Posted: 8/11/2025
Powers takes home 2025 Early Career Faculty Award
By Ronica Stromberg
Ann Powers keeps upping her game to improve the learning experience and opportunities of students. A lecturer in the School of Natural Resources since 2023, she recently received a 2025 Early Career Faculty Award for her impact on the school mission of championing the natural world.
"I was surprised, to be sure," she said about receiving the award. "I was like, 'It's pretty cool. It's an honor. It's always nice to be recognized for work.' I feel like, as a person who's new in my position, I do get a little imposter syndrome every once in a while."
Powers came to the lecturer position on a nontraditional path, starting as an elementary school teacher and then working at the university for Landscape Services eight years and managing the Keim Hall courtyard and Backyard Farmer garden two years. After earning her master of applied science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, she began teaching arboriculture, the management of trees and other plants, and dendrology, tree identification. This year, for the first time, she designed and taught a new class, Introduction to Forest Management.
"I spent a ton of time on it, and it's still like, 'Oh, it's not up to my standards, but I'm going to keep working on it,'" she said.
She is on a continual journey, she said, of trying to improve classes and adjust them to the students taking them. In the Introduction to Forest Management class, for example, she had three nontraditional students with much experience. She drew out information from each of those students in class to allow other students and herself to learn from them.
She has also been networking with professionals in the field, modeling that behavior for students and encouraging them to expand their networks.
"It's always a learning opportunity as the class content is important but so are the social skills that go along with it," she said.
The ability to network in forestry work is critical, she said, because no two forests are the same. If someone working with trees comes across a problem, like a new disease or pest, it helps to have others to call to ask about the problem and ways to manage it.
Through networking, she has arranged outdoor learning experiences for students with agencies like the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and the Nebraska Forest Service and private landowners.
She and Lord Ameyaw run the Regional and Community Forestry program at Nebraska. The forestry program differs from that at many other universities, she said, with its focus on urban forestry. Most trees in Nebraska are in towns or cities, not in the Sandhills and prairies covering much of the state.
Powers is working on her doctorate and considering researching how people in the Great Plains view urban forests. She has already seen in her recruitment and outreach work that many people are unaware of professions related to urban forests.
"People don't know about urban forestry," she said. "They don't think about it. They walk by trees all day long and never give it a second thought of like, How did that tree get there? Why is it there? Who's taking care of it?"
She and Ameyaw had 14 students in the Regional and Community Forest program in the spring 2025 semester, but four graduated in May. To maintain the program, which started in 2020, she said they should graduate at least seven students a year and she would like to double the number of students in the program. Jobs she listed as available to people with the degree include arborists, plant healthcare technicians, urban foresters and park managers.
She has been working to inform K-12 students and the public about trees and related careers. She visits schools and leads community activities like planting trees on Arbor Day and climbing trees at Forest Fest at the Horning State Farm the first Friday after Labor Day. She and Ameyaw also take university students to the TCIA Expo in St. Louis as a career day and networking opportunity. With alumnus Wyatt Koehler, she advises the Forestry Club at the School of Natural Resources.
Lindsey Chizinski, the professor who presented Powers with the Early Career Faculty Award, said Powers was recognized for embracing active learning strategies, teaching through example and reaching out to networks to provide opportunities to students.
"Every time I ask a student about their courses, Ann's classes are mentioned as favorites," Chizinski said. "Ann is also eager to improve her teaching and seeks out professional development opportunities. And even when those fail to live up to expectations, she brainstorms ways to improve them and bring the best parts back to our department."