During a Sunday afternoon lunch break at a summer leadership institute, NC State College of Education Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor and Head of the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development Joy Gaston Gayles got a call that she almost didn’t answer.
Deciding to pick up the phone, Gayles learned that she had been selected to receive the Career Achievement Award from The Ohio State University’s College of Education and Human Ecology—an honor she was not even aware she had been nominated for.
“This award was a total surprise! I had no idea I was nominated by my cohort members and lifelong friends: Drs. H. Rich Milner, D-L Stewart, Mark Gooden and April Peters-Hawkins,” Gayles said. “Receiving this award means a great deal to me – I am truly humbled and honored by this recognition from my alma mater.”
The Career Achievement Award honors alumni who have made outstanding contributions to their professions and have made a difference in the lives of others with an emphasis on teaching, mentoring and sharing their talents with others in their profession. Gayles earned her Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Higher Education from The Ohio State University.
Decades after graduating, Gayles said one of the career achievements she’s most proud of is the dissertation research she conducted at The Ohio State University. Through this work, she created a scale — the SAMSAQ — to measure academic and athletic performance which has since been used around the world to measure student-athlete motivation and is one of the most downloaded articles in the Journal of College Student Development.
Additionally, she is proud to have served as the president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), the premier professional association for research and scholarship on postsecondary education, in 2022.
“I joined ASHE and attended my first conference while I was a doctoral student at The Ohio State University. If you asked me back in 2000 if I thought I’d ever be elected to serve as ASHE president, I would have told you ‘NO’ flat out,” she said.” I am grateful to the faculty, peers and staff who nurtured my curiosity, challenged my thinking and gave me the foundation to advance my career.”
Reflecting on her journey from doctoral student to professor, Gayles recalls that she initially envisioned her career taking a different path to become a college administrator. However, her participation in the Preparing Future Faculty (PROFs) program, with the colleagues who nominated her for her Career Achievement Award, and the faculty who supported her there, helped lead Gayles to where she is today.
“I can speak for all of us when I say that the program changed our lives in such powerful ways that we didn’t realize at the time,” Gayles said. “The PROFs program definitely redirected my path, and looking back now 30 years later, I’m forever grateful to Dr. Cynthia Dillard, Dr. Bob Ransom and all of the faculty who helped shape my career and who I am today.”