Kristina Jaskyte Bahr, associate professor for UGA’s Nonprofit Management and Leadership Online Program was recently presented with UGA’s 2020 Service-Learning Excellence Award. 

The Service-Learning Excellence Award consists of two categories: Service-Learning Teaching Excellence and Service-Learning Research Excellence. Bahr is one of two professors to earn the award in the Service-Learning Teaching Excellence category, and since 2011, 27 faculty have received awards over both categories. Service-Learning Excellence Awards recognize faculty for innovative service-learning course design as well as scholarship that stems from academic service-learning work.

Kristina Jaskyte Bahr is acknowledged for her excellence in developing, implementing, and sustaining academic service-learning opportunities for UGA students in domestic and/or international settings.

For more than 15 years, Bahr has integrated community-based components into graduate courses in social work and the master’s in nonprofit management and leadership, including Design Thinking for Social Innovation, Innovation and Change in Nonprofit Organizations, Theory and Management of Nonprofit Organizations and Managing Volunteers and Staff in Nonprofit Organizations.

“My job as a researcher and a teacher is to challenge the system and explore ways that we can kickstart innovation in these organizations. Bringing new, fresh ideas and a spark of creativity into associations, that’s what drives me each day,” Bahr states. 

By working with dozens of local nonprofits, Professor Bahr has helped over 500 graduate students design and implement program evaluations, fundraising plans, volunteer handbooks and recruitment materials intended to help the organizations build capacity and better serve community needs. 

UGA’s Online Nonprofit Management and Leadership Program is designed to instruct nonprofit leaders to support and influence the direction of an organization that may be engaged in a wide range of fields.

Depending on where your passion lies in nonprofit management, UGA’s online program allows you to make a living while striving to make a substantial change in the world, and professors like Kristina Jaskyte Bahr will help you get there. 

View the original article on UGA Today.