John Morris Russell, guest conductor for the NSO and conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, selected The Peace Corps from Sung’s Rockwell Reflections collection to play at the annual event. He also will conduct the piece at a Fourth of July celebration in Cincinnati.

“It just feels so amazing to finally have that dream come true,” said Sung, who also is director of the Center for Research and Education in Arts, Technology and Entertainment (CREATE) at the university’s downtown Center for Emerging Media.

Sung wrote the Rockwell Reflections collection for the Orlando Philharmonic in 2007. At that time, a collection of paintings by artist Norman Rockwell was touring the country and Sung became so inspired she created orchestral pieces for five of his works.

The Peace Corps was the final composition in the set and inspired by a painting of President John F. Kennedy with a group of the organization’s volunteers.

“It’s a very inspiring illustration, it just personifies that really wonderful American spirit and hope and service because that’s what the Peace Corps was all about,” Sung said. “This piece is reflective of those Peace Corps feelings.”

Russell said Sung’s composition was inspiring.

“It has the grand, open sonorities reminiscent of Copland, an epic scope worthy of John Williams, capped by a beloved melody by Irving Berlin,” Russell said. “It is as American as apple pie: inspirational and stirring.

Sung’s music has been played all around the world by a multitude of different orchestras such as the German Ministry of Culture, the Dayton (Ohio) Philharmonic Orchestra, the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and others.

“I really am forever indebted to all the other orchestras, the youth orchestras, the university orchestras, regional orchestras, that have played my music,” Sung said. “I owe a debt of gratitude to all my colleagues and musicians because you can’t start with major orchestras. You build and have those years of support and it has finally come to fruition.

“This is one of my favorite pieces. Even if it doesn’t get played by another orchestra, I’ll be really happy with how everything turned out.”

The employees received the Prudential Productivity Awards at a luncheon Thursday organized by Florida TaxWatch, a nonpartisan and nonprofit government watchdog.

The teams were the creators of the Universal Design Online Content Inspection Tool, a program that suggests changes to online classes to make them accessible for students with disabilities; two designers who developed a course for faculty on how to create, manage and teach online classes; and two employees who made Quiz Extensions, a computer program that helps professors efficiently provide qualified disabled students extended time on their quizzes and tests

The awards went to:

UCF’s Center for Distributed Learning, which assists faculty teaching online classes, and its UDOIT group worked with professors who suggested changes to improve online classes for students with disabilities. UDOIT’s program has saved faculty hours of work.

Previously “I would spend two, three, maybe more hours evaluating one course,” Tinsley-Kim said. “Now, I can go start to finish within an hour.”

“It was not keeping in contact with graduates of the course and providing them with current information,” Bastedo said.

About 3 percent of UCF’s 64,000 students qualify for extra time under the American with Disabilities Act.

“Saving the faculty time on administrative tasks allows them to engage more with students and work on the teaching and learning process rather than worrying about logistics,” Raible said.