Education professor Rebecca Mills has been chosen to serve as special assistant to UNLV President Carol C. Harter.
Mills will begin her new job as special assistant to the president for planning, assessment, and institutional research this semester. At the same time, she will complete her existing teaching and administrative duties in her department.
In her new capacity she will oversee the office of institutional analysis and planning and serve as chief resource person to the recently initiated university planning process.
Mills, who has been a member of the UNLV faculty since 1987, is an associate professor in the department of instructional and curricular studies in the Education College. Since 1993 she also has served as assistant chair of the department.
Last year she was named the 1994 Nevada Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. That award salutes the most outstanding undergraduate instructors in the nation.
Among her other awards are the 1993-94 Alex and Faye Spanos Distinguished Teaching Award, presented to her by UNLV, and the 1993 Lilly Fong Distinguished Professor Award, given to her by the Education College.
She has authored several teacher-oriented journal articles about her research, which is classroom-based and focuses on the act of teaching, especially at the middle-school level.
Harter selected Mills for the special assistant post after receiving recommendations from a campus committee. Faculty, staff, and administrators from throughout the campus had been invited to apply for the job.
