College of Education and Health Professions to Honor Three Alumni

The College of Education and Health Professions is honoring three alumni at the college’s commencement ceremonies – Gretchen Oliver, Jessica Sliger and Betty Winfield – for their exceptional professional and personal achievements and extraordinary distinction in their fields.

Oliver won the Outstanding Alumni Award in Health and Human Services. She teaches in the kinesiology department at Auburn University. Oliver earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees, both in kinesiology from the University of Arkansas, and a doctorate in kinesiology from Texas Woman’s University.

Oliver was on the faculty of the College of Education and Health Professions from 2006 until last year. She won the college’s Rising STAR award in 2010. She has published numerous articles on her research designed to decrease the incidence of athletic injury and enhance sports performance in healthy, active individuals. Oliver is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine.

Sliger won the Outstanding Young Alumni Award. She earned a Master of Arts in Teaching in 2008 and teaches Spanish as a foreign language and as a heritage language at Rogers High School.

Sliger has co-directed the UA Hispanic Scholar Campus Day since 2007, when she was a student intern, and made presentations at state and national conferences. She has won several awards for her work, including the Hèroes de Corazón Award given in primary and secondary education by the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting.

Winfield won the Outstanding Alumni Award in Education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Arkansas, a master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a doctorate from the University of Washington.

Winfield was on the faculty of the University of Missouri. She has published four books and received numerous awards for her work on the topics of media and politics and the history of mass media. Last year, Winfield served as Fulbright Distinguished Chair of American Studies at the University of Warsaw. She is a member of the University of Washington Department of Communication Alumni Hall of Fame. She has won the University of Missouri Alumni Association Distinguished Faculty Award and the American Journalism Historians Association Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History.

The recipients will be recognized at the college’s commencement on May 11 at Bud Walton Arena.