One night during the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, Pat and I were bored at home. I found an article about a chemistry professor in Cleveland teaching her students how to make Indian food virtually. So, I asked my friends if anyone wanted to learn to make Thai food and we started our virtual Thai cooking classes every Saturday nights. Because I use my University of Akron WebEx account to host this cooking class, I felt that I should invite other people on campus to participate in the event as my WebEx account can host up to 1,000 people at a time. Most people loved it and came back for the next class. It’s free to anyone but we also encourage people to donate to the Akron-Canton food bank.

The Akron Beacon Journal wrote a story about our virtual cooking classes (see the link below).

You can read the article in the link HERE

Faculty Engagement Award
The Faculty Engagement Award is presented annually to an outstanding faculty member who has gone out of their way to engage students inside and outside the classroom to create an enhanced learning environment. This award highlights a faculty member who has gone above and beyond the normal student-teacher interaction and has thus shown a personal interest in the growth of their students’ lives.

This year I was nominated and won the Faculty Engagement Award. Considering that there are many other outstanding faculty who have gone out of their way to help students at the University of Akron, I am very honored to receive this award.

I am very honored to represent the University of Akron for MAC Women’s History Month. Throughout the month of March, the universities in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) present female leaders across campuses and feature them on social media as well as the conference website. Thank you, the University of Akron, for this recognition. I feel privileged to be part of this prestigious university.

For more information, see this LINK.

https://admin.gozips.com/news/2020/3/20/general-womens-history-month-meet-akrons-dr-sydney-chinchanachokchai.aspx?fbclid=IwAR1P4umD6LWoTw-B5arbmwbNBhUuTAxiD3-3UEoyL03_HfUgoMGO5HPo1qQ

This semester the IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) students are working with the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology (CCHP) at the University of Akron to create a promotional campaign for them. The client gave them a tour of the museum, the Institute for Human Science and Culture, and the Archives on Wednesday. It was fascinating to see that we have the national museum of psychology here in Akron.

I am excited to see what promotional plan the students will come up with to promote the CCHP.

On October 1, 2019, I attended the Adapted Digital Media Summit organized by JMC brands. The conference, which is about digital and social media marketing, took place in Cleveland, OH. This was the first year of the conference. The organizer, JMC Brands, did a good job inviting speakers who are successful social media strategists, digital marketers, entrepreneurs, etc from around the country to share their experience as well as talk about digital and social media marketing.

They also invited people from Cleveland sports teams (the Cavs and the Browns) to talk about their digital marketing strategies to keep customers and fans engaged in the team and the players.

It was a great opportunity for us in academia to attend the professional conference in order to update our knowledge on what is going on in the real world. We learned a lot from the speakers and can share those experiences/stories with our students. Thank you, JMC Brands, for inviting us to attend the conference. We hope to go back next year.

Sydney