MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — College of Liberal Arts professor Sisavanh Houghton recently received Middle Tennessee State University’s inaugural Conference USA Faculty Achievement Award.

MTSU has been a member of CUSA, among the nation’s best athletic conferences in student-athlete academic performance, since 2014. Earlier this year, the conference established the Faculty Achievement and Professor of the Year Awards to honor the exceptional achievements of faculty members at conference universities.

University officials said Houghton, a professor of painting in the Department of Art and Design, was selected from many competitive applications by a committee of faculty colleagues.

“I am thrilled Sisavanh won the first-ever C-USA Faculty Achievement Award at MTSU,” said Provost Mark Byrnes. “This is an initiative to recognize and honor the great academic work going on across the conference. This action by the conference reminds us all that the main reason we’re here is for academics and by recognizing faculty who are so important in that process.”

MTSU College of Liberal Arts Dean Leah Tolbert Lyons called Houghton “a gifted artist who shares her expertise with students as an engaging instructor — whether in the classroom or across the globe through study abroad. Her dedication to her students and their success exemplifies what a professor should be; Sisavanh represents the college well both on and off campus.”

Houghton has taught at MTSU for the last 20 years. She is a Lao American interdisciplinary visual artist who has had international exhibits in Italy and Greece and nationally at the Knoxville Museum of Art and Susquehanna Art Museum. Her work is featured in the permanent collections at the Hunter Museum of American Art and the American Embassy in Paramaribo, Suriname.

“I was blown away by receiving this award,” she said. “I think it’s amazing that Conference USA is giving and awarding, or even highlighting and spotlighting faculty who sometimes are in the background. We are always supporting the students, but also students who are athletes, who we know are working very hard academically and in sports. I’ve always been impressed by their ability to maintain their work ethic and their ability to see the importance of both sides of academic and sportsmanship.”

Houghton earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas and an MFA at Southern Illinois University of Carbondale, Illinois. Among many awards and recognitions, she won Best in Show for the 38th Positive/Negative Exhibition in 2023 and was awarded a Tri-Star Current Art Warhol Foundation Fund in 2022. 

She has previously won the Non-Instructional Assignment Award and received the Outstanding Teaching and Distinguished Creative Activity Awards, and she has been recognized as an outstanding mentor through the Disability and Access Center at MTSU.

“It’s been a pleasure to give back to my students, to the faculty and service, and even my own research,” Houghton said. “As a Southeast Asian American, it has been important to me to be at the forefront in my teaching, service and research. I continue to serve MTSU and both the local and refugee communities. It is with great pleasure to give back to my students and to MTSU, which has recognized me with numerous awards and grants through my journey here at Middle Tennessee.”

To learn more about MTSU’s Department of Art and Design, visit https://www.mtsu.edu/art/index.php. To learn more about MTSU’s College of Liberal Arts, visit https://www.mtsu.edu/liberalarts/.

— DeAnn Hays (deann.hays@mtsu.edu)