Carla Earhart

Dr. Carla Earhart, professor of Residential Property Management (RPM) in the Miller College of Business at Ball State, was awarded the prestigious Brian Douglas Hiltunen Faculty Award from Community-Engaged Alliance.

The Brian Douglas Hiltunen Faculty Award for the Outstanding Contribution to the Scholarship of Engagement, established in 2000, elevates and honors university faculty who exemplify what it means to be an engaged scholar.

A Ball State faculty member since 1991, Dr. Earhart has taught more than 10 immersive learning courses involving more than 150 students, where students have been engaged in community activities as part of the learning process.

“Carla was an early adopter of this mode of experiential learning even before Ball State and other universities across the country began promoting it as a ‘best practice’ in higher education,” said Amy Harden, Chairperson of the newly-developed Department of Applied Business Studies. “Since starting the Residential Property Management (RPM) Program in 1999 as the founding program director, she has arranged job shadowing experiences and other hands-on educational activities in the community for hundreds of students through a variety of courses, and as the RPM Internship Coordinator, she has arranged and supervised internship experiences throughout the country for our RPM students.”

In Spring 2021, Dr. Earhart most recently taught an immersive learning course where her students examined the Indiana Department of Education academic standards for elementary grades and developed new curricula and lesson plans to assist K-5 teachers with educating children on housing options, with the goal of helping the young students make informed housing decisions when they become adults.

Dr. Earhart is the second consecutive Ball State faculty member to win the award, after Dr. Adam Kuban, associate professor of journalism, won in 2021. This year, Community-Engaged Alliance also recognized Ball State’s Melanie Swihart, assistant teaching professor of Dance, as an Emerging Leader in Community Engagement.
Dr. Earhart was nominated by Ball State’s Office of Immersive Learning.

Applications and nominations for the 2023 Brian Douglas Hiltunen Award are open until July 8, 2022.

Published May 5, 2022