The Parkland College Leadership Award for Outstanding Full-Time Faculty is presented each year to a faculty member who has been with the college for a minimum of five years and has demonstrated excellence in teaching, drove innovation in their program, served on committees, and provided leadership.
2024 Leadership Award for Outstanding Full-Time Faculty
Amanda Briggs is the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Director and one of the Assistant Chief Flight Instructors at Parkland College, where she teaches both manned and unmanned aviation courses. In her current role, she is also a check airman and flight instructor. Her teaching philosophy centers around encouraging her students to become lifelong learners and strives to create a learning environment where students are challenged, engaged, and excited about course material. Seeing a need within the community, she developed and implemented the unmanned aviation program, making Parkland one of the first higher education institutions to offer credentialed drone training.
Mandy has been active on several committees at Parkland College including the scholarship and curriculum committees. On a national level, she was recently elected as an Educator Trustee on the executive board for the University Aviation Association and is serving on the planning committee for the Federal Aviation Association’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Collegiate Training Initiative program. She has also served as both PI and Co-PI on multiple National Science Foundation grants focused on updating or creating curriculum as well as program development. A member of the Parkland faculty since 2014, Mandy has a bachelor’s degree in General Engineering from the University of Illinois, where she also completed all of her flight training.