The Parkland College Outstanding Staff Gold Award is presented each year to a staff member of 6 years or more who demonstrates excellence in college involvement, job performance, and attitude.
2024 Outstanding Staff Award - Gold Winner
Sean Dannenfeldt
Sean took an eccentric path to get here. After starting at the University of Illinois wanting to be a writer, he ended up working as a lab assistant for the math department. That path ended with him earning a Master of Education in 2004 primarily by teaching a class for two years where he commuted to Chicago twice a week to use computers to teach pre-calculus to high school seniors who had failed every math class they’d ever had.
From there he started teaching reading and English part-time at Parkland, then worked as an Operations Manager for the Humanities department, then moved up the Division of Arts & Sciences. He’s helped overhaul the Colleague placement system (twice) and develop Watson; taught CROA Academy (three times) and co-founded CROA Club; worked on Data Dictionary and as an EEO; and led the reboot of the IDEAS Committee. He also met his wife Bobbi Jo while working here—along with a few other cool people. You know who you are.
Outside of work, Sean has conducted two and a half weddings, completed National Novel Writing Month several times, run a bad movie festival, had a radio play performed by the Penny Dreadful Players, and played uncountable hours of all types of games. He particularly loves roleplaying games and has spent over a decade running three wildly imaginative campaigns with the dumbest possible names. He’s also a regular fixture at Busch Stadium in St. Louis and in the audience at the Parkland Theatre. After 26 years in Champaign-Urbana, he finally considers himself a townie.