The prestigious Wedemeyer Award for Outstanding Practitioner in Distance Education was presented to Dr. Janet Poley on August 4th at the 16th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning in Madison, Wisconsin.

Following is a description of the award:

The Wedemeyer Award

Each year the Conference, in conjunction with The American Journal of Distance Education, presents the Mildred B. and Charles A. Wedemeyer Award to an outstanding distance educator.

The award honors Dr. Charles Wedemeyer, scholar, researcher and distance education innovator who led a distinguished career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Continuing and Vocational Education. In the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Wedemeyer received several million dollar plus grants from both the Ford and Carnegie Foundations to explore how other media might be integrated with print. His Articulated Instructional Media project was foundational to the advent of the British Open University, Indira Ghandi Open University and countless others around the globe. A man before his time, Chuck Wedemeyer recognized the strengths of multi-media approaches and helped others to see how media attributes could be assessed and utilized to maximize learning outcomes.

The award also carries the name of his life partner, Mildred. While Chuck wanted to recognize the outstanding distance education scholar, based on contributions to the research literature in the field of distance education and training, Mildred believed practitioners also deserved recognition. For this reason, the award has a dual focus, recognizing in alternate years outstanding distance education scholars and practitioners.