Today, the MSU Alumni Association (MSUAA) will honor former MSU College of Education Dean Emerita Carole Ames with the prestigious Honorary Alumni Award. After being nominated by the college’s former associate dean, Cassandra Book, Ames was selected by the MSUAA Awards Committee and executive director, the MSU Alumni Board of Directors and President Lou Anna K. Simon of MSU.
The award reflects Ames’ extraordinary 18-year influence as dean, during which the College of Education achieved high national rankings and maintained an unmatched standard of quality in teaching, scholarship and service. Ames also supervised a variety of milestones in the college’s history: the first homecoming tent party; the introduction of the college’s first online Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program; the initiation of the Summer High School Scholars Program and the Urban Immersion Fellowship; and the establishment of the K-12 Outreach office, the Education Policy Center, the Center for the Scholarship of Teaching, the Confucius Institute and the Institute for Research on Mathematics and Science Education (IRMSE).
Ames, who was also a professor of educational psychology within the College of Education’s CEPSE department, has devoted her studies to children’s social and academic motivations. Her research topics have included classroom structure and competition, children’s motivation to learn, school and family relationships and parental involvement in children’s learning.