Every year at Commencement, the Spalding Board of Trustees bestows the Outstanding Faculty Award to a member of the Spalding faculty whose work embodies the mission of Spalding University. The recipient will have made a significant impact on students in areas such as teaching; advising; facilitating student research; promoting peace, justice and cultural understanding; providing support services; encouraging extracurricular activities; or any other aspect of student life.
The recipient of the 2020 Spalding Outstanding Faculty Award is Brenda Nash, PhD, Full Professor in the School of Professional Psychology.
Dr. Nash serves as the Director of Clinical Training in Spalding’s prestigious Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology program, and on July 1, she will assume the role of Chair of the School of Professional Psychology. Dr. Nash has been on the full-time faculty at Spalding since 2006 and has served as Clinical Director since 2011, overseeing students’ practicum and internship placements. The rate at which a university’s PsyD students are placed at internship sites accredited by the American Psychological Association is perhaps the most important measure of the quality of the program. Under Dr. Nash’s direction, Spalding’s APA-accredited internship match rate has, remarkably, been 100 percent for the past four years.
In addition, this year, she became the first Spalding faculty member to serve on the state’s Board of Examiners of Psychology, as appointed by Gov. Beshear.
Moreover, Dr. Nash has co-authored two scholarly book chapters this year, and she is also collecting data on the effectiveness of mindfulness-based groups for correctional officers in rural Kentucky, a grant-funded contract that has also supported student training. For the past decade, she has led a Research Interest Group (RIG) organized around women’s issues.
Dr. Nash specializes in working with survivors of trauma, including sexual and physical abuse, childhood abuse, domestic violence, automobile accidents and catastrophic loss.
In a very recent example of her compassionate leadership, Dr. Nash and SOPP faculty organized Friday’s Show of Solidarity demonstration, during which students, faculty and staff lined S. Fourth St., standing silently in support of the Black community and against racial injustice.
Dr. Nash has been described as having “a clear passion for the field of psychology, and more specifically for the training and education of future psychologists. She models compassion, self-reflection, and commitment for her doctoral students and pushes her peers to be better supervisors, educators, and clinicians.”