UC Faculty Awards 2020: Gayle G. Elliott
Longtime director of international co-op program named Distinguished Teaching Professor
Before she learned she had been named this year’s recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Professor Award, Professor Gayle Elliott perhaps hadn’t realized just how big of a difference she has made in the lives of countless University of Cincinnati alumni and students.
Elliott has spent the last 27-plus years of her career running UC’s International Co-op Program (ICP), helping students identify opportunities to gain work experience overseas while fully immersed in the culture of another country.
Gayle Elliott is the 2020 Distinguished Teaching Professor. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Creative + Brand
“I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to direct the ICP,” says Elliott. “I meet most of these students as freshmen, many away from home for the first time. They’re excited about learning another language, understanding another culture, and traveling to another country. They go into a workplace where they succeed in a professional environment using a language most didn’t speak just eight months ago. Their commitment and motivation is the reason companies outside the US continue to hire ICP students year after year.
“The students feel the program was the highlight of their UC experience; then they go on in life and do amazing things. My satisfaction comes from knowing I was just a tiny part of their success.”
Her former students — many of whom Elliott has stayed in contact with after they graduated from UC — see it differently.
“There simply is no graduate of the ICP who doesn’t have many recollections of the personal impact Gayle has made; this continues today, when there is no second thought given to participating in Sunday night phone calls with Japan to work out the details of a student’s visa, getting on a plane to cross an ocean to identify and strengthen corporate partnerships or simply being a ‘shoulder to cry on’ for a student who may be homesick,” says Karl Zimmer (Industrial Engineering ‘99), president and CEO of Premium Peanut. “One can argue that many of these activities are ‘part of the job,’ but I can assure you that Gayle goes above and beyond, taking it very personally that every student has a positive experience.”
Gayle Elliott smiles as she listens to a student during class. Elliott is the 2020 Distinguished Teaching Professor. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Creative + Brand
Zimmer was among a group of alumni who came together after the celebration of the ICP’s 25 anniversary to form an advisory committee to assist Elliott and the program. The group decided to establish the Gayle Elliott Scholarship Fund for International Co-op to provide monetary support to the ICP, which Zimmer calls “a testament to the high regard in which she is held by those who have participated over the last 25 years.”
In addition to her former students, Elliott is well respected among her peers in the Division of Experience-based Learning and Career Education and her counterparts at other universities. Elliott was recognized for the program’s successful innovations last year with the biennial Mr. Donald MacLaren, Jr., Academic Award for Professional Achievement in Cooperative and Work-Integrated Achievement. Elliott is only the third U.S. educator to ever receive the prestigious MacLaren Award from the World Association for Cooperative Education.
Featured image: The Joseph A. Steger Student Life Center, right, is the home of the Division of Experience-Based Learning and Career Education.
UC Faculty Awards
UC is saluting the 16 winners of our 2020 All-University Faculty Awards in a three-part series in UC News weekly through April 22. Beginning April 23, all winners will also be showcased on the Faculty Awards website.
Related Stories
CCM welcomes new film and media scoring faculty member J.R. Paredes
May 20, 2026
UC College-Conservatory of Music Dean Pete Jutras has announced the appointment of J.R. Paredes as CCM's new Assistant Professor of Film and Media Scoring. His faculty appointment officially begins on Aug. 15, 2026. Paredes is a composer, music producer and audio post-production specialist whose work spans film, television and commercial music. His credits include original scores for feature films and series distributed on platforms such as Apple TV+ and Prime Video, as well as extensive work in sound design and mixing for film and media.
6 ways starting a GLP-1 medication could affect your emotions
May 20, 2026
When patients first start taking a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medication, they probably expect to feel full. But they might not anticipate how it can influence their emotions. The medications act on the stomach and the brain, said Malti Vij, MD, a University of Cincinnati adjunct associate professor in the College of Medicine's Department of Internal Medicine and a diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine.