Lewiston, ID. – Heather Van Mullem, a professor in Lewis-Clark State College’s Physical, Life, Movement & Sport Sciences Division, has been selected as the Society of Health and Physical Educators’ (SHAPE) 2023 Western District College/University Teacher of the Year, SHAPE officials have announced.
Van Mullem will be honored on March 31 at the 2023 SHAPE America National Convention in Seattle. The Western District award covers Alaska, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.
Van Mullen was SHAPE’s 2021-22 Collegiate Educator of the Year for Idaho. Earlier this month, she was honored by the LC State Women’s Leadership Conference. The conference annually honors LC State employees who exemplify leadership in their field of expertise or workplace, serve as a role model to other women and girls, who give back to and are respected in the community, and who advocate for positive change to close the leadership gap for women. The winners are chosen by a selection committee consisting of community leaders and LC State personnel.
Van Mullem started teaching at LC State in 2005 and became division chair in 2012, a position she held until 2019 when she decided to also attend law school while teaching.
Van Mullen holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas, a master’s degree from Humboldt State and a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Washington. She teaches primarily in the fields of sports studies and health education at LC State.
Van Mullem has won other national and college awards. In 2019, she was selected as the winner of American Kinesiology Association’s Jerry R. Thomas Distinguished Leadership Award in the Undergraduate Degree Granting University category. In 2016, she was one of 25 selected to participate in the inaugural class of The American Association of State Colleges & Universities’ Emerging Leaders Program. At the college, she has received the President’s Award for Excellence in Diversity & Cross-Cultural Understanding and the President’s Award for Outstanding Teaching, among other honors.
She has served on or chaired more than 30 committees at the college and helped organize the annual LC State Girls and Women in Sports Day celebration.
The goal of SHAPE Idaho is to help students adopt and maintain healthy behaviors through health and physical education. SHAPE Idaho believes health education should contribute directly to a student’s ability to successfully practice behaviors that protect and promote health and avoid or reduce health risks. Physical education focuses on the cumulative development of fitness and motor skills as well as on enhancing mental, social, and emotional abilities through cooperative and team building activities.