2021 Outstanding Mentor: Benjamin N. Witts

Dr. Benjamin N. Witts is an associate professor at St. Cloud State University where he has worked since graduating from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2013. His approach to teaching and mentoring rests on two ideas: students should lead and students love what they are good at. To that extent, he works hard to help his students succeed in the pursuit of their interests, resulting in fun and interesting thesis projects like using custom-made books to encourage the emergence verbal relations in autistic children, creating programmed instruction modules to supplement staff training, bridging the principles of ABA to Phelan-McDermid Syndrome, and a time-series analysis of voter turnout across many countries over several decades, to name a few. But as much as he loves teaching, he spends the most time with his wife and six-year-old twins, Lincoln and Lucy..