representation of financial and economic data. Her career as an informational graphics specialist with the Federal Reserve in the 1980s allowed for early access to Internet technologies, sparking her interest in hypertext and the integration of technology into teaching and learning.
Phylise presents regularly at regional and national technology and communication conferences on the topics of information design, experience design, creative hypertext, Web 2.0 applications, instructional design, information visualization, and GIS technologies. She also teaches digital storytelling and information design online for Empire State College and SUNYIT. Her current research focuses on the use of Web 2.0 applications to establish community and visual presence in the online classroom.
She is an avid angler, aviation enthusiast, and is currently training to be a private pilot. She is the proud owner of a 1967 Amphicar.
Congratulations to Phylise! Thank you for your service to STC and to the profession of technical communication.