Melissa Nuno, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology, was honored with the 2022-2023 "McReynolds Faculty Excellence Award," given each year to an HIU full-time faculty member who exemplifies teaching-learning excellence in the undergraduate classroom. Presented during the Honors Convocation Chapel each Spring, this award includes a plaque for the recipient to keep, the inscription of their name on a perpetual plaque which displays the names of each recipient year by year, and a generous cash award. Nominations were sought from faculty and students and, based on those nominations, a final choice was made by the prescribed selection committee.

Professor Nuno was commended by students and peers for painstaking course design and class preparation, for engaging students in the classroom and getting students engaged in their own learning. "She always finds interesting ways to present and explain material well, get students actively involved in classroom learning, and relate what is being learned to practical applications," stated one recommendation. "She fuels and honors students’ curiosity and cultivates their hunger to learn."

Dr. Paul McReynolds was beloved by several generations of students who learned New Testament from him at Pacific Christian College from the 1960s to the 1990s. Dr. McReynolds was famous for his patient, gracious teaching in Biblical Studies classes and his published Greek/English Interlinear New Testament, with which many of you have become familiar. He was also deeply committed to the teaching and learning process. He was commonly known to his students simply as “Dr. Paul.”

When “Dr. Paul” retired, he funded a Faculty Excellence Award in the names of his parents, Rose B. and Edgar B. McReynolds.